Note for Note: A Fragrance Affair will be held this Saturday, May 3rd, at Bloomingdales department stores:
Get gorgeous scents for men and women at your nearest Bloomingdale's. Come find a signature scent for yourself and the perfect perfume for Mother's Day. Free samples, giveaways and expert fragrance consultants make this the olfactory event of the season.
(via bloomingdales)
Comme des Garçons is a fashion house with a serious determination to be different. In an area of London where designer shops proclaim their names as noticeably as possible — Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Yves Saint Laurent, Hermès and countless others — Comme des Garçons hides their status in a rather utilitarian-looking shop with no mention of their name at all. You could walk past Dover Street Market and assume it’s a charity shop (which is what thrift stores are called in the UK).
Inside, the utilitarian feel prevails, with rough wooden floorboards and a general feel that the goods have been hastily unpacked from a cardboard box…
In a brightly lit corner of Bergdorf Goodman’s beauty level, an in-house Guerlain boutique showcases the legendary Parisian company’s luxe skincare, its richly colored cosmetics in gleaming golden cases, but above all, its fragrance line. Or perhaps we should say fragrance lines, plural, since the offerings fall into several distinct groups.
In one area of the boutique’s display, the complete L’Art et La Matière series stands in a row; in another, the new Aqua Allegoria scents wait to be tried. Reintroduced fragrances from Guerlain’s archives, including Véga, Sous Le Vent, and Le Mouchoir de Monsieur, rub shoulders with the Parfum versions of classics that never went away, such as L’Heure Bleue, Vol de Nuit, and Nahéma…
Long gone are the days when L’Artisan Parfumeur was a true niche brand. Nowadays, many department stores stock at least a couple of L’Artisan fragrances, and they’re even available on Amazon.
What you don’t often get to see, though, is the rest of the range — the candles, the scented ‘curiosities’, the home fragrances. For these, you usually need to find a proper L’Artisan boutique.
There are three of these in London, and the flagship store is in Marylebone High Street — slightly off the beaten track in perfume terms, but worth seeking out if you’re interested in more than the fragrances, or if you’re keen to sniff the Limited Editions…
If you stand at the southeast corner of Central Park, in the landmark Grand Army Plaza, you’ll see the Pulitzer Fountain set against a semi-circle of pear trees. The fountain’s sculpted centerpiece is Pomona, the goddess of abundance; serenely oblivious to the passing tourists and traffic, she rests an overflowing basket of fruit against her hip. Similar bounty awaits the fragrance-lover just beyond this graceful figure, through the doors of Bergdorf Goodman.
Bergdorf’s fragrances and cosmetics are located on the store’s lower level, one floor down from street level. The layout of the beauty level is slightly confusing, so it’s easiest and best to start in the “fragrance room” located near the center of the floor (see image below). There, you can sample numerous fragrance lines with the assistance of well-informed sales staff. Some of these lines are difficult to find elsewhere in their complete range…