I reject the concept of niche - Page 2

I wear Creed clothes.

This. It's not very helpful to reject "the concept of niche" unless you explain which concept of niche you're talking about. We all seem to have different ones.

Now, hedonist, I'm interested to know about yours - what creates that distinction between those MH perfumes, and why is one niche to you and the other not?

We could say there is no such thing as plants and animals, but instead just organic multi-cellular beings. But they still could be categorized into their individual components.

There are enough differences between designer and niche to make a difference.

The two big ones:
1. Price
2. Accessibility

I think we're thinking along very similar lines. It seems like the original poster is saying something more like "I don't like the word niche". Which I understand and even kind of agree with. But "niche" is just a word, and however we choose to define it, the truth is that there exists such a thing in the world as fragrance houses that just make fragrances. There also exist expensive fragrances. There also exist fragrances that are hard to find. Bottom line- the concept behind niche exists, regardless of how one chooses to define it. There are examples of unbelievably brilliant philosophers who end up making irrelevant arguments by confusing syntax with the core of an argument.

^^^And I apologize for the pretentiousness of that!

+1 ... My definition of "niche" is a fragrance that is not mainstream (possibly/probably due to its high price tag) and the high quality ingredients used. For example, I consider Chanel Sycomore and the Tom Ford Private Blends niche.

This, together with Brian Chambers' definitions.

Very often, I see posts asking for recommendations, and posters asking for recommendations to remain within designer scents (and within certain budgets). Well, there may be some sort of personal preference there, but generally, I get the idea that such requests are borne from the ability (or lack thereof) to sample and buy niche fragrances. Very often, in many places, the only fragrances that are available are the designer ones, from houses that have a wide reach in terms of distribution channels.

Also, once a perfumista has sampled enough designers (i.e. houses that are easily accessed, say in departmental stores and mainstream perfume stores like Sephora), he may be ready and itching to try those non-designers. Shops like Les Scenteurs and Luckyscent carry only niche (or mostly only niche, I am not too sure, correct me if I am wrong here) lines. In reality, there is indeed a difference between designer and niche, and that is why people continue to use them, even with differing definitions and their implications/assumptions.

Is there a concept to reject? It's a word that has a meaning and can be applied to the perfume industry. 'Happiness' is a word and a concept - the meaning of which can be argued. I prefer 'niche' fragrances nowadays as I feel that more thought, feeling and expertise has been used in the creation -- I mean, the fragrances will be their only source of income. That doesn't mean to say that all designer fragrances are inherently bad though, but these Houses' existence don't depend on them.

Essentially, you are arguing that my previous arguments were mainly about semantics.

Well, everything is about semantics, so I can't deny that.

But there is a consequential difference between niche and designer - not just a verbal one.

Not saying that niche is necessarily better; that is up to personal taste.

This whole discussion amuses me.

There is no denying that wine exists - some years are of exceptional quality - and that certain bottles are so rare that they are collected and not drunk. So this is a category, except that it has not found a name, like "niche". Those wines are only affordable for the wealthy.

Among niche fragrances, there may be - in an analogy to wine - good years and mediocre years.

Is the wine collector advertising to the world, that he has a large collection ?

Not as much as the niche wearer, or the noobee who asks "please recommend to me my first niche". As if wearing a certain fragrance lumps the humble person among those (like royalty) for whom the Creed fragrances have been created (really??) and which aura is bestowed upon the wearer.

I imagine that the Original Poster feels a bit rebellious and rejects the concept of one fragrance being better than others just by the House and its royal reputation (Creed, Clive Christian) outright.

Please fill us in, OP, WHY do you reject the whole concept outright ??

I only partially agree Ursula. Yes, TODAY, there is more of a chance to find "good fragrances" among the niche products (no doubts) but it's not always been like that. When designers used to be "creative" and "innovative" they delivered outstanding compositions (most of them are still avialable). Comme Des Garcons, which is a designer by definition, still does pretty nice and artsy stuff. On the other hand if you take, let's say, Gucci, you'll probably have some objections. Yes, they're currently releasing forgettable stuff but this is due to the process of massification we're experiencing from the last decade or so. When Tom Ford was the director, Gucci was pretty darn good (both clothes and perfumes). Then Frida took over and massified the brand with uninspired monogrammed purses and fake-retro stuff. The style of their latest fragrances reflects this direction...

My point is: the huge amount of sport fragrances and flankers released by most of the aforementioned houses have nothing to do with the fact they are Designer Brands but it just reflects the increasing need of capitalization. Massify a part of your brand to sustain the other. That is why, most of designers started an "exclusive" line on a parallel level. To keep on satisfying those customers who used to refer to Cartier/Hermes/Dior/Chanel as exclusive and high-end brands.

I don't see much differencies between Mona Di Orio and Dior La Collection Couturier Parfumeur or between Les Heures de Cartier and, let's say, L'Artisan Parfumeur, if you know what I mean...

Bottomline: my idea of stop dividing fragrances between niche and designers had obviously a provocative facet. I'm kinda "annoyed" (sorry the lack of a better word) by all kind of extremists, including the "niche only/designers only" perfumistos.

I'm not sure if you interpreted what I said the way I meant it to come across. I was completely agreeing with you, in fact what you said about a "consequential" difference is the same thing as me highlighting the difference between the semantic and the concept. We're on the same page

When my Father-in-law was living, he would never spend more than about $8 on a shirt from JCPenny's. He just about had a heart attack when he realized that my husband sometimes bought Ralph Lauren. He absolutely couldn't tell the difference.

Edit (He was 94 when he died- having lived through the depression. Plus I should say-He refused to admit there was a difference.)

I agree with this.

"Niche" might be a useful term in some situations but it is so rubbery in fragrances that I don't think you can come up with a tight, functional definition. Are Tom Ford and Comme des Garcons niche or designer? What about Acqua di Parma, now part of the notorious LVMH conglomerate. More gray than black-and-white here. (I have proposed a more extensive classification system on another thread to tackle this problem.)

One thing I have noticed is that many niche houses produce far more fragrances that the typical corporate design house. My guess is that the cost of coming up with a new fragrance formula is much less than the cost of the high-end marketing campaigns the big houses use to introduce and promote a new fragrance. Thus large houses probably test a lot of things but actually release only a small percentage of them. Small houses that do not advertise much and rely much more on word-of-mouth to sell their products seem to compensate by cranking out lots and lots of variations on a theme (Montale is probably the most obvious example) or try to create their own versions of virtually every fragrance type. What this seems to mean is that niche houses tend to produce a few truly original, high quality, and outstanding efforts and a lot of half-baked things no better than the average designer fragrance and which never become very well known or much circulated.

But this is sad, isn't it? If the average 'designer' house already releases so few scents (after all that focus-grouping and whatnot), it means the chance of getting a good designer scent is low. And if 'niche' houses' many products are equivalent to the average designer fragrance, that means there are more great fragrances from niche houses. And that is even assuming that most products of a niche house are average. Serge Lutens, Frederic Malle, and L'Artisan, for example, have many good or great fragrances! There are few duds (of course, YMMV). And just as there are many rather weak niche houses, there are also many, many weak designer houses.

I agree with alfarom's notion of massification, or rather, catering to the lowest denominator. 'Niche' houses do not bother with such an approach, and I am thankful.

I could not agree with your more. Niche/designer distinctions are not about fragrances. There is no such thing as a "niche fragrance" except as shorthand for "fragrance from a niche house." The terms distinguish business models only--not juice.

I would just urge people to stop short of saying, "I don't care about the business model." I think it's not practical to do so. Knowing the businesses behind the juice helps us to:

- Know where to look for new scents that are similar to ones we liked in the past
- Know how to buy something (Sephora? LuckyScent? A stall in the Khan-el-Khalili?)
- Know what stores to browse in when we don't know exactly what we want
- Know how concerned we should be that something we like today won't be available tomorrow
- Spend our money with companies and people whose practices we support (if we care)

I think an excellent parallel is probably the long lost indie record store. I grew up listening to indie music and there was nothing more fun than spending hours in an indie record store listening to random stuff that you'd never heard before. It didn't mean there weren't some great bands on major labels that we would purchase elsewhere; and there was plenty of garbage masquerading as music in the indie record store. But the designator "indie" served us a clue about what we might experience in that store, and it was a useful one that was not so much about the music itself as about the way we discovered it.

I wholeheartedly agree with the highlighted text. Like I said early on (yesterday - post #9), we need a road map and use our own GPS.

Exactly. Having myself run an indie record lablel/store/distributor specialized in avant-garde and experimental music of any genre for 18 years in the past, my approach to other arts is very similar to the one I had/have with music. You can get the maximum satisfaction from the latest, let's say, Constellation/Kranky band but after years of exploring new music there's no way to hide from the biggest "serious" bands/singers of the past such as Kraftwerk, Can, Neu, Funkadelic, The Who and so on....You NEED to know where you come from to know where you are going now...

The effective use of generalizations comes with the responsibility of understanding their limitations.

There are also exceptions to every rule. Not all cheap fragrances are inferior but the good ones at that level are few.

I can't really claim the percentages as fact as I don't try the niche fragrances that get bad reviews. But a lot of niche fragrances do seem to get bad reviews while some of them are truly outstanding (these I do try). On the other hand, a design house like Chanel produces relatively few fragrances, all of which I have found to be consistently of very high quality, even though some are definitely not to my taste. And the best Chanels are as fine as anything on the market. So I guess the bottom line for me is that there are no easy short-cuts to pre-determining quality. You have to find out for yourself.

Exactly. Number one limitation of a generalization: there are always exceptions.

Where does a generalization come in handy? Say a friend of mine asks for a recommendation of where to shop for a new scent, and I know her budget is $30-$50. Isn't it useful for me to know that in general designer brands have a much better track record of delivering good quality in that price range? Juice-to-juice, sure we can find equally good things in the niche category (albeit probably at a higher price-point). It's not JUST about following our noses. Designer/niche generalizations help us navigate these other aspects of fraggery. Based on what I know of niche and based on what I know of designer, I'd send her to Sephora to find a designer scent.

This post was composed while wearing Dior Leather Oud.

I disagree with 1: some niche fragrances are relatively reasonable in price and in other cases they are very comparable. Accessibility is also relative. I'm finding Creeds, for example, easier to locate in retail stores than some of the older, more esoteric designer fragrances, which you have to dig up on line. I think there is more and more overlap because design houses are launching "niche-like" lines and niche fragrances are trying to be more mainstream and are sold in department stores.

I would not say, either, that a "business model" approach to developing fragrances necessarily produces inferior fragrances. In fact, I think a good business model approach really should produce superior fragrances. Tom Ford's efforts at YSL and Gucci would seem to be an example. And if a niche house actually stays in business, there has to be a good business model in there somewhere.

It is a mistake to think that marketing only means "mass-market." In fact, the entire wearable fragrance industry is a "niche" relative to the mass economy.

But would you say, in the example I used above where a friend asks for a recommendation and she can only spend $50, that you would not be willing to make a generalization about designer brands being able to deliver at a lower cost to help her out? Should I send her to ScentBar and say, maybe you'll stumble upon a $30 bottle of Timbuktu? These generalizations have extremely limited usefulness. They are broad-stroke guiedelines. I agree with everything you just typed (esp. the interesting point that the characteristics of fragrances produced in different models is always evolving). I don't consider myself devoted to niche or designer in any way at all. I just don't believe that declarations that the distinction is worthless are worthwhile.

In fact, I'll go a little further and say I enjoy watching how the different models are changing (niche becoming more accessible and mainstream and some designer lines adopting the values of less-constrained niche houses). But how could I even follow along if I didn't have some way to say "this is one type of business" and "this is another type of business"?

If you are talking about sending your friend to Sephora, I would have a problem, because they really don't have a lot to offer in the below $50 range (I stop by Sephora almost every week). Below $50 retail in the U.S., you are really talking about drug store/Target shopping and mass-market brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy, and Coty. I would be more inclined to send her to Amazon with a few good names (like Caron and Guerlain) that produce true classics at a reasonable price or tell her to hang out at Perfumania looking for a fine name on sale. I haven't done a systematic survey, but it seems to me that a lot of both niche and current designer fragrances bunch up in the $70-$150 range. The few niche brands that charge hilarious prices (Malle, Creed, Killian) tend to distort perceptions.

This is where you get into; Value for your money.

Can you really buy classics on Amazon for very little money?

Sorry, I got away from the OP's original statement. I propose that he has a Utopian view as there are most certainly both, niche & non-niche (designer & mainstream) out there.

For instance, I had never even heard of Creed until I went to Kansas City and saw it first at Saks 5th Ave, then at Halls. (Big deal!). It wasn't in shops here in Nebraska and they don't advertise.

That's good. This way you can stick to the proletarian fragrances, save money, get greater longevity, get a lot more compliments and positive comments, and with the added benefit of actually smelling masculine too.
Cheers,
Renato