Fragrance Foundation: The Fashion Effect

Despite a slight market softening, the designer fragrance business is moving ahead, sharpening its fashion resonance with Millennials and building momentum toward a heftier fall launch season. After weathering a rough December, beset by painful calendar shifts and other setbacks, key manufacturers and retailers are bullish about the second half of the year. Fragrance franchises are being broadened, even into skin care. The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. will expand its Tom Ford skin-care line in September, and Coty is also working on a treatment project, particularly for Asia, according to Edgar Huber, president of the Coty Luxury division. Other Coty designer brands — such as Gucci — are diversifying into color, although scent remains dominant. All of the activity is driven by a renewed sense of fashion currency in the fragrance arena. “The [designer] brands are celebrities again,” said John Demsey, executive group president at the Estée Lauder Cos. “Designers and fashion have come back into the forefront of being celebrities unto themselves.” At least in terms of buzz, “the Seventies and the Eighties are back,” he added. Demsey’s enthusiasm is shared at Macy’s, long considered the prestige fragrance retail leader. “We had an exceptional year in fragrances,” said Nata Dvir, senior vice president and general manager of

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