What’s your Versace Scent Style (at Sephora)?

What’s your Versace Scent Style?

When it comes picking a fragrance, sometimes the best approach is to look in your closet.  What fashions do you feel good wearing? What colours and prints make you feel confident and happy? Perfumers will often use designer fashion collections as inspiration when selecting specific notes and ingredients for a scent. Donatella Versace is a fantastic example as her catwalk ready-to-wear collections closely reflect the spirit and mood of her fragrances for her and  him.

“Versace stands for beauty, sex and glamour,” explained Donatella to GQ magazine.
Gianni was a genius. If Gianni wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be here today. He broke barriers. Gianni wasn’t afraid. I mean, he was showing sex. At that time, some people it was vulgar, that was the world given to him, but, you know, women love what Gianni did, not because they showed skin, but because he empowered women. He told them not to be afraid of sexuality.”

She says every fragrance she creates has a dose of glamour in it.

We’ve paired Versace fragrances with beauty retailer Sephora as it has added a little glamour to the fragrance shopping experience. First launched in Paris in August 1970, it was acquired by Dominique Mandonnaud in 1993 who is credited with designing the concept of a store where customers were encouraged to test products before purchasing. This concept hit new highs in 1997 with the unveiling of the Sephora flagship store in Champs Élysées, an eye-popping beauty mecca with interactive installations, makeup tables and an event stage. The first store in Canada debuted in 2004 in Toronto and was an overnight success. Canada was the first country in the world where three generations of customer shopped at Sephora at the same time. There are now 81 locations in this country.

The House of Versace

Italian luxury fashion company Versace was founded in 1978 by Gianni Versace and immediately came to fame for its flashy prints, sleek silhouettes and bright colours that conveyed a jet-set lifestyle. He chose the medusa as the company logo because he grew up in Calabria, in the ancient Magna Grecia (Greater Greece). His father was a historian who studied ancient Greece and would discuss his discoveries at the dining table each evening. In 1981, Versace unveiled its first ever fragrance, Gianni Versace for Women.

Gianni’s younger sister Donatella first joined the company as a stylist but quickly demonstrated a brilliance for marketing and advertising. She’s the brainchild behind the supermodel phenomenon – paying top dollar to get the world’s most famous models to all walk the Versace catwalk during Milan Fashion Week. After the devastating death of Gianni in 1997, she took over as creative director for the company, a post she retains today. Versace remains a favourite brand of musicians, actors and pop stars around the globe including: Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and K-Pop star Stray Kids.

We’ve delved into the Versace fashion archives to find fashions that best illustrate the brand’s most popular fragrances.

Fashion Style: Purple

If you find purple is a favourite shade in your closet, you may want to try Dylan Purple. “I’d paint everything purple if I could,” says Donatella. “It’s my favourite colour.” The colour purple is often associated with royalty, nobility, power and ambition. It represents creativity, wisdom, grandeur, wealth and magic.

The Scent: Versace Dylan Purple

Fragrance Description: Versace Dylan Purple is a modern fruity-floral scent for her that blends juicy citrus notes with fragrant freesia and smooth woods. It’s stylish and sexy.

Made in Italy.

Scent Style: a modern fruity-floral fragrance for her

Key ingredients: pear, bitter orange, bergamot, mahonia (a small evergreen shrub with long spikes of yellow-green blooms), pomarose (a fruity-rose accord), freesia, Belambra tree, Virginia cedar

Fashion Style: Denim Blue

For more than a century, denim has remained a mainstay in the daily wardrobes of women and men around the world. The fabric was originally used for workers in mines and factories due to its durability. It has since been elevated to high fashion through luxe denim collections and ready-to-wear outfits. Blue represents serenity, inspiration and stability.

The Scent: Versace Pour Femme Dylan Blue

Fragrance Description: Perfumer Calice Becker artfully blends fresh fruity notes of black currant sorbet, tart Granny Smith apple and ice infusion of peach with a summer bouquet of flowers including forget-me-not, Eglantine rose, petalia, jasmine and rosyfolia. This swirl of fruity-floral notes is wrapped in white smooth woods, musk and patchouli.

Made in Italy.

Scent Style: a fresh fruity-floral-woody scent for her

Key ingredients: blackcurrant sorbet, Granny Smith apple, clover, forget-me-not, Shisolia, Eglantine rose, petalia, rosyfolia, jasmine, ice infusion of peach, patchouli, styrax, white smooth woods, musk

Scent fact: “Dylan Blue pour femme is my tribute to femininity. So I created a strong, sensuous yet refined fragrance for a woman who knows her own power,” says Donatella Versace.

Fashion Style: Glamorous Street Style

When it comes to creating men’s fashion collections, Donatella has changed her approach in recent years with a simple formula: combine streetwear looks with glamour and sex appeal. She’ll take an iconic item like a bomber jacket and then cut it out of a premium silk or high-grade wool, adding gold accents and detailing. She gives a well-loved favourite a fresh twist each season.  You’ll find this approach in Eros Eau de Parfum, a fresh citrus-woody fragrance that is reimagined with a candied apple note. The contrast between sweet and tart gives the scent a modern, uplifting facet.

The Scent: Versace Eros Eau de Parfum

Fragrance Description: Versace Eros Eau de Parfum is a fresh citrus-woody scent for him. Think of the new Eros Eau de Parfum as a deeper and fresher interpretation of the award-winning citrus woody-spicy scent for him. The Italian lemon notes are richer and the green apple, crisper. These blend beautifully with the tonka adding a comforting warmth. Sophisticated and clean.

Made in Italy.

Scent Style: fresh, clean woody scent for him

Key ingredients: Italian lemon, mint oil, candied apple, geranium flower, tonka, ambroxan, vanilla, cedar

Fashion Style: A Pop of Pink

Fashion designers use pink to add joy, character and fun to a fashion collection. The colour pink symbolizes love, romance, compassion and optimism. You’ll often hear people say they are ‘tickled pink’ when happy. The hue evokes feelings of comfort, hope and warmth.  It’s this sentiment that inspired Donatella to create Bright Crystal in 2006. It remains a top 10 scent around the world today – popular with women of all ages and styles.

The Scent: Versace Bright Crystal

Fragrance Description: Master perfumer Alberto Morillas skillfully blends juicy pomegranate and refreshing yuzu citrus with delicate floral notes of magnolia, peony and lotus to beautiful effect. He then adds amber and smooth mahogany to warm the scent and give it a chic and elegant dry down. This light floral scent is ideal for daytime wear.

Made in Italy. Award-winning scent.

Scent Style: fresh & light fruity-floral for her

Key ingredients: pomegranate, yuzu (Japanese citrus fruit), iced accord, magnolia, lotus, vegetal amber, peony, musk, mahogany

Scent fact: This fragrance features notes from her favourite flowers.

Fashion Style: A Great Tailored Suit

When it comes to men’s suits, the finest quality are designed and produced in Italy. It begins with fabric producers who spin ultra-light wools that are almost weightless yet still stand up to travel and daily wear. Add in tailors and craftspeople who practice cutting and sewing techniques passed down from generation-to-generation and you have clothing that is truly special. Versace’s men’s suits use these exquisite fabrics and fine tailoring with updated silhouettes that flatter a man’s body. We like to recommend a refined, elegant fragrance such as Versace Pour Homme when wearing a beautiful suit.

The Scent: Versace Pour Homme

Fragrance Description: This is an aromatic-fougure fragrance for men that is woody and fresh. Master perfumer Alberto Morillas blends a cocktail of juicy Italian citrus –  Italian lemon, neroli, bergamot – with clary sage, Rose de Mai, clary sage, geranium, musk and amber. But it is the smooth cedar that brings it all together into a refined masculine scent.

Made in Italy.

Scent Style: aromatic-fougere for him

Key ingredients: lemon, neroli, bergamot, rose de mai, hyacinth, clary sage, cedar, geranium, tonka bean, musk, amber

Scent fact: Citrus grown in the south of Italy is considered some of the best quality in the world. Perfumers extract the crisp fresh scent from the rinds.

Versace fragrances are available at Sephora stores and online at Sephora.ca

---

More Scent Lodge Stories You Might Enjoy