The woman next to me is sitting on Naomi Campbell. I’m perched atop Claudia Schiffer, wishing she were Anna Nicole Smith. Smith was my favourite Guess girl—during the good years, that is, before she lost the plot and her waistline.
As the most infamous ’90s Guess face—a Brigitte Bardot-esque blonde bombshell washed ashore with a scrap of gingham tied beneath her heaving bosom—Smith perfectly depicted the now 29-year-old brand’s image of a farm girl turned sex symbol. Now, her black-and-white portrait (along with other Guess icons like Laetitia Casta, Eva Herzigova and Carla Bruni) has been silkscreened onto hundreds of white pillows [see them here], which are currently cushioning the couture-covered heinies sitting front row at the Guess Jeans and Guess by Marciano Spring 2011 runway show, held in a Florence train station.
But it’s a little-known model, Alyssa Miller, who opens the show. While her face hasn’t been immortalized on a pillow yet, Miller is the face of Guess’s new fragrance, Seductive (from $69, at department and drugstores), the company’s first exotic woody-floral eau de toilette.
Created by French perfumer Veronique Nyberg, the scent smells like pralines in cream, but crunchy. Sparkly. Like you want to take a bite out of it. According to Nyberg, that’s because crispy pear has been fused with blackcurrant and bergamot in the top notes of the scent. “It gives it a mouth-watering feeling,” she explains.
“As though you’ve just sliced open a pear,” I add.
“Yes,” says Nyberg, nodding. “You want to eat the blotter.”
Nyberg dips the next strip of thick, white paper (or touche, as the French call them) into a little glass vial, then passes it to me to smell. She has a big, sturdy metal case with multiple compartments, like the ones makeup artists lug around. Inside are rows of the little glass containers, labelled with names like Olibanum and Florentine Orris. Their sloshing contents are the key ingredients in this fragrance, which took Nyberg just over two years to conceive. I take the paper from her fingertips and inhale deeply. Jasmine; I’d recognize it anywhere.
“In the morning, it’s very tender, very innocent, like the Guess brand can be. And it’s a bit green,” says Nyberg. “Then, when the sun shines, it becomes more opulent, more feminine. In the evening, jasmine gives this animalic feeling.”
Together with middle notes of orange flower and iris root (Florentine Orris), jasmine is what provides Seductive’s sexy va-va-voom. Base notes of vanilla, cashmere wood and olibanum (a stiff, cedar-like ingredient that smells like the inside of a church) give the juice staying power and a mysterious, come-hither-and-let’s-see-what-happens quality.
“It makes you feel confident,” says Miller. “When you’re walking out the door in the morning and you’re getting ready, you want to put on that invisible accessory.”
In the Guess tradition, Miller was virtually invisible until she was plucked from near obscurity and zipped into a pair of the brand’s signature skin-tight jeans. Now, she’s everywhere. She’s smaller than I expected—less Claudia, more Laetitia.
A dead ringer for Sophia Loren, the five-foot-nine, hazel-eyed brunette could stop traffic. It’s no accident; inspired by Bardot, Loren and Marilyn Monroe, Guess CEO and creative director Paul Marciano has always insisted that the company’s image capture ’50s and ’60s glamour.
“I connect to women who are women, and classic; the retro glamour that never goes out of style,” he says.
Underneath the catwalk’s glowing chandeliers, Miller fits the bill with her big backcombed hair, shiny petal-pink lips, thick swoop of black cat’s-eye liner and miniscule gem-studded denim skirt. She’s the new generation of Guess—Anna Nicole’s younger sister, if you will. Minus the pillow.
First published in FASHION Magazine September 2010
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