sorbet
06.12.04, 12:13
WWD Friday December 3, 2004
Zdjęcie:
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Hermes Adds a Blossom to Its Garden
PARIS — Hermes' olfactive garden keeps on growing.
The venerable French leather goods, apparel and fragrance house will
introduce Un Jardin Sur Le Nil (A Garden on the Nile, in English), a unisex
scent, next spring.
The fragrance is the second installment of the Garden-Perfumes collection
first introduced in 2003, with the launch of Un Jardin en Mediterranée (A
Garden on the Mediterranean). The series is part of Hermes’ strategy to offer
a panoply of scents and falls image-wise between the superselective
Hermessence collection, which is sold only in the brand’s stores, and Hermes’
more widely distributed fragrances, including Eau des Merveilles.
“We’re not always addressing the same people in the same way,” explained
Veronique Gautier, chief executive officer of the house’s fragrance
division. “When you walk through an Hermes store, there will always be
something you just have to have.”
Of course, the fragrances are also about business. While Hermes executives
refused to divulge projections for Un Jardin Sur Le Nil, industry sources
estimate the scent could generate $12 million at retail in its first year.
To create Un Jardin Sur Le Nil, Gautier whisked a team — including Hermes in-
house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, herself and photographer Quentin Bertoux —
to Egypt.
Ellena recalled he had no brief for the fragrance, but rather was encouraged
to use Egypt as his source of inspiration. “I lost all of my points of
reference,” he said, adding the first few days of the trip were
disconcerting. “The ideas I had in my head [about Egypt] and reality didn’t
match.”
Finally, Ellena found what he calls “the spine” of the fragrance while
strolling through a mango tree grove in an island garden. The shade of the
trees and their proximity to the Nile meant the air was cool, and it inspired
a fresh scent. The green mangos’ acidic aroma also tickled his fancy. So the
result was a fruity, green, woody juice with notes of green mango, lotus
flower, aromatic rushes, incense and sycamore wood.
“If Un Jardin en Mediterranée is ice cream, Un Jardin Sur Le Nil is sorbet,”
said Ellena, adding that, in a whirlwind, he wrote the juice’s formula on his
flight back to France.
In Egypt on the photo front, Bertoux snapped pictures for a book,
called “Encounter Along the Nile,” which will be sold with a limited-edition
gift set containing the fragrance and incense sticks. Together, they are to
retail for 110 euros, or $146.50 at current exchange.
“There was major alchemy [between Ellena and Bertoux],” said Gautier, noting
the perfumer penned the text accompanying the photographer’s shots.
The Un Jardin Sur Le Nil eau de toilette will be available as 50- and 100-ml.
sprays that will sell for 55 euros, or $73 at current exchange, and 76 euros,
or $101, respectively. Its heavy glass bottle created in-house is tinted
green and yellow, meant to recall Egypt’s contrasting vegetation and desert.
The scent is packaged in a white-and-green box decorated with a floral design
inspired by an Hermes tableware collection. A 200-ml. body milk also will be
available for 37 euros, or $49.
The fragrance will bow in Hermes stores in February 2005 and will be
introduced in the brand’s full distribution worldwide in March 2005.
— Brid Costello