Designer fragrance brands are nothing new. Case in point: Prada, Dior, Marc Jacobs, Margiela, and Chanel all have dozens of options, and have been available to shop for years. In fact you can barely make it through your local Sephora or Nordstrom without accidentally hitting a fashion house's perfume display with your snakeskin tote bag. But when I caught wind that a storied brand was launching a new 10-piece fragrance collection more than 75 years after its first ever perfume? And, more importantly, that brand archivists spent 15 years trying to track down a bottle of the original juice to kick start the next generation of scents? Well, as a student of beauty history, I was intrigued.
Today, September 10, the Balenciaga Fragrance Collection has finally arrived, and I'm extremely pleased to say that it more than lives up to the radical elegance of the Spanish founder and couturier, Cristóbal Balenciaga. Per the brand's press release to media, "the collection transcends eras—through fusion and tension that move beyond traditional olfactive perfumery. [It] pays tribute to the House’s patrimony and to time’s power to transform, renew, and imbue meaning."
