Marni Rose is the first flanker to Marni, the brand’s debut fragrance. It was announced as a “more intense” scent geared towards the Asian market. Now, a more intense scent geared towards the Asian market is a rare bird indeed, insofar as nearly everything geared towards the Asian market is made as light and inoffensive and clean as possible, but the claims turn out to be reasonably true. The original Marni, of course, was not exactly a powerhouse, so we are talking degrees of intense here.
Still, Marni was one of my favorite fragrance releases of 2013, and Marni Rose now joins the “best of” list as one of my favorite flankers of the year.1 It does exactly what a flanker ought to do: explores facets of the original fragrance whilst still being similar enough to justify keeping the name and the packaging (they’ve tinted the bottle in shades of pink, and switched the red cap for a black one). You could very reasonably want to own both, and you could just as easily find that you liked Marni Rose even if you didn’t quite love Marni…
