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With the floral White Diamonds competing against Estee Lauder's spicy SpellBound and Calvin Klein's fruity Escape, there will be no escaping the coming onslaught on the American nose. More than 70 million fragrance strips have been bound into magazines, and in department stores spray-happy models are out in force. This month's Elle arrived for 14,000 upscale subscribers looking like a bulbous videocassette -- which in fact it was. Lauder had pouched its TV promo for SpellBound in a sort of marsupial setup...
This marketing mania is based on necessity. Department stores have traditionally been the point of sale for high-quality perfumes, but, as Lauder CEO Robin Burns observes, "the stores are in turmoil. You don't see so many consumers with shopping bags." Like many luxury goods, cosmetics have faltered in this recession. The aggressive, gotta-have-it-all mind-set of the 1980s has evaporated...
Swept out of favor is the sexy image of '80s best sellers like Yves Saint Laurent's Opium and Klein's Obsession. The cry now is for romance. Lauder's ads for SpellBound simply show two people looking into each other's eyes. In a Vogue interview, Klein rhapsodized about days with his wife Kelly that have no edge and precious few events...
...modernity to women, and it is still immediately identifiable. Now companies look for a mixture of old-fashioned quality and contemporary flair. Klein's pristine tube for Escape began in his mind as an appurtenance in an English travel case. Arden headed down to the rhinestone mines. For SpellBound, Lauder added a detachable atomizer, achieving a sort of nostalgic novelty. "Success is like a one-armed bandit," observes Pierre Dinand, a French designer who has created more than 300 perfume bottles, including those for SpellBound and Escape. "To succeed, you need to have a row of cherries. If you have...
...sure there will be imitators," says Ronald Galotti, publisher of Vanity Fair. "But we probably won't do it again." Fashion magazines, however, have been hard hit by the recession, and are likely to be inspired. Elle slapped a videotape, a scented card and an order form for Estee Lauder's SpellBound perfume onto 14,000 copies of its September issue in 10 cities. "It's terrific. The excitement factor works," says Elle's publisher, Lawrence Burstein, who says he's working on similar ideas for the future...