Vapour trail
Miuccia Prada’s fashion brilliance is well documented, but on release of her new scent, the designer details her love affair with fragrance.
1 ON HER FIRST FRAGRANCE MEMORY …
“I remember being about 16 and my friend’s mother had this really incredible perfume. I was obsessed with this perfume. I would go to her home and smell it in the bathroom. It was from a little artisanal shop on Madison Avenue that no longer exists called Shelley Marks. I had other perfumes, but with that one I really fell in love.”
2 ON WHOM SHE HAD IN MIND WHEN CREATING NEW SCENT LA FEMME …
“I believe in individuality and I never had an icon that was a woman. I like many different men and women, but an icon of style? No, never. Actually, I hate the idea.”
3 ON THE CHALLENGES …
“What I think is most difficult – and it’s why at the beginning of my career I didn’t want to do perfume – is that I was afraid of the advertising. That’s because you have to reduce the whole fantasy of the perfume down to an image. To define it in such a way is really difficult. In fashion, it is about this person, somebody who might change and who you can change very often. But with perfume you have to give the impression of a whole world. And that is nearly impossible.”
4 ON CREATING LA FEMME …
“In general, I like strong fragrances. And the quality has to be good. There is an element of no compromise. In perfume, quality is particularly important. Because it’s that smell, or it just doesn’t work.”
5 ON HER FIRST SCENT …
“The first perfume I tried was based on this one [Shelley Marks fragrance]. I went to a man with a piece of the bottle and told him what I remembered about it, what was in my imagination. I tried to translate the memory of that perfume. And actually that was my first fragrance: Prada Amber.”
6 ON FRAGRANCE VS FASHION …
“Perfume is much more difficult because it obliges you to be even more honest. In fashion, you can play because you have so many more occasions and a variety of ways to express. With perfume, I get so nervous about it: you can’t play. You can’t be smart or funny; it is what it is. You have to go to the core.”