Lady LUX

Fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg has captured the essence of her life in a bottle. Her latest perfume, “Diane,” her first scent in eight years, will be unveiled during a star-studded boat cruise on the Hudson River on June 5, reported WWD.

“Everything I saw and everything I do is all about the same thing: Be the woman you want to be. It’s all about empowering women,” von Furstenberg said to WWD of her life’s influence on the perfume.

Von Furstenberg believes that people today no longer value perfume as they once did.

“People (have forgotten) about the power of perfume and the magic of perfume. Perfume has been used since antiquity to seduce,” she maintained.

“It is about emotion; it is memory and addiction,” she added. With her new fragrance, von Furstenberg aims to return this sense of nostalgia to perfume.

Chantal Roos and her Paris-based development company, Crea, produced the scent in conjunction with von Furstenberg, who reports she was excited to collaborate with Roos, an award-winning fragrance creator with whom von Furstenberg has longed to create a perfume.

The bottle, Roos said, is fashioned with the interlocking golden rings of a Sutra bracelet to look “seductive, glamorous and mysterious.”

Crafted by Aurelien Guichard of Givaudan, the fragrance’s opening notes are floral—frangipani and violet leaves—with base notes of patchouli, myrrh and musk. Roos reveals that the mixture of sun and shadow was intended to suggest femininity.

Customers will be able to choose between both 1.7-oz. and 3.4-oz. eau de parfum and eau de toilette options, which range in price from $65 to $110.

This perfume could be a launching pad for further efforts. Roos has already begun work on new projects, and another perfume is on the agenda for Lauder, as is the possible introduction of a line of makeup and skin care.

“Diane” will be distributed in around 1,000 high-end retail locations across the globe, with hopes of sales reaching $30 million to $40 million in the first year alone.

The initial set of products will be shipped on Sept. 1, a release highly anticipated by a bombardment of advertising and selling incentives, including salespeople contests, a blogger campaign, personal appearances by von Furstenberg and viral publicity on the Web.

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