Luxe labels prep for festive spend as Chanel, Valentino unveil major fragrances

Chanel has some big news on the fragrance front with the first addition to its Coco Mademoiselle portfolio in six years. It has unveiled Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu, an intense amber scent threaded with vetiver and vanilla with a grapefruit-lychee fruity accord and a rose jasmine floral accord.

Created by Olivier Polge, the company said it’s “more than a fragrance: it is a magnetic force, an impulse”.

And the company clearly aims to make it more than just another comfortable aroma with Chanel saying the fragrance “asserts itself” and is “an unsettling shock, that pushes you away and pulls you back in, teases then commands. Here, nothing seeks to please according to the rules. [It’s] surprised, to be jolted awake, to meet oneself”. It also talks about a strong emotional experience.

Of course, it also has strong links to Coco Mademoiselle so that identity is ever present but transformed. Coco Mademoiselle — created by Jacques Polge in 2001 — has been a huge bestselling success for Chanel (at times outselling Chanel No 5) and it’s currently celebrating its quarter-century so it’s no surprise that the house has chosen this year for a major new addition to the line-up.

And it reminds us that it may only be July but the all-important festive season is looming with seasonal spend for many super-organised consumers starting about now and ramping up over the next few months. Remember, Q4 accounts for around 40% of annual fragrance spend.

The product launches on 19 August (Gabrielle Chanel’s birthday) as the back-to-school season and early festive hints remind us that for marketers, summer is a distant memory. It will, of course, see major marketing support and will be fronted by American folk singer Gracie Abrams, whose latest album launches later this week. We’re told she “stands fittingly in the symbolic lineage of Gabrielle Chanel. One emerged during the Belle Époque in a cabaret in Moulins; the other, last year, at a festival on the East Coast. Between them lies a century-and-a-half of free-spirited women”.

Expect a major campaign coming soon.

Meanwhile also launching after a sizeable gap, Valentino Beauty is introducing an all-new fragrance duo, Vendetta — its first Prestige fragrance franchise launch in six years.

As with Chanel, this duo “introduces a powerful narrative rooted in emotion, intensity”. There’s also “unapologetic connection, reclaiming passion as a conscious choice”. 

The new fragrance name pays homage to the heritage Vendetta scent, introduced by the house under the direction of its founder Valentino Garavani in 1991.

The company said that “at a time when love risks becoming performative, algorithmic or diluted, Vendetta proposes a return to emotional depth. The fragrance family speaks to a generation seeking authenticity and instinct in a world shaped by restraint, channeling Valentino’s heritage through a contemporary lens: warm colours, strong character, and a confident embrace of feeling”.

What we get are Vendetta Donna and Vendetta Uomo. The first was created by Dominique Ropion in collaboration with Andrew Everett, and is a floral gourmand woody built around the “most carnal expression of Tuberose”. At its heart is the exclusive Tuberose Osmobloom, amplified through an ‘Air- Capture’ extraction technology.

Composed by Marie Salamagne, Vendetta Uomo is a woody spicy gourmand that “explores masculine sensuality through texture and contrast”. The fragrance opens with a sparkling shot of ginger CO2 from Peru. At the heart is a Cinnamon Liquor Accord.

The company has released the first visuals of the Vendetta campaign, featuring the recently announced ambassadors Dakota Johnson and Alexander Skarsgård.

Photographed by Inez & Vinoodh, the cinematic campaign “captures the passionate ‘us-against-the-world’ escape of the Vendetta duo, two lovers bound by instinct rather than convention”.

In the coming weeks, the story will unfold further through a campaign film following Donna and Uomo, “on an inspiring journey, a modern romance propelled by instinct, freedom, and unspoken magnetism”.