“The details give me the greatest pleasure,” Narciso Rodriguez says, whether he’s designing a frock or a fragrance. And for the latest iteration of his first scent, For Her Eau de Parfum Intense, he chose to amp up the sensuality in a modern way. But it turns out what it means to be sexy now is hard to capture in a bottle. “We did different things, tried different things, and then I said to Sonia (Constant, his longtime perfumer and collaborator), put on your leather Narciso dress.”
The piece, which Rodriguez lovingly recalls as “more brown than black” and something “she looks amazing in,” served as the embodiment of a powerful woman, confident and not afraid to take charge. “I said, turn up the volume and make it smell like what you look like in that dress,” he laughs.
The result: an in-your-face aroma lush with peach and heady white flowers that “captures the trail” of the brand’s trademark musc (a synthetic musk) mingling with vetiver and a hint of vanilla. Constant turned to technology to fine-tune the formula, using AI to replicate the composition of the musc in the original, tying it to Intense and thus emphasizing Rodriguez’s singular vision.
Because much like the designer’s perfectly bias-cut gowns that hug the body, or the fit-enhancing piping on a dress that took forever to perfect, it’s the nuances of this evolved scent that make all the difference. “It was about amplifying the sensuality in a way that wasn’t overt or loud,” Rodriguez says. “It was important to keep it elegant. Always keeping the beauty and the grace.”
Narciso Rodriguez For Her Eau de Parfum Intense, $160 for 100ml, macys.com
