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Scent and Sensibility
Alber Elbaz Riffs on Lanvin's New Fragrance (and Much More Besides)
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May 4, 2007 –
In town for the "Party of the Year" and to promote Lanvin's fragrance, Rumeur, at Saks Fifth Avenue, Alber Elbaz sat down with Style.com's Laird Borrelli. Here, his musings on the pitfalls of success, the newly reinvented scent, and why mother knows best.
Blue Period
"Many years ago when I was working with Mr. Beene, they would send me to Saks to help to do the windows. So I learned the basement of Saks. I know the people who work in the basement, I know the secretaries, I know the assistants. This is my world. I'm a blue-collar worker myself. I feel very comfortable in this world. And now I come here and the CEO is greeting me, but I'm coming from the basement!"
Cinderella Complex
"Cinderella stories are always good, but what keeps you really alive and strong is not to lose your feet, not to lose the place where you stand, which is easy to do if you start to believe that you are famous and you are a star and you only give 10-minute interviews."
Beyond Perfect
"After fame, perfection is the most dangerous word in the world. There is nothing after perfection."
Mother Knows Best
"I was talking to my mother this morning and telling her that I was chosen as one of the Time 100. 'Don't tell too many people,' she told me."
Vote Elbaz
"I am very feminist and democratic, so I can run for president."
What's in a Name
"I have worked for many houses in the past, and when I compare a house like Lanvin, it is one that may not have a tradition, but it has a heritage. Tradition can block you because there is one way of doing things. At Lanvin, with our heritage, we can do anything we want because we have a great last name—and we have Rumeur."
Hip to Be Square
"We took the roundness of the original bottle and gave it a little bit of squareness, which for me was a bit more modern. We kept the Cocteau-style writing. I like how Rumeur is written by hand; it expresses a kind of nervousness, instead of the typical sweet and glitzy and dreamy and rosy qualities often associated with fragrances."
Beneath the Skin
"Our ad is a little bit dark. Why does a perfume ad have to feature a blonde lying on a couch and kind of fainting? Is the smell that bad? We were working on our campaign with Steven Meisel and Amanda Moore. She told me that she gave all her savings to her brother when he came back from the war so that he could buy an apartment. And I found that so generous that she became even more beautiful to me. You know, today with computers, you can change the color of eyes and hair, so it doesn't matter how beautiful you are, but what you reflect."
–Laird Borrelli
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