A statuesque blonde draped in bias-cut, ivory silk charmeuse is a classic image of glamour. She drinks champagne, has breakfast in bed on a tray, takes bubble baths, and breaks hearts. A puff of maribou trims the toe of each of her slippers. Now that this image is firmly in mind, let’s tweak it. Give our blonde a few years in a Swiss finishing school, a lusty appetite for lobster at midnight, and a laugh a little too loud for her patrician mother, and you have Guerlain Vega. Substitute wine coolers for the champagne, a facility for Pig Latin rather than French, and an addiction to patent leather heels from Payless, and you have Etat Libre d’Orange Vraie Blonde. They’re sisters from opposite sides of the tracks.
Jacques Guerlain created Vega, a blowsy floral aldehyde, in 1936…
