In an industry famed for its creativity, the olfactory vision of the fragrance market has been somewhat clouded of late. Manufacturers have tended to take a belt and braces attitude to riding out the recession, limiting launch activity and meeting the cautious consumer approach to the downturn with a play it safe attitude.
— From Fragrance – safety in numbers at Cosmetics Business. Topics include flankers, celebrity fragrance, fragrance collections and bottle sizes.
Limiting launch activity?? Heaven help us when the recession is over…
I think what they mean is limiting new pillar fragrance launches…clearly, we’re still getting plenty of new fragrances, but I think the mainstream brands are doing fewer pillar scents.
Yeah… interesting take on it.
Seems like there’ve been many releases even from mainstream houses, but maybe I’m unclear what a pillar scent is. I’d assumed Bleu de Chanel, Acqua di Gioia, CK Beauty, DKNY Pure, Bang, Lady Million, and Versace Vanitas would have qualified… but yeah, maybe launches are at an all time low! 😉
Yes, those are all pillar scents. I think one of the things the article doesn’t really address is that the massive # of launches was so recent anyway — 6 years ago, there were fewer than half, if I’m remembering my numbers correctly. Also VERY hard to get reliable figures on the number of launches anyway!!
‘limiting launch activity ‘, I have to draw an analogy to the musical artist Prince. When he released one album every 12 months the works seemed cohesive and well thought out. Lately he’s been releasing tracks every 2-3 months and they have all seemed like demos masquerading as music. I haven’t purchased a Prince album in 11 years, though I’ve heard them all. (Time flies!)
Perfumery should focus on quality not quantity, Prince too.
I will now descent from my high horse;)
Coromandel is my perfume of the day and it is an excellent patchouli cocoa benzoin concoction.
DESCEND. High horse indeed 😉
Really hard to say if emphasizing quality over quantity works in lower-end mainstream fragrance. I wouldn’t even pretend to know. The fact that it “works” with the Chanel Exclusifs, though, does not seem to me to be transferable, necessarily.
Or another way to put it: if CK had released Coromandel at Macy’s, hard to say if it would sell, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t.
Looks like business in Brazil is booming!
It’s booming there and in Asia. Here, not so much!
Maybe the launches are limited in creativity not quantity.
A celebrity-niche collaberation would be interesting! But I’m glad ELO is going the sex pistols way rather than the Justin Bieber route!
This was fascinating on so many levels. Had no idea the UK fragrance mkt was so much smaller than France and Germany, although our populations are not too dissimilar. The being a quarter of the US stacks up with relative population sizes, but the French and Germans are clearly into their perfume more than us. It is the Germans who surprise me more!