Fragrant memories

Lorna Luft discovered Spinnato after picking up his book, “My Pursuit of Beauty,” about a year and a half ago. She called him up for advice on skin care — he has his own Caviar & Diamonds line of products — and he visited her several times at home in Palm Springs.

He got the offer to create the Judy fragrance in part because of his track record creating products for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham and Michael Jordan.

“When we do a fragrance for a celebrity, the first thing, of course, is we do a deep dive and say, ‘What do you like? What don’t you like?’ ” Spinnato says. “When we have a deceased icon like this, you want to make sure you get it extra right because she’s not around to give her opinion.”

So Spinnato asked Garland’s

children what kinds of fragrances she liked. Her favorite, they told him, was the French perfume Ma Griffe, which was introduced by the Parisian designer Carven in 1946.

“It’s a very beautiful fragrance but it’s very femaleforward,” he says. “And kind of antiquated type of smelling.”

The Judy Garland rose, a yellow, orange and scarlet hybrid created in England in 1977, also provided a fragrant inspiration. “That was a no-brainer that had to be incorporated,” Spinnato says.

So was public opinion, a first for Spinnato.

“I, for the very first time, actually had America vote on a fragrance,” he says. Readers of Modern Luxury’s line of 21 regional magazines, which include Angeleno and Riviera Orange County, were invited to sample scent strips placed in issues last fall and vote for the one they liked best.

The final step was to incorporate more of the flowers and food that Garland liked, as recalled by her children.

“For example, she was addicted to chocolate so we have tonka bean and vanilla and different kinds of chocolate notes,” Spinnato says. “She’d loved orchids, so we have dark orchid in there.

“All three children have smelled it. They said we’ve actually nailed it. They love it.”

A fluid design

The fragrance bottle won’t be revealed until the launch party Spinnato is hosting in Los Angeles on Garland’s birthday today, though he agreed to share its inspiration in advance.

“We took her most iconic number, which is ‘Get Happy’ from ‘Summer Stock’ with Gene Kelly,” he says of the iconic 1950 movie performance that featured Garland singing and dancing in a black tuxedo jacket, stockings and fedora.

“My creative team analyzed the entire number from beginning to end and actually created the bottle around her body movement,” Spinnato says. “When you see this bottle by itself, you wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, that’s a Judy Garland bottle.’

“But when you see it side by side with her ‘Get Happy’ image, you see right away it has her tilted hat, the fedora, her body shape.”