Sensual History of Scent: Part Four | Scentrifugal Events

Fragrance becomes mainstream in the second half of the 20th century

The Sexual Revolution & American Perfumery Take Off

Estee Lauder ignited demand in the United States when she launched Youth Dew in 1953, competing with the French companies that had become synonymous with fine fragrance. Youth Dew was actually a bath oil, not an alcohol-based perfume, so it had an exceptionally high level of essential oil fragrance solution in it and was very long-lasting with notes of clove, frankincense, patchouli, vetiver and musk. Actresses like Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, and Delores Del Rio, and the Duchess of Windsor all were mad for the striking Oriental fragrance and the world began to look at American perfumery in a new light.

Social upheaval marked the 1960’s and 1970’s – the sexual revolution, civil rights, and the women’s movement. Fragrance reflected these changes with bold new scents laden with musk and patchouli. Rock and folk music gave expression to rebellion, and the centers of fashion and anti-fashion were wherever youth congregated – Berkeley, Haight-Ashbury, New York, Liverpool, and London. Sensuality and sexual experimentation was encouraged, and people took risks with their clothing, cosmetics and fragrance in the desire to show individuality and creativity.

France observed as the United States began to mature as a center of luxury goods and produced their own sophisticated products. American fragrance companies were making perfumes that were getting noticed, and they were selling. They could actually compete in the fragrance marketplace and they were respected for their efforts. The 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s were a flurry of American fragrance production. Companies like Estee Lauder, Avon, Revlon, and Elizabeth Arden became household names, brands that everyone had heard of – whether they lived in New York City or Sioux City, Iowa. To this day, Revlon’s Charlie is still one of the most familiar fragrances to many people, due in part to the catchy tune and model Shelley Hack’s confident ‘I am Woman’ swagger in the famous TV commercial, but also because *everybody* wore it.

Designer fragrances began to surface in America, and this was a real turning point in the fragrance industry. American fashion designers Norman Norell, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Geoffrey Beene, Halston and Diane Von Furstenberg all had fragrances that represented their elegant brands, and they were later followed by Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Perry Ellis and Tommy Hilfiger, who represented the younger guard. This gave a whole new personality to fragrance, a reference point that connected it to taste, style and glamour, and contributed to the start of America’s deep and enduring love affair with celebrity fragrances.

Lifestyles of the Sexy, Rich and Famous

Giorgio Beverly Hills was one of the best-selling fragrances of the 80’s, and most people had never been to the store on Rodeo Drive or even knew it existed! Such is the power of advertising and the yearning to be part of a shiny and rarefied and privileged world. The American Dream is firmly built on this premise – to keep acquiring more toys and accoutrements that will show how successful, desirable, chic and sexy we are. We may not actually live in Beverly Hills, but we can smell like we do!

No one is better than Ralph Lauren at imaging, branding, and making us crave an existence we haven’t got. With one beautifully photographed ad in a magazine, he can make us aspire to live the lifestyle of a woman on safari or sailing off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Suddenly you find yourself collecting Navajo silver and turquoise jewelry or wearing jodhpurs and riding boots (even though you’ve never been on a horse). So it was only natural that Lauren delved into fragrance to complete the fantasy of the fairytale life, and you could have a piece of that fairytale with just one spritz. He has been persistent in his belief in designing a complete wardrobe, and he continues to include fragrance as part of the total look.

Lauren’s Safari was a true depiction of the lifestyle portrayed in the ads. A rich, heady and creamy floral scent contained in a cut-crystal decanter with a tortoise-shell top – pure luxury for the masses. His pristine Lauren, in the weighty, square ruby-glass bottle, perfectly suited the young patrician blond models in crisp blouses he featured, and is often noted as the first real perfume for many young girls. Polo and Polo Sport added sparkle to the locker room, and spawned a whole new category of scent – sport fragrances. Now we could play hard at sports, sweat, and still smell good. And this association with sports made it okay for teenagers and young men to wear scent. The makers of Axe owe a huge debt to Ralph Lauren!

The bombastic, greedy ‘80’s - with big finance, big hair, big jewelry, big fashion (remember shoulder pads, power ties and MC Hammer pants?), and big, pop-infused dance music – inspired a slew of courageous new fragrances that reflected the excess of money, glitz, sex and intrigue of the times. YSL’s Opium and Dior’s Poison replaced the favored soft florals, fresh citrus and clean musks of previous decades with full-bodied Oriental, spicy and gourmande essences that announced your entrance into a room well before you ever crossed the threshold.

The first celebrity fragrance is heralded as Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds, which still continues to be a best-seller several decades after it elegantly sashayed onto the scene. The powdery floral perfectly captured the impossibly glamorous, dripping-with-jewels facade and lush sensuality of Ms.Taylor, and she impressively shot many commercials and print campaigns and made personal appearances to support her scent.

The American public has a never-ending thirst for the trappings of celebrity, hoping that a little of that golden lifestyle will rub off if the star’s special elixir is dabbed behind the ears or misted in the cleavage. Everyone from Catherine Deneuve to Madonna to Michael Jordan to Sarah Jessica Parker to Lady Gaga to Sophia Loren to Justin Bieber to Cher to Alan Cumming to Adam Levine to Gwen Stefani has ventured into the olfactive marketplace, with some being more successful than others. But this is a trend that will never go away, because as long as we can dream of fame and fortune and being universally loved, we’ll grab the feeling any way we can.

Sensual Spirituality and Minimalist Chic

As America flexed into the 90’s, fashion became more streamlined and simplistic, and spirituality was on the brink of surfacing. There was a return-to-core values and back-to-basics trend, and we needed scents to match. Fragrances with names like Realities, Delicious and Pleasures reflected this softer, subtler attitude and the notes were fresh, light, fruity and herbal.

Calvin Klein stunned the world with Obsession, a fragrance redolent of soft vanilla and amber, and housed in a sleek caramel-colored orb created by the legendary bottle designer Pierre Dinand. Klein’s powerful advertising campaigns showed the world that he was a consummate artist who is fanatical about details, and the sexually graphic imagery suggested that he liked to shock his customer. While Ralph Lauren offered a lifestyle that we wanted to emulate, Calvin Klein offered one that we wanted to peek at - and then we were very happy to run in the other direction back to the safe haven of our respectable homes. And this all confirms what a great marketer Klein was; whether we approved of his morals or not, he got us to notice and everyone was talking about his ads. Which translates into perfume sales!

Unisex scents established harmony and unity between the sexes, and Calvin Klein’s clean citrus CK One is a prime example of success in this arena. Calvin Klein’s perfume empire continued to flourish with the dreamy-named Escape, Eternity, Truth, Euphoria and the recent Beauty.

Names that creatively described the feeling and the spirit of the essence contained in the bottle were important as the 20th century came to a finish, and one of the most famous is Angel by Thierry Mugler. The pale blue star-shaped flacon created a striking visualization of the otherworldly, ethereal juice contained within. Characterized by notes of chocolate, pineapple and patchouli, this was a combination that no one had ever smelled before blended in a perfume and it was easy to imagine that the sweet mixture was the scent of heaven and the angels who lived there.

Donna Karan had a zen moment with the creation of Chaos, a visionary scent that was way ahead of its time. It’s important because it showed a mainstream department store brand taking a risk in marketing a scent with unusual notes that dared to be innovative and different from what every other company was producing. Introduced too early for the average consumer, it wasn’t appreciated properly and had to wait for over ten years until the public could catch up to the sultry blend of incense, labdanum and woods which we find in so many fragrances today. Donna Karan smelled the future!

On To The 21st Century

Our ability to smell is the most emotional of all our senses, and fragrance is a powerful visionary tool. With one whiff it can conjure up vivid memories from the tapestry of your life. It can transport you to places you’ve visited and cherished… or let you imagine colorful landscapes that exist only in your mind. Inhaling a scent can remind you of special person you’ve encountered, or coax you to dream of the one you’ve yet to meet.

Studying past rituals shows us that throughout history women have used fragrance to adorn, seduce, surmount challenges, obtain power, and orchestrate their lives. Scent has become an important part of the stories of women since the beginning of time and it has shaped their destinies. And the future of perfume continues to evolve!

Nowadays, not only can you purchase other people’s scent creations, including those that celebrities have created or endorsed, but you can create-your-own personal one-of-a-kind scent. Scentrifugal Events has its Making Scents Live! fragrance blending events, and YOU can be the star of your own custom-made perfume or cologne. It brings these experiences to almost any type of special event or meeting; including top-tier casino player events, team building, meetings, conferences, conventions, fundraisers, bridal events, and anywhere you want to have a scentsational time!

©Scentrifugal Events. All Rights Reserved.

©Scentrifugal Events.

All Rights Reserved.