NEW YORK — Michael Vollbracht, creative director of Bill Blass, has made his latest update to the fashion house with his first scent, The Fragrance From Bill Blass.
The woman’s fragrance, a floral bouquet featuring white blossoms, will be introduced at Saks Fifth Avenue during New York Fashion Week in February.
“This is major for us,” Vollbracht said. “Perfume is very important [to the business] because there are a lot of women who can’t afford the $7,000 suit.”
Vollbracht added that he wanted to “divorce” the company from past Bill Blass fragrances and “come out with something fresh.”
The designer initially met with Bill Blass’ fragrance licensee, First American Brands Inc., in December 2005. Vollbracht, who wears Guerlain’s Vetyver fragrance, said his inspiration for The Fragrance From Bill Blass was “sex — but not blatant sex.” The idea was a fragrance for “women who dress for men. It’s something I think is sexy, [which] is implicit in the scent.”
Vollbracht, who took the company’s creative reins in 2002, said, “Bill Blass is a classic house. How do you say a fragrance is a classic? It’s about romance.”
The Fragrance From Bill Blass marks a return to the perfume business for the fashion brand. In 1978, Bill Blass launched a signature, feminine scent. More than 20 years later, in 1999, Amazing Bill Blass was introduced, followed in 2000 by Bill Blass Amazing for Men. The business was most recently handled by Five Star Fragrance Co., of Deer Park, N.Y., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality King.
The Fragrance From Bill Blass is expected to be carried at Saks for six months before distribution is expanded to other upscale specialty chains, a network that could eventually include Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.
“We tried to get from this [scent] what a Bill Blass fragrance would want to say, to represent the Bill Blass name,” said Antonio Lemma, chief executive officer of First American Brands. “Our goal is to make it a [lasting] success. Bill Blass has the potential to get there. We want to consider this the first Bill Blass fragrance — an expression of the design of the brand today.”
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Lemma described the positioning of the scent as upscale and “aspirational. We want to stay selective, service this [upscale] customer and slowly build the line.”
When asked if the fragrance was designed for a specific target audience, Vollbracht replied there was “a wide range of women who wear Bill Blass.” He cited two generations of women, pointing to “the First Lady and the First Lady’s daughter. We’ve branched out to younger women, but we still have Bill’s core woman.
“I’m very aware of our customer and I remember the ladies who walk in here by their fragrance. The first time I met Liz Taylor, she was wearing jungle gardenia. Scents remind me of comfort, and it’s a comfort if you know a scent.”
Fragrance supplier International Flavors & Fragrances worked with Lemma and Vollbracht to create the scent, which opens with neroli, galbanum and green mandarin. The heart of the fragrance features white hyacinth, lily of the valley, tuberose and jasmine, and base notes include sensual musk and sandalwood.
Vollbracht said it came down to green accords and white floral notes. “Visualizing green and white and smelling it helped me very much,” he said, adding he made his priority finding the “right” scent over creating the bottle and packaging. He added, however, that he saw a bottle that looked like an “English flask” once while visiting Blass at his Connecticut house, which inspired the Bill Blass flacon.
The lower potion of the Bill Blass bottle has a “glen plaid pattern,” Vollbracht noted, “Bill’s favorite for his men’s wear.”
The line will feature a 20-ml. parfum extrait at $150. Two eaux de parfum will be included, in an 80-ml. bottle for $95 and a 40-ml. bottle for $65. Ancillary products will accompany the range at launch, including a 150-ml. body lotion for $48.50, a 200-ml. body cream for $95 and a 200-gram body powder for $60.
Industry sources estimated the scent could generate between $6 million and $8 million in first-year retail sales volume.
The particulars of an ad campaign are not final, but print ads are expected to break in the March issues of consumer magazines W, Vogue, Allure, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle.
Sources estimated about $4 million would be spent to advertise and to otherwise promote the scent.
There are plans for an eventual international rollout of the signature women’s scent, according to Lemma, and Vollbracht noted a bottle was being developed for a new Bill Blass men’s fragrance.
Bill Blass Holding Co. Inc., parent of the fashion house, is in the midst of an ownership change. On Dec. 20, NexCen Brands Inc. said it had inked a $54.6 million cash and stock deal to acquire Blass Holding.
The deal would include two subsidiaries owned by Blass, Bill Blass Licensing Co. Inc. and Bill Blass International LLC, NexCen said in a statement. The company also has entered into a license agreement for men’s and women’s denim with Designer Licensing Holdings LLC, effective upon closing of the transaction. An affiliate of DLH would acquire a 10 percent minority interest in the company’s Bill Blass trademark subsidiary.