You would think we had reached some kind of critical mass of being fascinated with the famous. But it's all-consuming: pictures and interviews aren't enough. We want their jeans, their bags, their cute shoes. Celebrity-branded fragrances — from Liz Taylor's White Diamonds to Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely and Britney's Curious — bring in millions. Maybe it was just a matter of time before Antiquity fragrances hit the market.

The Antiquity scents are made from DNA tests performed on hair clippings provided by "renowned celebrity hair collector" John Reznikoff. Each fragrance comes in a sculpted aluminum bottle. Einstein's is called IQ and comes in a flask shaped like a light bulb; Entrance is made from Joan Crawford's genetic code and comes in a bottle shaped like a vaginal entrance. Or is that a shoe stretcher? You can also buy Marilyn, based on Marilyn Monroe; Monarch (Kate Hepburn), and Blue Suede (Elvis). But remember: These scents do not smell like a dead celebrities. They smell like perfumes… made from the DNA of a dead celebrity.

Of course these notable figures have a magnetic pull, whether for their charisma, talent or sex appeal. But honestly: Does anyone really believe that a little stardust will rub off and make a non-famous person more exciting? Or does buying into this stuff reek of desperation?

Okay, okay. I'll admit it: I'd be interested in Eau de Josephine Baker.

Perfume's Heaven Scent: New 'Antiquity' Fragrances Based On DNA Of Dead Celebs [NY Daily News]
Related: Antiquity [My DNA Fragrance]

Daria: The Fragrance
Smells Like: Exasperation, coffee, notebook paper, pizza, slightly bitter notes tempered with occasional bits of warmth
Bottle Style: A herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains. Well, either that or the creepy eye-spiral from "Sick Sad World."
Cost: Your soul, you sell-out. The world needs another celebrity fragrance like it needs another member of the Fashion Club.
Tagline: "Everything Stinks, And Now So Can You."


Tim Gunn: Make It Work
Smells Like: Clean, crisp notes, calming essences for times of crisis, hints of the Red Lobster to evoke happy memories of the past, done with impeccable taste, of course.
Bottle Style: Gunn, who holds a BFA in sculpture, could certainly come up with a creative bottle design.
Cost: Relatively affordable: Gunn has said in the past that "you don't have to spend a lot of money for fashion!"
Tagline: "Carry On!"


Eau De Joan
Smells Like: Cigarette smoke, vodka gimlets, broken hearts, warm, rich, mysterious notes: the kind strong enough to cover up a woman's secrets.
Bottle Style: Curvy and red.
Cost: Affordable enough to be purchased on a secretary's salary in 1963.
Tagline: Peggy Olson is working on it right now; we'll let you know.


Amy & Tina: Smells Belles
Smells Like: Hilarity, hints of lemon, multi-layered scents that adapt to the wearer's mood as a tribute to Fey and Poehler's ability to quickly move in and out of character, junk food, good times.
Bottle Style: Something both glamorous and funny.
Cost: Something you can earn with a lot of hard work, talent, and late nights at the office.
Tagline: "For Good Nights And Pleasant Tomorrows" or "Yeah, We Have A Scent...Jealous?!?"


Golden Girls: Stay Gold
Smells Like: Miami beaches, influences from Southern, Sicilian, and Norwegian-by-way-of-St. Olaf culture, friendship, romance, Zbornak-inspired bitterness, and, of course, cheesecake.
Bottle Style: Gold and sassy.
Cost: Let's just say that if you threw a party, and invited everyone you knew, someone would be able to afford it. Look for the biggest gift.
Tagline: "Thank You For Buying Our Scent."

What celebrity fragrances would you like to see? Feel free to design your own in the comments.

Shop Your Favorite Stars' Signature Scents! [People]
I Told Tim Gunn My Shoes Are From Old Navy [iVillage]

We're in the middle of a "scent wave." Fragrances are big business, and not just because changing a scent is a quick and dirty way for a brand to label a product "new and improved" without actually altering the formula: ironically, as people clean less, they want more smell - the olfactory proof that something is clean. Linens need to smell sweet and fresh; cleansers need to project "power." Scent fads are cyclical: cucumber-melon was big in the 80s, the 1990s were characterized by "rain" and we're coming out of "linen" right now. According to the Wall Street Journal,

Now the smell of clean has become a wildly varied bouquet: mandarin-lime detergent, disinfectant evoking "lavender vanilla and comfort," toilet-bowl cleaner in eucalyptus mint. Bleach can smell like a "fresh meadow." A new deodorizer, which hit store shelves last month, promises a "Moroccan bazaar."

And the fragrance labs? As creepy as an apple-cinnamon air-wick.

To better understand "scent seekers," P&G's name for consumers with a nose for fragrance, the company invites them to its Consumer Village, a research facility near its Cincinnati headquarters. The fully functioning kitchens and bathrooms there — decorated to reflect different income levels — let researchers read consumers' reaction to fragrances in a realistic setting. P&G recruits test participants who are paid, on average, about $25, the company says...Testing rooms include one called "Anita's Kitchen," which has Corian countertops and stainless-steel appliances to suggest an upscale household. Inside, Alyce Nicholson-Sheehan, a P&G scent-trend expert, gauges consumer reactions to possible fragrances for deodorizing sprays, plug-in devices and candles. Amid hanging kitchen towels, a rotating spice rack and a sponge resting in the sink, there are few signs the room is a testing lab. A small camera sits on a canister near the sink, and a curtained window frame holds a surveillance mirror, behind which researchers scrutinize test subjects.

One question that this raises: will the global economic collapse and ensuing shifts in people's income significantly effect these results?! Like, will a laid-off banker know that now she's supposed to like, say, "cedar" instead of "lily?" How does green consciousness play into this whole science? Are Mrs. Meyers Clean Day products really worth the money, or do I just like that geranium scent? And lastly: if the industry is this fine-tuned, how is it that anyone thinks the weird undermining Glade commercials are a good idea?

Is the Smell of Moroccan Bazaar Too Edgy for American Homes? [Wall Street Journal]

Earlier: How To Market To Women On A Budget

According to a story in the new issue of the Economist, selling men on scent is a tricky business, and a lot of companies have to couch it as "aftershave" and "deodorant." But a new breakthrough study reports that men are so sensitive to the way they smell that — get this — "when a man changes his natural body odor it can alter his self-confidence to such an extent that it also changes how attractive women find him."

In the article (a section of which is oddly titled, "Born chicka wah, ker-ching chicka ching,") the author explains that perfume and cologne use fall into three basic categories: masking odors; pheromones; boosting natural smells. These all are sort of real and mostly psychological. And it's the psychology that's important: which kind of explains why guys drenched in vile scent apparently have no problem attracting women.

But, what I wonder is, does the confidence a scent imparts actually offset the negative associations some of us have with cologne? A lot of women, after all, hate it with a visceral passion. "Cologne" as a concept can signify cheesiness, vanity, a certain horrible hybrid of B.O. and chemicals, and middle-school nerds awash in Cool Water. It's one of those ingrained double-standards a lot of people just can't fight. While women are encouraged to change scent with their mood, the same behavior would seem suspect in a man. The much-ballyhooed metrosexual backlash led to a lot of pieces claiming women just wanted manly smells — B.O., sweat, that kind of honest stuff.

So, if a lot of women hate cologne — not all, obviously — why does the wearing of it create such confidence in men? Are they that susceptible to lame "Axe Effect" style campaigns? Do they feel that bad about their natural odors? Are they that convinced that "cologne" equals seduction and effort? And if that's true, why is it so hard to get them to wear it in the first place? Is it more that they need to be convinced, but once they are, they are sold? Or do they require this kind of scientific justification to feel okay about wearing perfume? Or — and here is a big question? — do men not know how women feel about cologne? Inquiring minds — and noses — want to know.

The Scent Of A Man [The Economist]

I mean, I get changing your scent by season: there are, after all, some issues of evaporation, and light florals can be incongruous on a wool coat. But I'd always understood from a lifetime of casual fashion mag reading that people were basically attracted to one scent family or the other - floral, woodsy, grassy etc. Yes, there was that period in middle school when everyone wore Gap scents - and later Clinique Happy - but I'd always thought one of the lesser pleasures of adulthood was discovering a closer olfactory match to one's personality and sticking to it.

According to the Los Angeles Times,"these aren't light-and-fruity times. You can smell the gravitas in the air — and on the wrists of stylish women all over. Serene florals and cheery citrus fragrances in the family of Prescriptives Calyx and Issey Miyake L'Eau d'Issey, which have been en mode since the 1990s, are giving way to headier scents." The new-old ones are heavy on the musk and amber - which, apparently, denote either gravitas or evoke 80's excess. I don't know who these women are whose finger is so on the societal pulse that they feel a compulsion to run out and douse themselves in Shalimar a la Katherine Parker in Working Girl and throw out their frivolous old perfumes. (For my part, I choose to, ahem, increase societal stability by sticking to my usual - Frederic Malle's En Passant (for business situations and meeting parents) or the slightly sultrier Lys Mediteranee.)

I mean, people can obviously wear whatever perfume they want — even if I'm kind of baffled by the woman who says, "I'll suffer through the first two hours of a perfume being overbearing because I want it to last all day," — but I'm kind of sick of hearing lately about how we're theoretically being pushed and pulled in all directions by the cosmos. Yes, the economy is beyond our control, and is indeed effecting most spheres of our lives. But it has not stripped us of individual tastes and opinions and preferences. No magic hand is altering our skirt length while we sleep or forcing men with curvaceous girlfriends into the arms of the more muscular ideal to which they allegedly cleave in times of economic stress. There is enough out of our hands right now without some sinister force also spraying Opium on our wrists.

New Fragrances Catch The Scent Of Classics From Decades Past [LA Times]

Shoppers should note that 5% of the profits will go to an Israeli-based nonprofit organization benefiting disabled children. Salimpour does not hold a grudge against Jolie, noting she and Jolie both "believe in human rights and love Brad Pitt!" Meanwhile, over here in the Jezebel lab, we're developing 'Maddox', a playful fragrance that smells precocious and experimental with coy, exotic Asian notes, a hint of temper tantrum and a soupçon of sibling rivalry.
'Shiloh'" A Baby And A Perfume [Washington Post]

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Younger, And Faster To Pick Up The Scent [NYT]

• We are Nietzsche and God is dead: Paris Hilton's stint in jail saw her fragrance sales rise 30% higher than where they were at this time last year. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• The biggest conflict in the Middle East right now? Crocs. Price-fixing. The Holy Land. Is nothing sacred there? [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Daisy Fuentes: A sweatshop manufacturer no more! Now we can buy our Wet Seal clothes guilt-free! [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Today's installation of "When Designers Sell Out": The Alice Temperley for Moet & Chandon tote bag, specially designed with a compartment for toting... Moet. Ugh. [Vogue UK]
  
• Who says the English are all stodgy? They spend more on clothing than any other group of people in Europe, except the Italians. [Telegraph]

• Peter Som: next head designer at Bill Blass? And if so, will he break the Blass losing streak? [WWD, 2nd item]
• Vogue crisis! Marni designer's Consuelo Castiglioni's tent for a photoshoot was stolen! [WWD, 2nd item]
• In our 2nd "God is dead" moment — and it's not even 10 am! — Rugby by Ralph Lauren is to be featured at the coolest, most exclusive store in the whole wide world, Colette Paris. [WWD, sub req'd]
• The unexpected collaboration between film director David Lynch and the fashion industry continues with an exhibit of Lynch's photographs of... Christian Louboutin shoes. [WWD, 2nd item]
• French fashion house Ungaro's lead designer, Peter Dundas, has resigned. [Vogue UK]
• Permira's purchase of more shares of Valentino stock (they're now at 60.2% of the company) went through yesterday. [NYT]

• In the department of a-day-late-and-dollar-short, Senators Elizabeth Dole and Maria Cantwell have introduced legislation that would aid textile/apparel workers who lose their jobs when the work goes overseas. If those workers haven't already blown American Apparel's Dov Charney (above right), that is! [WWD]
  
• Kate Moss's latest project? Singing karaoke to benefit Palestinian refugees. Confusing, yet true. [WWD, 4th item]
  
• French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg is the new face of Gerard Darel bags, in a blatant attempt to win favor with the lucrative market niche known as "Jennifer Gerson." [Vogue UK]
  
• Indian leather goods company Hidesign inks deal with Louis Vuitton in an attempt to become the first Indian global luxury brand. And yet we say: Continued reliance on the French despite an attempt to stand on your own? How, uh, Catherine Deneuve in Indochine! [Breitbart]

• The Limited is supposedly close to finally selling itself. [WWD]
• Vivienne Westwood's new fragrance, 'Let It Rock', is supposed to smell like rock 'n' roll groupies, which means top notes of patchouli and amber with undertones of pot, Valtrex, and puke. [WWD]
• Canadian designer Christina Burgess brings "hip Canadian style" to the UK with the opening of her shop there. The news here is 1) there is apparently such a thing as Canadian style and 2) it is hip. [Vogue UK]

J.Lo Glow
I'll never understand why J.Lo gets lumped into that "kinda whorey" category, unless it's because that no matter what else she does, her big butt will always be more famous than the rest of her. She acts and sings and is married and stuff, but her perfume line is probably the aspect of her career that stands the best chance at eventually eclipsing her notorious badonk. It's larger and more successful than those of any of her peers', putting it more on par with Elizabeth Taylor's perfume line than say, Britney's. 'Glow' was the one that started it all, and after smelling its uncomplicated, shampooey bouquet of white flowers, it's easy to see why people love this. This is the kind of stuff you spray on when you're making eggs for your boyfriend in sweatpants on a Sunday morning; a fragrance that is so ubiquitously fresh, pretty, and inoffensive that it can be worn by almost anyone in any age bracket. There's nothing even a little whorey about it, which is probably the only reason I wouldn't buy it.

Heiress by Paris Hilton
It's too bad there aren't more heiresses in the world, because the thought of anyone spending a penny of any money they have earned by actually working on this perfume makes me want to toss my fruity cocktail all over my $19.99 Lucite Joyce Leslie stilettos. Wait, maybe I already did? Because something sure smells like it. Specifically, it smells like a juicy hunk of pineapple dipped in Splenda got drunk on like seventy Bellinis and had sex in the coatroom surrounded by a camera crew composed entirely of rotting honeydew melons. I can understand that Paris Hilton doesn't give a fuck (or at least she didn't before Jesus became her plus-one!), but this perfume makes me wonder if she understands that millions of young girls now wholeheartedly believe she smells like this.

With Love... Hilary Duff
After you get past the initial, "Wheee! Snorting Pixy Stix makes me and all my friends sooo hyper!!!" blast of tropical fruit, there's a surprising and—dare I say—precocious little kick of incense, amber, and spices to this scent. The bottle is adorable, too: Simple faceted glass detailed with gold cord that wouldn't appear particularly out of place on a grown-ass woman's vanity table. If Duff often seems and younger and more wholesome than her naughtier, higher-profile peers, her perfume conversely smells both older and less wholesome (in a good way) than theirs do. Do people ever tell you you're a good kid, Hilary? I bet they do, but I'll say it again: You're a good kid, and you've somehow managed to make your perfume smell like a shameless invitation for all the long, hard, deep, sweaty, throbbing sexual intercourse you are purportedly not having. I'm into it. I'd wear this.

Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely
Musk 101: In perfume, a synthetic musk note does not smell like what most people think of as "musky," which I think is often confused with the scent of patchouli or oak moss. An entry-level musk, like SJP Lovely, smells a lot more like laundry detergent than hippie armpit. The musk in this fragrance is specifically Egyptian Musk, a clean, gentle version tricked out in this case with white flowers and a sharp tartness that is referred to in the official fragrance notes as "green appletini." Whether you love or hate Old Horseface, this is a pretty coherent and serious fragrance, and I'd hate for just-out-of-the-shower types to be turned off by either the idea of musk, or by SJP herself. In fact, my favorite thing about Lovely is that it smells good enough to cancel out the effects of her crappy clothing line and the enduring cloyingness of SATC in syndication, which is to say it actually warrants disregarding SJP entirely, which is something I've been dying to do for a very very long time.

• Daisy Fuentes' clothing line for Kohl's has been earmarked by the National Labor Committee for using sweatshop labor. The weird thing is that this is the odd celebrity sweatshop scandal where we are more surprised by Kohl's (does Vera Wang know?) than Fuentes. After all, celebrities who stoop to doing infomercials are not, we bet, keeping close watch of their personal brands. [WWD]
  
• Mariah Carey's new fragrance, M by Mariah Carey, has top notes of marshmallow and sea breeze... like an awesome Cancun bonfire! [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Nicole Miller CEO Bud Konheim seems to be under the impression that if it weren't for the Civil Rights movement, we would have never seen the trend towards the casual in American apparel. Racism, formality of dress, racism, formality of dress: Hmm, tough choice! [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Gianni Versace's death, a street is to be named after him in Milan and an original dance performance created in his honor. [Vogue UK]
  
• Though Guess is currently experiencing moderate success Stateside, the Europeans are gobbling its shit up. [WSJ]

• Having convinced men that they smell Unforgivable, Sean "P.Diddy" Combs takes on the women's fragrance market. His new scent, which smells like a pina colada, will be supported by an ad campaign depicting Diddy forcibly taking a woman from behind. Ah, we love the smell of debatably consensual sex in the morning! [WWD]
• Brooks Brothers makes a move towards the obvious, opening smaller, edited editions of their normal retail stores in resort locations and calling the wares there "The Country Club Collection." And everywhere, WASPS breathe a sigh of relief. [WWD]
• Fashion's favorite enfant terrible John Galliano will not photographer William Klein's plagiarism allegations lying down. He was "inspired", not "stealing," ok??? [Vogue UK]