Oscar de la Renta has come home — again.
In conjunction with his licensee Vie Luxe, the designer relaunched his home fragrance collection and the assortment hit stores last week. The rollout to 300 doors was meant to coincide with the start of the holiday selling season, noted Daniel Benedict, who cofounded Vie Luxe two years ago with Marjorie Gubelmann Raein.
The collection has gotten off to a brisk start, according to Benedict, who noted the firm is on its second production run after the first one sold out. That amounts to more than 45,000 units, according to industry sources.
De la Renta’s new home fragrance collection, an assortment of 15 candles, is divided into three scents: City, Country and Island, which were inspired by de la Renta’s homes in New York City; Kent, Conn., and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
City is a mix of white jasmine, night blooming jasmine, white pepper and green leaves; Country mixes white hyacinth, lily of the valley and pomegranate, and Island blends ylang-ylang native to the Dominican Republic, bergamot and cypress wood. The home fragrance collection is totally separate from the license de la Renta has for fragrances with YSL Beauté.
When asked in a recent interview why having home fragrance is important, de la Renta replied, “A feeling of scent in the home creates a lasting impression, because of all the senses, smell is the one that [is remembered] the longest.
“A house should not only be well decorated, but it should smell good as well — it’s part of creating a wonderful atmosphere,” the designer said. “For me, to walk into a home that smells wonderful is more memorable than how the home looks.”
De la Renta’s home fragrance collection is a component of his Oscar de la Renta Home business, which also includes furniture, rugs, bedding, flatware and china. “This complements in a very strong way the whole approach,” he said of the home scents.
“Oscar was very involved in every step of the project — we met with him 15 times,” Benedict, president of Vie Luxe, said of the creation process. He added that the fragrances were developed from elements like “what grows in his Connecticut garden and [memories] of his childhood in the Dominican Republic. He uses fragrances in his home a lot.”
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The home scents are carried by specialty stores and boutiques like Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Stanley Korshak in Dallas. Also, about a half-dozen Four Seasons hotels in the U.S. have the products, as does Harrods in the U.K.
The City, Country and Island ranges each feature a three-wick candle for $80, a deluxe candle for $50 and a trio of votives for $40. The assortment could garner $1 million in retail sales next year, according to sources.
Fragrance supplier Custom Essence blended the City and Island scents, while Belmay produced Country. Packaging for the assortment was inspired by a rug at de la Renta’s home in the Dominican Republic.
In January, the designer plans to add a candle called Oscar de la Renta Wedding to the home fragrance collection. Additionally, other fragrance delivery systems, such as room sprays, are said to be in the works.
De la Renta’s first home fragrance collection, which was launched five years ago with Slatkin & Co., also had the City, Country and Island monikers. That assortment began a phaseout last fall.