Hermes Kelly Caleche

Everyone’s (and by “everyone”, I mean “everyone who at one point owned the VHS of ‘Spice World'”) favorite sourpuss, Victoria “Posh” Beckham, wasn’t always such a fashion plate. Back in the early days, we saw a lot of this:

Or, God help us, this:

Posh gradually shed her ’90s trappings, and to my knowledge never wore this red pleather monstrosity again after 1999, but her true moment of fashion transformation didn’t come until 2008. On that fateful day, Posh lived up to her name in a Roland Mouret Moon dress and a matching pink Hermes Kelly bag.

This was Posh’s premiere of the ladylike, classic style that I have come to covet, and the look would undoubtedly have been incomplete without the Kelly. Named for the most regal woman of the 20th century, the Kelly has graced the shoulder of many a star or socialite. How does Hermes Kelly Caleche stack up with its namesake?

First, I doubt that any Kelly-carrying woman worth her salt is going to trade in her Chanel No 19 for a bottle of Kelly Caleche. It is not a “classic” fragrance, although I imagine that the young’ns might consider it to be old-fashioned. Nor is it as subversive as the whip-wielding model would have you believe. This is a perfectly respectable, even staid fragrance.

Kelly Caleche is a floral leather fragrance, with notes of mimosa, iris, tuberose, climbing rose, and leather. This is a manicured leather, as opposed to a clawed-and-fanged leather like Bandit. Iris and rose are the most distinguishable of the floral notes (tuberose, for once, is a shrinking violet (see what I did there?)). The overall effect is pretty, but somewhat musty. I think that fans of Stella McCartney Stella would go for this one.