Perfume is like Wine, Creed says. Interview with Erwin Creed in my local paper this morning.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Many of you may not be old enough to remember. But once there was something called journalism.

for real?


That first question is a joke, right?

What a puff piece. Just once I'd like to see him get asked real questions. That's one of the reasons I didn't go see him when he was in town. Im a bit brash sometimes and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hold my tongue.

meh, half of those interviews ask pointless questions, or are straight up full of "it"

"Erwin, when exacly did your father create..."
"Himalaya?"
"No, the perfume house of Creed?"

Yeah it ferments like wine.

Horrible...just horrible. I, too, didn't go see him at the local Neimans because I had already formed a couple of pointed questions which I decided wouldn't go over too well. Namely, "Erwin, can you point me in the direction of a picture of a Creed perfume bottle that pre-dates 1970?"

Brilliant!

touche

Check out the new interview I posted here:

http://www.basenotes.net/threads/271...th-Erwin-Creed

This is not journalism, nor blogspeak, it's plain old, product placement.

Guys, I think everyone's being a little unfair on Creed and their illustrious and enduring history as perfumers to royalty. People often cite the total and utter lack of evidence from anything fragrance related prior to circa 1970.

But I present to you this:



Irrefutable I'm sure you'll all agree.

lol, we have a winner

>>#15

/thread

Ha!

NO WAY!! Was he wearing Vintage Tabarome when he signed the Magna Carta?!

Looks a bit over dressed.

I find many parallels between perfume and wine.

This just in from Creed's ace archaeology team.

Fascinating, thank you so much for for linking.

Erwin, (mis)speaking of Creed's "250 years old" perfume history:

"La clientela che vestiva gli abiti realizzati su misura riceveva, a completamento della toilette, un piccolo flacone di profumo."

Excuse my gauche translation, Italian is merely my fifth language:

"The customers getting clothes on order [custom-sized clothes] used to receive, in addition to their clothes/suits/costumes [in the Italian original "toilette" has nothing to do with eau de toilette nor with the toilet] a small bottle of perfume"

It seems that the Creed Propaganda Headquarters got a hint about thorough Web debunking and about how ridiculous this NEVER PROVEN 250 years old PERFUME "history" is, so the young Erwin is attempting to re-spin the talking points. The luxurious perfume flacons specifically created for endless emperors and empresses suddenly became modest, innocent, small bottles offered alongside the clothes created by the House of CREED.

Would it be so much to ask for ANY vintage evidence of at least one "piccolo flacone di profumo" ?

The whole interview is choke full with similar instances of... uhhh... "honest" talk from Erwin The Seventh "Genius".

Between amusing and juvenile parody, really.

So let me ask you this...you find nothing else interesting to talk about in that interview? Nada? Zilch? No interesting perfume discussion points? The only thing you can do is just repeat that "Creed ain't real" line and mock the interviewee? I find it rather amusing and juvenile and would expect more from someone who has spent 6 years at Basenotes.

Zztop, I apologize for not being able to swallow cheap Creed propaganda and then say "thank you, Sir, I want more". Obviously, we find "amusing and juvenile" different things. I can live with that.

To answer you, no, I didn't find anything insightful in Erwin's self-serving claptrap. He recycles the "travelling all over the world" for the "most precious essences" thing. I just don't believe it and many knowledgeable people debunked it in the past. That he had a different opinion about Love in White? If it's not another invented thing, judging by the final product, his father should have not listened to him. The "hand-made bottle"? If true, it wasn't worth the bother, it's not any better or worse than the other Creed bottles. All the narcissism about what Erwin likes, this and that and the cars and the speed is a personality cult on the verge of nauseating. Sorry. I would rather have Dullah interview Erwin. Or Olivier, for that matter.

Fascinating discussions. My take away was that Erwin has a lighter more transparent style than his father. I suspect, going forward we will see more fragrances similar to Spice and Wood, et al as Erwin becomes more and more involved.

Personally, I look forward to compositions that are relatively simple yet contain very high quality ingredients in the future. In a way, this is an expression of humility, as the perfumer allows the high quality of the raw materials to shine through, rather than imposing himself into the mix.

As Erwin said, just mix a few high quality ingredients and let them do the rest. He's not interested in magic tricks, just good, down to earth, delicious concoctions. There will always be a market for that!

All of the false indignation about Creed's history is amusing. As if I or anyone else on basenotes gives a crap how long Creed has existed. What's all this anger at the manufactured Creed history and how they flaunt it shamelessly in their advertising copy? If you believe what they say, you're an idiot. They're not even trying to hide how ridiculous the image is, so why on earth would anyone spend any significant amount of energy getting worked up about it? Frankly I don't care who wore Creed before me. Princess Eugenie of France or whoever she is has been dead for a while, so she's not going to improve the smell of anything. What's in the Creed bottle today is what matters. If it smells good, I'm in. Quality perfume is quality perfume, and no amount of historical fabrication is going to effect that.

If perfume is like wine then Creed is the Arbor Mist of perfume.

"All of the false indignation about Creed's history is amusing."

False? Why false?

"As if I or anyone else on basenotes gives a crap how long Creed has existed."

Perhaps some don't, perhaps some do. There is also a world out there, outside Basenotes.

"If you believe what they say, you're an idiot."

Well, people tend to believe that a "prestigious," "classy" brand tends to honor truth in advertising. I wouldn't call anybody an "idiot" because of that.... a good man, perhaps slightly naive, perhaps.

"Quality perfume is quality perfume"

I tend to agree with that, and Creed did offer a couple of high quality perfumes, no doubt. However, when they lie through their teeth, I'd asseverate the novel idea that it is fairer to blame them, the liars, not those credulous (or simply honest) enough people who take their claims at face value.

Why false? You're kidding me, right? You people are genuinely upset at the load of malarkey coming from the advertising department over at Creed? When you sniff Royal English Leather, or Green Irish Tweed, is your immediate reaction dammit, this doesn't smell old! Are you feeling cheated by a small Anglo-French niche house because they tell you things that neither you nor they can prove or disprove, or are you feeling cheated because they're asking $280 a bottle? The anger here isn't really about Creed's history. It's about people using a forum like basenotes to lash out against a luxury brand because they can do it with relative anonymity. If Creed released an oud-heavy masculine masterpiece, suddenly oud wouldn't be so popular anymore. It's become cool to bash Creed, but more egregiously-priced houses like Montale and Amouage, not so much. All you have to do is mention an interest in Creed, and suddenly basenoters stop being interested in how something actually smells, and become historians.


You don't say.


People tend to believe that multi-billion dollar corporations like YSL, Chanel, Dior, who capitalize on people letting go of their non-essential disposable income, are going to play fair with advertising because business is about the honor and the truth. Therefore, a $65 million per year niche house should compete with these billion dollar companies in a cutthroat global business environment by being utterly truthful and honorable in a live and let die marketplace. You want to run this logic about people believing in prestigious and classy brands honoring truth in advertising by me again, because I guess I must have missed something. No, I'm sorry, but thinking that companies are going to be honorable and truthful on the road to profit is the stuff of idiocy. To expend energy on anything other than the immediate quality of the perfume in the bottle when it comes to Creed or any other house is pointless. Better to judge a scent on its merits alone than weigh it against your bruised and overly-insulted intelligence.


Advertising is about image, not about truth. It is 10% truth, 90% grandiose facade. Shocking to think that this is the case, isn't it? If you come into a commercial situation knowing the reality behind a business' image (most children catch onto that by the time they're five years old) you realize that you want to be lied to. You want the company to sell you the impression that their product is larger than life. Because if they don't do this, you walk out without spending a penny. Herein lies the hypocrisy of the consumer who finds fault with advertising and its many distortions.

Sorry, MoonB, you did not convince me. The gist of your messages, in fewer words but without missing any substance, if any, is that lying is OK because everybody does it and that it is the consumer's fault because (s)he "wants" to be lied to.

I would appreciate you not guessing what I want. Speak about what you want and whatever you say will be fine. Thank you.

Lying is okay because everybody does it . . . not once, in any one single syllable of what I just wrote, did I even so much as insinuate this. What I did insinuate (and flat out say) is that commercial entities lie, the majority of consumers know they lie and don't care, because what one person calls a lie, another person calls advertising. We don't live in an honest world. Get over it.

They're fragrances. I wear them because they smell good and make me feel good. I don't care about the history of any house (not even Chanel or Guerlain), or any relevance to world events - just wear the shit and enjoy it.

Well put. I rest my case.

Extraordinarily well-stated. Thank you.

PS: I'm not really sure about this, but does Creed actually advertise? I've seen one or two small online ads, very plain and kind of classy. But I don't recall seeing magazine ads, or tv ads. So -- where's all this deceptive "advertising" I keep hearing about?

I'm thinking it's more public relations than advertising. Or maybe some sales associates' raps on retail customers.

Seriously, though: let's see some examples of these deceptive ads we keep reading about. C'mon, bring 'em on.

Don't bother with whining about their website(s). Let's see the advertising that we keep reading about on here.

Thank you for your response.

Lying is okay because everybody does it . . . not once, in any one single syllable of what I just wrote, did I even so much as insinuate this. What I did insinuate (and flat out say) is that commercial entities lie, the majority of consumers know they lie and don't care...

Well, your writing this:

People tend to believe that multi-billion dollar corporations like YSL, Chanel, Dior, who capitalize on people letting go of their non-essential disposable income, are going to play fair with advertising because business is about the honor and the truth. Therefore, a $65 million per year niche house should compete with these billion dollar companies in a cutthroat global business environment by being utterly truthful and honorable in a live and let die marketplace.

got darn close to it.

because what one person calls a lie, another person calls advertising

Excuse me, there still are such things called "facts," "evidence," "documentation" and so on.

We don't live in an honest world. Get over it.

Please feel absolutely free to get over whatever you want to get over.

Please also do not attempt to tell others what they need to "get over". We are all adults and we make our own choices, both perfume-wise, and ethics-wise. Thank you for your contribution.

You're welcome.


I guess basenoters are largely annoyed by the Creed boutique website, the list of names on the top of each Creed box stating that a slew of historical figures commissioned Creed to make these scents, and the overall collective interview/press material that accumulates with each Creed release that emphasizes the quality and history of Creed. But I can't say for sure - I've never seen a print ad for Creed or anything outside of a few small ads online. In any case, none of it warrants the childish "prove it to me" nonsense that seems to pervade every Creed thread.


Addict, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you here. You've quoted me in the context of my defending lying, then followed it up with "got darn close to it" - let me ask you something. If you walked into my shop and I handed you a plain glass atomizer, no colors or ornamentation of any kind, and then proceeded to tell you that the fragrance inside was produced in a factory somewhere in France, contained twenty-seven different chemicals, some of which are possibly (but no one is sure yet) carcinogenic, and after doing survey testing found that the scent smells very close to fifty other fragrances on the market today - and it shouldn't be surprising because the fragrance was created only six months ago, oh and that the perfumer behind this fragrance wanted it to be even better but couldn't commit to tweaking the top and middle notes because he was hired to do something for another company and scheduling conflicts prohibited it . . . would you really want me to be this honest with you? Would this make you feel more or less inclined to drop $280 on my bottle?

If you tell me it wouldn't matter because you would judge the fragrance on its smell only, then you're a hypocrite.

Some of us older guys still remember the CREED-ENDORSED/GENERATED lists of celebrities Creed perfumes "have been created for" (not inspired by, not an homage to, but created for and worn by).

Cary Grant-Green Irish Tweed, Grace Kelly-Fleurissimo, Churchill-Tabarome.

Beyond unconvincing euphemisms, these were lies. Not only were they never substantiated, they were somewhat "retired" from official Creed propaganda materials, not consistently so, while real store representatives are not beyond perpetrating them verbally.

Lies.

Refer to my edited post above.

I did read your post above. I have to say that you seem to presume a whole lot on behalf of people you don't know. That that is unpolite is secondary. That it is utterly irrelevant - unsubstantiated hypotheticals are just that, unsubstantiated hypotheticals - is more important.

PS As long as we are dealing in hypotheticals, according to a similar logic, if one is sick with cancer and the seller of some snake-oil says "buy this, it's only $12,000 and it will cure you ," the guilty party would be the gullible patient, not the fraudulent seller.

Why is it not believable that stars of the past wore Creed? Creed has not retired these claims. Rather, they are still on the creedboutique.com website in the respective fragrance descriptions.

The stars of the present certainly wear Creed. There are links to interviews with stars or (details of their commissioned fragrances) such as Jamie Foxx, Sharon Stone, Elton John, P. Diddy, and many others (search the basenotes archives) where they explicitly say so. One most recent one is Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini who wears Millesime Imperiale (link right here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle6964603.ece ).

For example: I can absolutely confirm 110% that Elton John wears many Creed fragrances and is currently a fan of Love in Black. How do I know this? He has a residence in nearby Atlanta, GA and I know someone who works with him. The only other way for you to know is to ask Creed or Elton John himself (or you can read about Elton John sightings at the Creed counter at the Neiman Marcus in Buckhead in many Atlanta papers - just do a Google search). There are many such examples but I think this is enough.

If so, then Creed = Attachment 9056

That's a divergent point if ever there was one. What does the luxury goods market have to do with alternative medicine? Addict, you're a person who seems to value total honesty in the marketplace. So let's be totally honest - most of the perfumes out there, including Creed's, are made on a budget with chemicals in a limited period of time, by harried perfumers who often get little to no public credit for their work. So if this information is what is given to you in lieu of the usual commercial rigmarole, by your logic, disclosure of such banal background details would be enough to make the product stand above anything from Creed. There's nothing hypothetical about it. You've clearly stated a distaste for the at-best ambiguity of Creed's historical claims. The only question is whether or not stripping those claims alone is enough to return favor to the perfume in your eyes, or would you then revert to the safer option of sticking to what's actually, oh I don't know - in the bottle.

I think ZZtop makes the point well - going to interviews with Erwin Creed just to jibe in a comment about their historical claims and ask him to produce a bottle of Creed that predates 1970 would very likely backfire, if not immediately, then in the longrun. All he has to do is turn around and hand you a shortstack of royal warrants (most of which would predate 1970) for Creed's products, and then leave you looking like a man out of your depth. Current celebrities do wear Creed. The house of Creed is more than old enough to have supplied fragrance for celebrities and dignitaries of yesteryear. The facts are on their side, even if they're gilding most of them to suit their own ends.

Not expecting some ideal, absolute honesty isn't the same as accepting blatant lies.

"What does the luxury goods market have to do with alternative medicine?"

ANY product marketing has to be honest. If it is not, calling buyers "idiots" - because they believe wild, unsubstantiated, most probably lying claims - is not my answer. The quality of the product is a different story, and as somebody who used to wear Creed a lot for more than ten years, I'd be happy to discuss that in the appropriate threads. Here we are talking about marketing and truth-in-advertising.

Neither Erwin, nor any other Creed have ever produced royal warrants for PERFUMES. Surely out of thousands of bottles adorning the boudoirs of endless celebrities of the past, providing some photo, a modicum of evidence, shouldn't be so difficult. Providing warrants, royal or otherwise, regarding socks, underwear, dresses, and pants has nothing to do with having created perfumes as claimed.

Zztop, we are not talking about rappers and such, but about false claims regarding Creed's past. You know just as well as I do that Creed's claims in that regard have been debunked thoroughly and embarrassingly so.

You also claim Creed has not retired its claims. It surely watered them down.

"Enjoy a real-life storybook romance with CREED Fleurissimo, the classic floral fragrance commissioned by a royal prince for his American bride on her wedding day. Fleurissimo was made to complement the royal bouquet she carried down the aisle."

In the propaganda materials from +-1990, Grace Kelly was mentioned by name, not by allusion, and even a photo from her wedding was provided.

I also refer you to this older thread:

http://www.basenotes.net/threads/261...-Creed-bottles

It says many things which bear repeating. They were never rebutted. I can copy and paste them, if needed, but I suppose one can read them in their original place.

How do you know?

BTW - that older thread you posted has old bottles of Creed pictured in it.

How many royal prince's do you know who fit that description? Anyone with a bit of knowledge of history can infer who they are talking about. There may be name rights/endorsement legal matters, especially in the US, on an e-commerce site. In interviews as recently as last year, Fleurissimo's connection was discussed: http://www.cafleurebon.com/rewind-in...-oliver-creed/ In this interview, Olivier Creed reveals another tid-bit; that he was neighbors with and painted with Georges Braque.

You choose not to believe any of the Creed familys' connections, either via perfumes or otherwise. I believe them because I can confirm a few of them through other sources.

cafleurebon.com is a great blog. Interestingly the Creed bashing crowd has ducked out of this thread mighty quickly. I think the case for Creed's historical prestige, however secondary it may be to the perfume itself, is evidenced far more extensively than people think. So far I have yet to see a single Creed basher come up with a single shred of credible evidence to refute, beyond any doubt, Creed's claims.

Addict - I guess shades of truth are acceptable to you, just not "blatant lies." The ideal is not necessary . . . I thought the truth was the truth, and the rest was . . . ADVERTISING.

You know, the day I sniff a Creed that makes me recoil in horror is the day I'll tell the SA that their advertising does not compensate for the product in hand. For every other sniff, be it total love or just abidance, I'll defer to my own common sense to judge whether or not the product is worth owning. In either case, for me personally, the advertising takes a back seat.

If they have they've never actually shown them to anyone. All of the royal warrants are from the century before Henry Creed SA was founded and were won by various Creeds for their excellent tailoring skills. If you look at the legible ones that's what they say.



I've been curious about why people get so hissy about Creed's history (myself included). A few possible answers:
-Perfume consumers already have to wade through a truly unprecedented amount of horse-shit. Want to know what's in your purchase or if it's the same thing you bought last time? Too bad. Adding in a dubious historical element is insult to injury and one usually avoided by other houses.
-It violates consumer protection law (At least in my state). You can't just lie about how old your company is, otherwise I'd start up the oldest Cognac distiller next year and brag about serving Charlemange. (Back off, Olivier, this is my idea).
-It's fun to poke holes in. You can actually track down the historical records and watch the story fall apart. There have been Creed family tailoring businesses but no perfume.
-Because their ludicrous advertising works. Countless starry-eyed newbies wander in here and say "I must smell like Baldwin IV, Leper King of Jerusalem! G.I.T. here I come!". They've never recanted, never said "oops, it turns out we got our first corporate charter in the 60s and a second in the 80s and that Olivier is the first recorded Creed to make a perfume." It would be like Pabst Blue Ribbon starting a software company and using their eponymous 1893 award as proof of their coding prowess.

"Old" as in 1980's, not as in Empress Sissi of Austria old.

An example of how such things are done professionally, without fraudulent claims.

http://www.parfumsgres.com/coll_dietrich.html

The first celebrity to whom Parfums Grès has dedicated its fragrant homage is Marlene Dietrich. The actress and singer ideally embodies feminine elegance coupled with self-assurance and the art of seduction. It is understandable that the American Film Institute acclaimed her as one of the greatest stars in history. There are innumerable photos of Marlene Dietrich in the marvelous robes of Madame Grès.

These pictures, as well as copious reports about Marlene Dietrich and her eccentricities and preferences, served as sources of inspiration for three young French perfumers in their work on the fragrance compositions. They also wanted to capture the chic, by-gone Parisian times and interpret them in a modern way.

No lies. No false claims. No BS.

I have the box of My Passion in front of my eyes. (I bought all three for gifts to friends of female persuasion.)

Parfums Gres Collection
Homage to stars and famous personalities
clothed by Madame Gres.

Use of name and picture of Marlene Dietrich under license of Die Marlene Dietrich Collection GmbH, Munich, and Marlene Inc., New York

Compare this honest sale-pitch with all the unsubstantiated gibberish about Angelique Encens (which used to be a good feminine fragrance, by the way, if you don't mind vanilla) being launched in 1933 (no kidding) and being favored by Marlene Dietrich. No reference anywhere (yes, I am a Dietrich buff and read many books about her in multiple languages) except for Creed propaganda materials.

Whether you like it or not, thats the perfect example of perfume marketing which wants to target a certain core audience, which in this case happens to be Dietrich buffs like yourself. Its just another celebrity marketing schtick.

If you thought Creed 'abusing' you was bad, this is even worse! And they have plans for more 'homages'.

In addition to their perfumes being quite mediocre (personal opinion) they are trying enforce a 'niche' celebrity fad on an unsuspecting audience.

Addict, you have been had.

Doubful. Things weren't that rough in the '80s. Those look more like '60s bottles. No, make it '70s - I'm looking at them again, and it's the labeling that tells it for me. No way to know I guess. Weird how the bottles are the same shape as today's 4 oz Creeds, but there doesn't seem to be any overtly specific scent title. Wonder how they smell.



Yeah, Creed was a tailoring company long before it ever entered the fragrance world. However, I would caution against using Wikipedia as the source for this information - as far as I can tell, Wikipedia is the only site that elaborates on this, and that's a publicly written forum that irritates me to no end because of how rife with factual holes it always is. Images of Creed's royal warrants do illustrate their tailoring. More on that in a sec . . .


This is entirely true. However, as you stated above, the royal warrants are evidence of just how old Creed is, and I'm sure the public hasn't seen all of them. Is the house of Creed old? No doubt about it. How old? Tracing the history, as it appears by Olivier's lineage, it's hundreds of years old.

That said, the mainstream perfume industry is not hundreds of years old. It's a fairly recent market. Perfumes and perfume sales have been around since the dawn of man, but if anyone expects Creed to produce a shelf of 19th Century Creeds, dust-covered and cob-webbed, then they're barking up the wrong tree. In 1760, scents that were commissioned were not offered to the general public. To expect dignitaries to save empty flacons for the museums is like expecting them to save the kerchiefs they dabbed them with - totally unrealistic. While there's virtually nothing offered to the public on Creed's behalf to prove that they created scents for royalty over 200 years ago, the tailoring firm can be proven to exist, and as everyone knows, such firms were likely to offer "toilet waters" to their clientele as an added source of income. Knize is another example of this.




Once again, I fail to see how Addict's argument is relevant. So because Parfums Grès dedicates a scent to a dead actress, the perfume is a product of honest advertising? Let me ask you something - how would the perfumers know what the "chic, by-gone Parisian times" smelled like? (Dietrich was German and spent her youth and early career in Berlin, not Paris - why not try to sell you on Berlin?) Were they there? Nice to see that they can interpret the smoke-smothered silver screen in a modern way. It makes me think of the street I lived on in Prague, which was named after Ms. Dietrich. It smelled of diesel exhaust and dog sh_t. Had they not dedicated this fragrance to Dietrich, would you have had any interest in it?

With that said, I'll grant you that this is verifiable advertising. It is lily clean in its conceptualization. Much more honest in the sense that they're not trying to make you think Ms. Dietrich herself wore this particular fragrance. It also explains why this fragrance isn't nearly as popular as any of the Creeds. Where is the intrigue factor here? The controversy? In the end you liked that this company dedicated something to this actress, and I suppose that came before you actually smelled and liked the fragrance itself. In this regard, between the two houses, My Passion is more niche than anything from Creed. If it conjures up images of early 20th Century Europe for you, kudos.

Agree.

Hehe, I try not to use the wikipedia article as I always assume it's been defaced by one of the warring factions at any given moment :P There are a few threads around where some of us get nerdy and analyze the warrants. You can also search through google's newspaper archives and find Creed advertisements (and Creed & Cumberland, the pre-cursor firm)from the 19th century, which I find pretty cool.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Bc8...0Co%22&f=false

Well, the firm did exist, in multiple forms, but this isn't the same entity and it's not making its cash in the same manner. This company is run by a branch of the same family (I think Olivier is the nephew of the last great tailoring Creed) but it's a new beast. The real historical evidence wouldn't be bottles but the receipts kept by the royal clerks, warrants issued or advertisements boasting your royal clientele. None of that's surfaced for Creed as perfumers or for pre-19th century tailoring. Actually, nothings surfaced relating to Creed as perfumes at all. If Creed wants to claim 6 generations of perfuming genius that's fine but they need to give skeptics some sort of proof. If they don't then they've earned the barbs hurled at them. My great-great grandfather had an award winning brewery patronized by President Taft; can I re-open that brewery to make ginger ale and claim generations of award winning, President-supported ginger ale making? I sure hope so.

Creed does take the lion's share of bashing around here but that may be proportional to the amount of gushing praise. Or to various none-to-subtle Creed marketers that pop-up (that Gecko fellow). Perhaps it's because they make the only claims that can be ripped apart whereas all the other marketing lies (ingredients, composition, etc.) are impossible to attack without a gas chromatograph. Either way, I encourage heaping scorn on companies (almost all of them) who exploit perfume's consumer protection lacuna to turn an art form into a marketing shell game.

Thank you for your concern, Zztop, I can make the difference between the product and the advertising. The Gres perfumes (personal opinion) are in no way more mediocre than the last six Creed creations (except for Windsor I), and QUITE a bit cheaper to boot.

I can also appreciate that Gres, unlike the House Of Charlatans, did not try to sell to me some fairy tale about Marlene Dietrich HAVING WORN those perfumes. They allowed the customers to make up their mind.

On the other hand, customers who confuse tailoring warrants with perfume attributions... let's not even begin speaking about "having been had" . . .

"So because Parfums Grès dedicates a scent to a dead actress, the perfume is a product of honest advertising?"

No, the perfume is a product of honest advertising because they do not claim anything outside the realm of subjective AND of the realm of what can be proven, and therefore they don't try to con me, a la Creed. Try to convince me, lure me, persuade me, that's all fair game. Lying like a lady of ill repute claiming she's a virgin, which is basically Creed's blatant modus operandi... that's outside acceptable marketing tactics, in my view. I understand others differ on that and that's fine.

"(...) they're not trying to make you think Ms. Dietrich herself wore this particular fragrance. It also explains why this fragrance isn't nearly as popular as any of the Creeds."

I don't know whether you're traveling as much to Paris as I do and I think it would be unpolite to guess. The world is though not confined to the US. In Paris, dozens of thousands of Creed bottles can be bought at a hefty discount in MANY pharmacies (I kid you not), while Gres is considered a serious perfume house and can be found in perfume boutiques. It is an unforcedly prestigious house, insofar it does not need to scream and lie about its credentials - they speak for themselves.

PS In what regards both Creed and Gres, I trust my own nose, and my nose alone. I can even accept a charlatans-filled house can offer a good product and I'll use it. I don't appreciate being conned, though. Some wiseman once said: "Use your nose: You've got it for a reason." I forget who he was.

"Had they not dedicated this fragrance to Dietrich, would you have had any interest in it?"

Absolutely. Truly established houses - Guerlain, Caron, Gres, Chanel - do not depend upon some cheap marketing gimmick/name-dropping.

Once again, you and zztop presume distinctly too much.

I was gifting Cabotine de Gres to my ladyfriends and wearing Homme de Gres a lot before Basenotes even existed. I even remember Eau de Gres, which I haven't seen a lot of, during the last years.

My point was not that it is necessary to drop famous names in order to be remarked, but that, if you do drop them, you'd better stick to a decent, factual, unfraudulent sales pitch.

I don't know if you know the history of Parfums Gres, but it has gone bankrupt many times over and today does not exist in its original incarnation and has had many owners which have changed its internal processes and procedures which don't adhere to its founding principles (since you are so big on that).

It is not the ORIGINAL Parfum Gres as you think it is. It is a former shadow of itself in many ways than one.

And I agree with you that we should solely judge fragrances by our nose - and from what I smell, Parfum Gres currently just can't compare to the best of Creed. Even Cabochard, its one big hit, is a just a pale shadow of its former glory. Compared to the growing expansion and clout of the Creed empire, Parfum Gres is just a little whipping boy.

Addict, you are to be commended for calling Creed out on their BS. It's quite clear that they have a big oak marketing table, amongst which Olivier, Erwin, and the other big wigs like Roberto come up with big tall tales of royalty and celebrity endorsements to fool people like you and me. but for not longer, right mate??.

it's quite sad... that a perfumer of such mediocre quality is able to get away with such blatant lies about their history.

An absence of concrete evidence does not a lie make. You may travel to Paris all you want, but in America you're innocent until proven guilty. Creed claims its fragrances have a colorful history. You claim otherwise. Yet you're unable to provide a single rationale for your thinking. Throughout this entire thread, you've failed to produce one single shred of evidence directly contradicting Creed's claims. Yet here at the end you mention trusting your nose. First time you've done that. Suddenly it comes out that you simply don't like how Creeds smell. And you spun your distaste into an attack on their rumor milling.

I dislike about half of the Creeds I've tried. The rest were fair to okay to great. Do I think their marketing strategy is a good one? Yeah. It's pure genius. Controversy around fragrance isn't the easiest thing to gin up. Yet they've managed to do it for the entire company. And controversy is what attracts people, gets them through the door, and into the effort of trying products. Good thing? Bad thing? Good if you're a businessman. Bad if you're someone with high moral standards.


This stuff about seeing Creeds in Europe on discount in pharmacies - utter nonsense. I've been to Czech Republic, France, Italy, Austria, England, Wales, Ireland (lived in Ireland and Czech Republic for a combined total of 3 yrs) . . . Creeds have rarely caught my eye, and when they have, they're behind the counter, behind glass, and the only thing I can touch is the tester. And it isn't a discount markdown tester. Say what you will, but the company isn't big enough for its perfumes to show up at Tesco.

Nice try though.