Launching The Past

I think excitement is always made more electric when it carries a crackle of nostalgia, like the anticipation of meeting up with a dear friend you haven’t seen for over a decade. It’s for this reason that I’m especially looking forward to Friday’s London launch of Andy Tauer’s new fragrance, Orange Star, because perfume launches are events I strongly associate with my childhood.

I should point out that I was never fortunate enough to attend any myself, but I did get to hear about many of them from my mum. She’s worked in perfume retail in the Middle East for quite some time, and back in the 80s, when I was still young and fragrance houses still spent ridiculous amounts on parties, she was invited to several high-profile extravaganzas, which she’d then describe to me in mouth-watering detail. There was the launch for Calvin Klein’s Escape which featured a mini-play wherein a man on horseback rescued a damsel in distress and then sailed off into the Gulf with her on a tiny raft. There was the party for Lacroix’s (much-maligned) C’est La Vie, at which the man himself signed my mum’s Spanish fan. And I’m fairly certain there was a funny story surrounding the launch of Dior’s Dune at which a synchronised swimming presentation ended in rather comical fashion. I listened to all these tales, utterly rapt, and totally unaware that decades later, perfume would still hold an important place in my life.