Actress Naomi Watts is the new face of Thierry Mugler Angel:
Naomi Watts was the inspired choice for Thierry Mugler, over and above her beauty and her star image. Displaying a modern touch, the actress projects a personality that blends sensuality, voluptuousness and evanescence to evoke the many facets of Angel. A blond fragility, a natural tenderness, an emotional seductiveness…
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…
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…
Roja Dove’s temple of scent is part of something called the ‘Urban Retreat’. The word ‘retreat’ is significant here, as the place is tucked away on the top floor of Harrods, and something of a challenge to find.
The trick is to choose the right set of escalators. Ignore the fancy Egyptian escalators in the heart of the building, and instead look for the smaller white-walled space between the Cosmetics Hall and Hans Crescent. Ride this all the way to the fifth floor, and you’ll find yourself just outside the Urban Retreat (lots of niche skincare brands). Go in, and there’s a doorway ahead of you on the right, which takes you into the Haute Parfumerie.
If you’ve ended up on the Egyptian escalators, you’ll arrive on the fifth floor amid lots of sporting goods. The signs will direct you to the right for the Urban Retreat. Ignore them, and head left instead, through the bistro bar. This will deposit you right outside the Haute Parfumerie…
Just after Christmas each year, an elegant commercial is shown on UK TV, which goes ‘There is only one sale. There is only one Harrods.’.
Well, if you had limited perfume-sniffin’ time in London, there is only one store to choose…and that’s Harrods.
I sometimes think of it as ‘Horrids’, not because it’s an unpleasant place — it isn’t by any means — but because it’s just so HUGE and so busy. There are four and a half large halls on the ground floor devoted to perfume and cosmetics…