I started out chuckling at La Petite Robe Noire’s macarons Ladurée aesthetics, and griping about the fact that one luxury behemoth, LVMH, had snatched a concept that clearly belonged to another, Chanel: surely the Little Black Dress’s address was 31 rue Cambon rather than 68 avenue des Champs-Élysées.
But as the participants in my London College of Fashion “Understanding
Fragrance” courses blind-smelled La Petite Robe Noire for an
exercise on accords, and systematically broke into blissful grins, I reconsidered. If I could praise Patricia de Nicolaï’s sugared almond and jasmine
accords in Kiss Me Tender or Serge Lutens’s licorice, black cherry and mulled plum Boxeuses, wasn't there a hint of snobbery in
not admitting that as far as chic gourmands went, La Petite Robe Noire was top of the
basket?
In fact, I’ve always wondered why La Petite Robe Noire was launched on
such a restricted scale: the scent conceived by Guerlain’s olfactory
development director Sylvaine Delacourte was well within the new house codes,
on a par with L’Instant (which Maurice Roucel explicitly acknowledges she
co-authored).
Now Guerlain has seen the point, and is launching La Petite Robe Noire,
tweaked by Thierry Wasser and putting forward the Guerlinade,
as a mainstream product. Quite cleverly, the brand has chosen not to call on a
famous face to front it – a cheaper option and one better suited to a “dress”
meant to suit every woman. The campaign is authored by Kuntzel & Deygas,
the chic duo who designed Spielberg’s Catch
me if you can opening title sequence.
La Petite Robe Noire will be
presented as of March 3 in Guerlain’s pop-up store on the Champs-Élysées. I
haven’t smelled it yet but will report back with a review.
L'actu 
Articles
I'm one of those who actually always appreciated the fun of LPRN, and hope M. Wasser didn't do too much toning down of the original, but more Guerlinade, for sure, must be a good thing. I can't wait to hear what your take is.
RépondreSupprimerAsali, I remember illustrating the original post with a still from Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette, and there is something a bit rococo in that fragrance... I'll be curious to discover how it's been tweaked too.
RépondreSupprimerThat's great news! :)
RépondreSupprimerI smelled it in December for the first time in Paris and fell instantly in love.
It's THE perfume for a girls night out if you ask me (I should probably copyright this statement when this perfume is considered). ;)
Ines, I think you *should*. A girl's night out, or a pow-wow in a pastry shop eating different flavoured macarons while sipping smoky tea... Girly, definitely.
RépondreSupprimerLong after that day we sniffed this together, I went back to it and realized that there was indeed something fun and, dare I say it, chic, about that cherry Kool-Aid confection. I ended up getting myself a decant of it that I pull out on occasion when I want to be a little silly.
RépondreSupprimerJarvis, well there you go! Interesting how our views shift on things... I was thinking it's a bit like the big film awards. They're seldom given to comedies. LPRN is rom-com, so we tend to turn up our noses at it. I'll be curious to find out in which was it's been tweaked. I hope the larger production won't affect the quality in ingredients.
RépondreSupprimerGreat! Now if only they would bring back Plus Que Jamais and do the same thing with it...
RépondreSupprimerDenyse, just want to note how fab it is to have more frequent posts again now that the final crunch on the book is done! (And can't wait for it to arrive!) ~~nozknoz
RépondreSupprimerAlyssa, Plus que Jamais probably has much less of a chance of making it to the mainstream because of its very classic character. I'd slate something like Mon Précieux Nectar (which was only sold in uber-expensive crystal bottles) as a the next likely candidate for wider availability because it's also a gourmand.
RépondreSupprimerNozknoz, thanks, that's very sweet of you. Actually, I'm still in a crunch translating the book into French and wondering what tweaks I'll make! Very strange experience, that...
RépondreSupprimer