Givenchy & Riccardo Tisci launch new fragrance in Milan – Grazia Daily was there!

Yesterday in Milan, Grazia Daily attended the launch of the brand new Givenchy fragrance in Milan – something we've been looking forward to for ages, because it’s been created by Givenchy creative director, Riccardo Tisci.

NOW, as you fash-fans will already know, fashion houses can have complicated relationships with their namesake fragrances – often, the house doesn’t own the license for the scent, and so it’s unusual for a brand’s creative director to be involved in the creation of the fragrance. For Givenchy, this fragrance is the first since 1957 (when Hubert Givenchy created ‘Interdit’) that the label’s director has been involved in the production of a scent. And it is QUITE something.

The new scent is called ‘Dahlia Noir’, so named because it’s a flower which doesn’t exist and has no fragrance (dahlias have no fragrance, and the black dahlia is a mythical flower) thus becoming a blank canvas for a new fragrance. With notes of rose, musk, patchouli and amber, if you could bottle ‘expensive’, then it would smell something like this. There's an eau de parfam which is slightly muskier, and a fresher version in the eau de toilette.

The bottle is a classic design (so minimal that the name of the fragrance is hidden under the cap) and there’s a limited edition crystal version to be released in the summer. In true Givenchy style, the scent and packaging are all about ‘private luxury’, according to the Givenchy global president Thierry Maman – in that it’s not about showing off or bling.

The gorgeous Ricccardo was on hand at yesterday’s launch, as was Mariacarla Boscono – heavily pregnant, but utterly gorgeous and charming. ‘I’ve known Riccardo for fifteen years’ she told us. ‘I probably shouldn’t say that – it makes me sound old, but I’m over that kind of thing’.

Dahlia Noir is released in the UK in September.