One of the first perfumes to be advertised with newly developed scent-strips placed in national magazines, it exported the smell of Beverly Hills nationwide and became an immediate sensation. It remains a popular brand.
— Fred Hayman, the man behind the 1980s power fragrance Giorgio Beverly Hills, has passed away at the age of 90. Read his obituary at the New York Times.
RIP.
I rencently rediscovered Giorgio on the back of my closet due to some NST Friday communiry project, and have been getting quite a kick ou of it. Warm, not as headache inducing as I feared and, yes, nuclear. Talk about a BWF! Perfect for work meetings, since it provides the wearer three layers of confidence plus one layer of crazyness, for good measure.
Gosh, was it a BWF? I have this firm memory of it being loud, but don’t really remember what it smelled like. This is from today’s WWD:
“The Haymans separated in 1978, but they continued to work together for years. Their store had expanded and they began thinking about a fragrance. Gale sniffed samples for two years, until one evening, when she was trying to take home a bottle of an entrant from Florasynth, it broke. The scent it exuded created such a reaction that it became clear that this was what they’d been looking for. Giorgio, the fragrance, was launched in 1981, first in the boutique, and later in Bloomingdale’s. In 1985, Giorgio the fragrance had sales of $100 million at wholesale.”
I think all of us who were around then remember those scent strips! Sandra Bernhard use to say she hated them because every time you opened up a magazine, it was like some rich, obnoxious woman just walked into the room.
LOL!
This sure brings back a lot of memories. In the 80’s I had just St graduated from college and was starting to like men’s fragrances. I had Polo, Grey Flannel, Channel Pour Homne. My favorite was Tailoring for Men by Clinuque which seemed more appropriate for the business world.
I was working with a guy who was a very successful mortgage broker and he was dating a woman that worked in wholesale sales for Giorgio the fragrance. One day we went sailing out of the Newport Beach marina down to near Laguna Beach and dropped anchor near the shoreline. Some of us went swimming off the back of the boat.
Fragrances were more distinctive then and much much re a reflection of the designer as opposed to a corporation. I also liked Eau Sauvage and the original Armani for men.