The perfumery world can be crazily snobby: if it’s not niche, hipster, expensive or from a major fashion house, it’s basically sneered at like pound-shop air freshener. Well we love an underdog here at GLAMOUR HQ and we think affordable or celebrity perfume can be just as beautiful, interesting, valid and cool.
So please step forward Banana Republic, and proudly accept your trophy as The Perfect Example of Excellent Inexpensive Perfumery.
Even though their clothing line is RIP, we promise these fragrances are nowhere as bland as those chinos. In fact, the brand new Icon Fragrance Collection is a super strong launch for so many reasons: there are eight scents to choose from, and each one is made by a skilled perfumer ‘nose’ trained at MANE (a perfumery school and ingredients hub in Paris, whose head perfumers have created fragrances in the past for Jo Malone London, Yves Saint Laurent, Lancome and Jimmy Choo). This means that quality and blending techniques are a priority, and for this project the cost-reducing initiatives have been focused on chic simple packaging, no superstar faces and minimal marketing.
But what we love most of all are the smells and the little stories behind each one. Rather than go down the cliché category routes of sweet floral, detergent citrus and heavy spicebomb these are way more curious, complex and elegant, and the whole collection feels like love letter to the Banana Republic brand. Five of the scents are inspired by the decades that the fashion label has been around for, and three are throwback feel-good memories that the perfumers have captured and bottled.
Here’s a speedy low-down on all of them:
78 Vintage Green: inspired by the year BR launched, it’s all about freedom of expression and the mad Safari-themed décor of the first stores. So think lush jungle greens, warm sandy roots and the refreshing wellness vibe of green tea.
83 Leather Reserve: worn-in eighties bad-boy leather jackets and soft black t-shirts, with a sexy tobacco smokiness.
90 Pure White: hazy, fluid, pan-sexual… like a steamy cloud of gentle, soft musk and lavender coating your just-showered naked skin.
06 Black Platinum: This smells of noughties money. Fresh, metallic, crisp-AF money. It’s skyscraper sleekness bottled, with its glassy pings of pepper and CEO-corner-office wood-polish.
17 Oud Mosaic: By 2017, Banana had spread their stores to 32 countries all over the world, from Puerto Rico to Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. This ‘mosaic’ is a tribute to their international customers via rich Turkish rose, sticky-sweet Asian plum and blossoms, plus roasted spices from the Middle East.
Linen Vetiver: Like a flower stall at 6am, all cold-wet stalks, sparkling leaves and dewy flower buds. It smells like it might disappear instantly but it really doesn’t. Like the fragrance equivalent to a tinted moisturiser, it’s there but not too there and melts into your skin rather than sits on top.
Cypress Cedar: Bear with me: this was inspired by the wood shavings that old-fashioned butcher shops scattered on their floors to absorb smells. It is ski-lodge mountain-fresh, as if you’re breathing in a lungful of super posh vapo-rub that mellows into soft woodland moss.
Neroli Woods: The perfumer who made this scent tried to capture his childhood memory of travelling to the South of France and eating yoghurt cake flavoured with orange blossom water. He nailed it: you can almost taste the raw batter licked off the side of a glass bowl, the sweet floral essence and the trail of warm, oven-baked patisserie snaking out into the garden like a silent bell to announce tea time.
Before you head off to smell them for yourself, grab a packet of tissues or a pad of Post-It Notes. These double-up as excellent blotters as there might not be some on the shelves.
Icon Fragrance collection, from £20 for 15ml, Banana Republic
