An Industry Roundtable on Fragrance Conducted Anonymously by some of the Key Figures in the Field

MODERATOR: I want to thank you all for coming.

PERFUME BLOGGER: Before we start, I'd like to tell everyone how important I am.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: I'd like to do that too.

PERFUME BLOGGER: I'd like it to be on record that I was important first.

MODERATOR: Duly noted. You're both important. Maybe we should move on. We're gathered here today because I thought that maybe one of you--maybe all of you--might have something insightful to say about the state of modern fragrance-

INDUSTRY EXPERT: Bottles.

MODERATOR: Beg your pardon?

INDUSTRY EXPERT: The problem with the industry has to do with bottles.

MODERATOR: Perfume bottles?

INDUSTRY EXPERT: The best kind of bottles are in the shape of an object. Fruits, for example. Also vegetables.

MODERATOR: Isn't a bottle itself an object?

PERFUMER: I wonder if the problem might have something to do with lack of imagination.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: Yes. Precisely. For instance, a bottle in the shape of an apple is just sort of an average bottle. It isn't anything. It's nothing. You put perfume in a bottle shaped like an apple and a customer sees such a thing and she says, fine, an apple, big deal. So what. Blah blah blah. Now. Turn this on its head. Follow me here. A bottle...in the shape of...an apple...which is...being dreamed by a square! This. Is. The. Solution.

PERFUME BLOGGER: I disagree. The bottles aren't the problem. I meet with a lot of important people--a lot of other important people, who are not necessarily more important than I am but who are equally important--other people who recognize my importance--and these other important people, when they see me, at say a party or an industry function, they say things like, oh hello, we were wondering if anyone as important as we are would be here. And it's as if they're psychic, because of course I was thinking the same thing. We're like mirrors, me and other important people; important mirrors reflecting important things-

INDUSTRY EXPERT: Is there a point here?

PERFUME BLOGGER: Yes. Invariably we start talking about the state of the industry. Important people confide in me, and we discuss what's happening in the industry. I have to tell you, it's almost like I am the industry. We have never once discussed bottles. Never has the subject turned to apples.

AROMA CHEMICAL REP: I think Ambroxan is really the wave of the future. It's the latest thing. Perfumes should be all Ambroxan all the time. Ambroxan is to perfume what Julia Roberts is to Pretty Woman.

PERFUME BLOGGER: I've met Julia Roberts.

AROMA CHEMICAL REP: Ambroxan has star power and human interest. When someone sees a Julia Roberts movie she wants Julia Roberts to be in every second of the film. Julia Roberts leaves the frame and the viewer aches with separation anxiety. Where is Julia? When will she be back? Who are these other people littering up the screen?

PERFUME BLOGGER: They're unimportant.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: I believe we're moving away from the latest thing. The biggest craze is whatever is very Now. The latest thing has the word late in it, for one thing, which is a bad association for a lot of people. The polls show that the latest thing is considered very old fashioned. The safest thing, the most prudent thing, is now. It's all about now. Tomorrow is about now. Yesterday was now.

PERFUMER: I don't know. I still think the problem is lack of imagination.

MODERATOR: What would you say the consumer wants?

PERFUMER: The consumer wants magic.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: What could be more magic than a square disguised as an apple?

PERFUMER: The consumer wants a relationship. To be heard. To remember. To dwell.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: I disagree. The consumer does not want to dwell. The consumer wants to move on.

PERFUMER: People the consumer loved are in the past. Perfume reunites them.

PERFUME BLOGGER: I think the consumer wants to be involved with important people.

PERFUMER: Fantasy is full of important people. People the consumer remembers are important, too. Her mother and father. The woman down the street who was kind to her as a child.

AROMA CHEMICAL REP: Ambroxan is the woman down the street.

PERFUME BLOGER: The future is in a brief which captures the smell of the ink on the magazine that woman down the street had in her hand.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: The future is now.

PERFUMER: Perhaps the consumer wants the past.

PERFUME BLOGGER: We can yank them along. I can write a review of a perfume made on such a brief which will make us all happy. I will make sure the consumer knows what's important.

MODERATOR: The ink, or the magazine?

PERFUMER: I'm not sure the consumer remembers the woman's magazine.

PERFUMER BLOGGER: That's the brilliance of it. The magazine never existed. Leave that to me. I will show the consumer what she wants to remember. I will implant the memory. I will superimpose it over the image of that woman. A big blotch of ink across her face.

AROMA CHEMICAL REP: Ambroxan!

INDUSTRY EXPERT: Statistics show that the consumer wants sort of naked women writhing around on couches and in cars. It used to be bedrooms. That was the latest thing. Couches are now. The consumer would like to be naked. And she would like her nipples to be somewhat erect. I think we'll be seeing more erect nipples. She would also like long blonde hair, for a fruity floral. For an oriental she would like to be naked with brown hair. She can have brown skin but that gets a little tricky. It's best to stick with white skin. The people with colored skin can simply be made to identify. They will simply imagine that they too are that white woman with erect nipples. Also, the consumer likes pink pepper. And Iris. And fig. I will tell you right now that the first company to come up with a naked white lady with erect nipples writhing around on a couch upholstered with figs is sitting on a gold mine.

AROMA CHEMICALS REP: Ambroxan smells like a naked lady on a couch. It smells like fig and pink pepper, too. Our research indicates that Ambroxan tautens the nipples.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: If you look at the fifties, when the fruity floral emerged, you will see that naked women have always been very important to the fragrance consumer. Erect nipples are a fairly recent development.

PERFUME BLOGGER: You're wrong. You are wrong, totally and completely, about the fruity floral.

INDUSTRY EXPERT: Please leave the details to me. I think I know the industry. As well as the consumer.

PERFUME BLOGGER: I didn't say you were unimportant. I merely said you are wrong.

MODERATOR: I wonder if we're making headway here.

PERFUME BLOGGER: It's of no consequence. I have an important meeting soon. Can we resume this at another equally important time? I trust you will see the wisdom in waiting for me to resume.