Trend Book

Nude tones for women, and an overdose of black for men are the trends of the moment. As well as a good dose of optimism and fantasy.

Nude & Powdery

Pale beige, skin tones, cream, powder pink and more: after make-up, nude tones are coming to perfume. Several designers have adopted this key color trend for their bottles or their ads.
For their first fragrances, Bottega Veneta and Elie Saab, for instance, respectively went with a somewhat leathery chypre scent and a white-floral bouquet. For women who love nude tones, Valentino has adorned the bottle for Valentina – a floriental with a white truffle note – with a floral brooch in a trio of neutral nude shades. For Givenchy’s powdery-chypry Dahlia Noir and Nina Ricci’s L’Air, the shade takes on pinkish accents.
A chic blend of couture sophistication and vintage softness emanates from each of these new scents.

Ultra-black

Black is back for men, after an absence of several years. It’s all over bottles, for everything from fresh scents to fuller-bodied ones. What’s new is that designers are pushing the envelope all the way to absolutely opaque black bottles, unlike what they were doing until recently.
This ultra-black trend carries a message of strength and self-confidence, and will suit young city-dwellers looking for trendy, sexy scents perfectly. Hugo Just Different, a woody, fresh and fruity scent, and Armani Code Sport, a sparkling spicy-citrus scent, are both riding that wave. But more powerful woody-orientals – like Gaultier’s Kokorico, Calvin Klein’s ck one shock for him, and Azzaro’s Decibel, with cocoa, tobacco and aldehyde facets respectively – have chosen that color code, too. Montblanc’s neo-classical fougère, Legend, also comes in opaque black.
The intense black trend is still relatively rare for women. But Cacharel did choose it for Amor Amor Forbidden Kiss, a coffee-inflected gourmand scent, redolent of the temptation of forbidden fruit.

Overdose of Optimism

While economists may say that the crisis isn’t over yet, designers beg to differ! Fragrance houses are projecting a massive message of optimism in their latest launches. Yves Rocher, for instance, christened their latest perfume Moment de Bonheur (“Moment of Happiness”). The gentle, cheerful scent reveals a rose with green and woody facets. The late-50s, early- 60s, French New Wave cinema-inspired ad for Nina Ricci’s L’Air highlights the sense of care-free happiness with charmingly retro music. True to its name, the more modern and colorful ad for Kenzo Madly focuses on being madly happy.

Even packaging is all about good cheer and joie de vivre. Two cases in point: Prada Candy’s bright pink box with a light-hearted drawing of a young woman, and the extravagant tulle-topped cap for Vera Wang’s Lovestruck.
As a trend, optimism is essentially – but not exclusively – feminine. Paul Smith, has launched ‘Optimistic’ as a his-and-hers duo. Twice as many reasons to look at the bright side!