Madame Carven Dies

Posted by Robin on 9 June 2015 Leave a Comment

Carmen de Tommaso, better known as Madame Carven, died yesterday at the age of 105. You can find tributes at The Telegraph, Le Figaro (in French), and Hollywood Reporter. From Women's Wear Daily:

In 1954, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris, she dropped samples of her fragrance Ma Griffe tied to small green-and-white striped parachutes over the French capital. Carven went on to launch several perfumes, including Eau Vive and Vétiver, the latter inspired by her husband Philippe Mallet.

Estee Lauder Knowing ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 8 June 2015 56 Comments

Elizabeth Hurley and Paulina Porizkova for Estée Lauder Knowing

According to the Estée Lauder website, “When on a holiday trip in the south of France, Evelyn Lauder was intrigued with a floral scent that wafted through the garden below her balcony. She searched for the source and found that it was the pittosporum flower, which she immediately knew could be the floral center of a wonderful fragrance.” That fragrance was Estée Lauder Knowing.

Perfume enthusiasts recognize Knowing as one of the few department store fragrances that earned five stars in Perfumes: The Guide. And it’s not the perfume’s pittosporum (one family of pittosporum is romantically named “cheesewood,” by the way) that draws admiration, it’s Knowing’s elegant and complex treatment of rose and moss…

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Knowing is all

Posted by Robin on 8 June 2015 6 Comments

Paulina Porizkova for Estee Lauder Knowing, late 1980s. For an interesting analysis of Lauder's efforts to stay young and relevant as a beauty brand in that era, see A New Model: Rethinking Estee Lauder at the New York Times.