Vivre Magazine.com

Karl Lagerfeld - Fragrance Trio "Kapsule"

Karl Lagerfeld is throwing an equal-opportunity bash with the launch of his fragrance trio, Kapsule. The unisex scents, in bottles inspired by the designer’s love of geometry, will be launched at the end of October in France and will hit Germany, travel retail and the U.S. in November. Industry sources estimate Kapsule will generate $48 million in retail sales globally in its first seven months on counter.
The designer created the trio of scents for men and women with his fragrance licensee Coty Inc.

“I love the world of perfumes,” Lagerfeld said Thursday. “For me, the world of fashion doesn’t exist without it.”

The designer, a longtime fragrance aficionado, calls scent “a composition. It’s like music for the nose.” Indeed, Lagerfeld spritzes different scents on his curtains, slipcovers, plus everything he wears. And he is known to douse each bath with a full bottle of fragranced bath oil. Lagerfeld even concocts his own scents with existing fragrances. “I do strange mixes,” he said, adding, “There is no gender in perfumes anymore.”

Notes he likes best include fresh bread, vanilla, woods and spices. “I don’t like heavy, flowery things,” he continued. “I think there are never enough fragrances — they are so much fun to play with.”

Does this guy ever rest? He has a finger in a trillion pies. Lagerfeld explained the “k” in Kapsule comes from his first name. The advertising visual for Kapsule, which comes primarily as a single page, features Lagerfeld (who took the photograph) and his new fragrances.

“They wanted me in it; I never proposed myself,” said Lagerfeld of the Coty executives.

The scents will be launched first at the end of October in France, with exclusives at Colette and Parfumeries Marionnaud. Then, in November, they are to be introduced in Germany and other German-speaking countries, travel retail, European export, and the U.S., where Kapsule is to be carried exclusively in Neiman Marcus through March. Its debut in Australia is set for spring and China is to get the collection by September 2009 at the latest.