Vintage 1977 Perfume Ads
I was leafing through some old Vogues at Mrs. Huizenga’s a couple of months ago and took some snaps of various ads. I rediscovered them on the weekend when I was downsizing my iPhoto library. Unlike the 1980s advertisements I posted about last year, the ’70s were a golden age for fragrance visuals. I still associate the image of Catherine Deneuve (above) with Chanel No. 5.
These ads are from 1977. Karl Lagerfeld had not yet joined Chanel but was making waves at Chloé, where he launched that white floral fragrance in 1975 (the designer was very involved in the development and probably the art direction for this ad).
The 1970s saw a funny intersection between art and commerce. Fashion houses started to discover the financial potential of licensing their names for fragrances, but they were also keen to collaborate with artists and muses. One of the best examples is the Elsa Peretti-designed bottle for Halston. In this ad, the form of the flacon is the star!
Not all the ads shown here are great. This promo for Pierre Cardin’s wood scent Cardin is a totally Harlequin Romance cover cheese-fest.