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The Fair of the Vanities |
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As of this year, Italy’s leading perfumery and cosmetics fair has added an exhibition area reserved for niche products, showcasing the great classics who have succeeded in maintaining continuity, coherence and uniqueness. |
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The dictionaries tell us that the noun “niche” means a hollow carved out of a wall to house a statue or a vase and, by extension, a comfortable, quiet place. These days, the word is often used to describe types of products or cultural offerings that are intended for a specific, selected set of consumers. Perfumery has its own niche, though it is not nearly so easy to define its confines. This is a task that has been taken in hand in recent years by a meeting between the experts that is held in the Corsini Gardens in Florence in September every year, under the umbrella of Pitti Immagine. Far from the madding crowd that has always been the hallmark of Cosmoprof, the world’s leading perfumery trade fair held in Bologna every April, the Fragranze meeting in Florence has now become a must-attend event for distributors and shopkeepers who specialise in what is now known as artistic perfumery. This is where the brands and products unknown to the masses but offered by enthusiastic retailers, who know how to talk about their unusual features and tell their stories, can all be found together. But what brands are we actually talking about and what really distinguishes them from the masses of prestigious names we can find in most big perfume shops?
A niche product must have three basic characteristics: continuity, coherence and uniqueness. What that boils down to is that it must be made to last, keep faith with a concept or an image, without copycatting fashions and trends, and have a personality of its own that makes it stand out, immediately recognisable, amid a thousand others. For a variety of reasons, we then have to add the fact that these products are made and marketed on an intentionally or necessarily limited basis. A niche perfume brand is considered successful when, having achieved an acceptable degree of distribution and fame, it has the opportunity to double the number of its approved retailers in a short time, but refuses to be charmed by the sirens of an opportunity that would risk betraying its essential nature.
The shops that deal in and carry these products are a minimal proportion of Italy’s perfumeries, probably no more than 4% in all; while the ones that deal in nothing but niche products number no more than 20 in the whole country. So this is really a microcosm, though one that is beginning to attract many appetites and plenty of curious attention. Cosmoprof itself, for example, has finally grasped the fact that this is, and will remain, a world unto itself, quite distinct from conventional perfumery, so it has acted to provide this sector and its brands with a guarantee of international visibility, setting aside a specific exhibition area (with severely limited access) called Masterpieces. Obviously, if you want to earn yourself a place on this miniature Mount Olympus, you must have qualities that are decidedly out of the ordinary. The one thing that is generally most striking is the fact that nearly all the sector’s bestsellers are at least old enough to vote and many have passed middle age, though they are still splendid in their fifties, with a charm and a class that makes it easy for them to keep pace with exuberant young creations that often lack those nuances that make all the difference. The better-known brands use packaging based on simple, uncomplicated shapes and uncluttered elegance. No-one is interested in using their containers to amaze their customers, as they know that they win hands down every time with their contents, with the creative and artistic value of unique fragrances.
To give an idea of what this refined little world is all about, let’s consider those brands that are the most rigorous on show, i.e. the ones with the longest histories to their credit: established before 1800, they are still active now and sometimes even still belong to their founders’ families. This is the case of Floris, Creed and D.R.Harris, the first established in England in 1730, the second in 1760 and the third in 1790 and all three firmly in the hands of their founders’ descendants. The nineteenth century brought us Penhaligon’s, the Crown Perfumery (now Clive Christian), Truefitt&Hill and Taylor of Old Bond Street. These names are the testimonials of British perfumery and toiletry over the centuries, living proof that some brands have survived the ravages of fashions and trends unscathed, always knowing how to create and innovate, without every betraying their image or their prestige.
The nineteenth century also brought us names like D’Orsay, Knize, Acqua di Biella and Kiehl’s. In nearly all the cases named, the perfumery was not established as a stand-alone or main activity, but as the natural complement to other activities, such as barbering, tailoring, a pharmacy or the textiles industry. Obviously, this was also the period that saw the debut of the production and purification industry that was to focus around Grasse, in Provence – featuring many important names that are no more and others that still survive with pride exhibiting their brands (such as Molinard, Galimard and Fragonard) – that was to herald the heyday of French perfumery. Many new brands then came along in the twentieth century, drawing their inspiration from a glorious past or owing their origins to the lively creativity of women’s fashions. These include Annick Goutal, Robert Piguet, Carthusia, Acqua di Genova, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier, Czech & Speake and Etro. There are other intriguing stories of creativity and enthusiasm waiting to be told behind the names Diptyque, La Base, Miller Harris, The Different Company, Profumi di Pantelleria and Comptoir Sud Pacifique. To be sure, many other brands that have been bywords of luxury and elegance for decades also deserve to be mentioned, for the important role they played in the originality and creativity of certain unforgettable perfumes, but they now pay the price, as it were, of having bowed down to the constraints of conventional distribution, a fact that makes them that little bit less attractive to those who seek exclusiveness. This involuntary form of ostracism at least partly exonerates the legendary brand of Hermès, which recently decided to create the Hermessence collection of perfumes reserved strictly to its own few dozen boutiques all over the world.
The spotlights at Masterpieces also shine on a substantial number of Italian brands. While continuity is represented by the Santa Maria Novella perfumery and pharmaceuticals workshop, a leading name in the various products that draw their inspiration from the venerable traditions of monastery preparations, though regrettably absent from this first edition, the noses Lorenzo Villoresi and Laura Tonatto share a common goal, though they have different opinions and experiences: to lay claim on behalf of creative Italian perfumery to the restoration of the prestigious position it deserves, strengthened by the already more than favourable results achieved abroad. Their fellow travellers in this venture are E. Marinella, Il Profumo, Panama 1924-Boellis, Caraceni and Gianni Campagna, as well as some of the names already mentioned before: Acqua di Biella, Acqua di Genova, Carthusia, Etro and Profumi di Pantelleria. |
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Gentleman n° 50 - 18 April 2005 |
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