God bless Diane von Furstenberg. I swear the woman doesn’t have a conventional bone in her body. Even in her early modeling days, when she looked like a befreckled Hedi Lamar, she never quite fit the beauty mold. This year, she showed up to a Woman’s Wear Daily photo shoot with a broken nose. That picture (shown above) sent such a powerful message: I will not go away just because I am no longer a hot 21 year-old. And now she comes out with this perfume. A perfume that goes against every single current fragrance trend, that will undoubtedly be a complete commercial flop. DVF, you are a delight. I’m proud to say you designed my prom dress.
God help me, I WILL find an excuse to wear this dress again. Can we have a perfume blogger prom, y’all? I’ll spike the punch.
DVF’s new perfume has quite a bit in common with its namesake. It is alluring, but its allure is most likely too subtle for the masses. In a sea of oversexed pink patchouli perfumes, Diane is a demure oasis. Diane is a very prim and powdery violet fragrance. This violet note mingles nicely with some sweet pea in the background (and for me to say that means that the sweet pea is very nice indeed, because I have lingering middle school sweet pea-related trauma from Bath and Body Works Sweet Pea). Diane is resolutely old-fashioned, even outdated, and I adore it for that. If you find Diane as appealing as I do, buy it now. I give it six months before it’s replaced by yet another pink patchouli.
SCENTS OF SELF 
I’m in favour of a perfume blogger prom. I have too many formal dresses that I rarely get to wear unless I’m going to the Kennedy Centre for the opera or ballet and even then apparently I’m over-dressed. I saw a woman show up in Uggs to the ballet. UGGS!
Oh, that’s so bad. That woman gives us fully-aware-that-uggs-are-hideous-but-occasionally-wear-them-grocery-shopping-because-they’re-so-comfortable-dammit Ugg wearers a bad name! I really don’t think our culture’s current aversion to formality is doing anyone any favors. A lot of my peers barely know how to spell anymore. “What do you mean, ‘you’ has more than one letter???”
I’m shocked. Uggs to a formal performance.
DVF has got class; I don’t care for violet much, but as a show of solidarity, I’ll locate (and test) her fragrance! 🙂
She’s definitely a dame (which reminds me of my favorite perfume blog post of all time, Perfume Posse’s “Perfumes for a Dame” http://perfumeposse.com/2009/01/25/perfumes-for-a-dame/). I can’t see a non-violet lover liking this at all, but I’m sure she will appreciate your solidarity! I see that DVF actually had a few fragrances in the past, none of which seem to have done very well. And I haven’t seen any advertisements for this one at all!
She did do Tatiana, years ago – a gorgeously over-the-top white floral with spices – but the formula has been cheapened to nigh-unwearability these days.
BWF Ho that I am, I loved Tatiana…
The notes looked so interesting, I saw that it contained basil! It sounds like DVF just does whatever the hell she wants with regards to her fragrance line and then sort of abandons them when they don’t do well, a la Donna Karan. I love the name “Tatiana” for a perfume as well.
Must get my hands on some of this. I too adore DVF, and your prom dress is amazing!
Thank you so much, I loved it! I was lucky to find it deeply discounted, from $900 to around $200. I love DVF’s designs and desperately wish she would do a line for Target or something I could actually afford on a somewhat consistent basis.
Demure, prim, with subtle allure? It is calling my name, much like Bottega Veneta at the moment, which I understand from the Posse is an “alluring wallpaper scent”. Why that sounds right up my alley!
And the olfactory oxymoron of a tolerable sweet pea note, you say? We don’t have the BBW range over here, but I have more recent sweet pea trauma of my own from my friend’s overspraying of Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B.
Sounds like Diane F has the same approach to aging disgracefully as Grace Coddington. Well, disgracefully by today’s wind tunnel standards…
As someone the wrong side of 50, I salute her!
I know that I have no right to comment on the use of botox or cosmetic surgery until I am closer to the age where those things start to seem very tempting. But I will say that I find it very comforting to see women like DVF and Grace. There’s no cosmetic filler for the kind of talent and drive that those women have.
I didn’t like L.A.M.B. at all either, I notice it’s not in stores anymore so I guess we’re not alone. If you don’t mind me asking, are you in the UK? I’ve heard they don’t have B&BW anymore.
Yes, I am, and to my knowledge BB & W has always been an exclusively US range? At least I have never seen it in Britain. I hoard the minis in hotels when I am across the pond for work. There’s a nice one with lime.
Vanessa / flittersniffer
No, I gave you duff gen there – just found one UK-based online retailer for the B & BW range, though if it was previously in wider distribution, I failed to clock it!
Bath Body & Works?? I mean B & BW, sorry!
Kudos to DVF for letting her bone structure speak. And also for your lovely prom dress, which manages to hit that sexy-but-modest sweet spot (you’re beautiful in it!).
I do like violet – wonder where I can find this thing to smell?
Thank you so much!!! I still take it out every once in a while and stroke it while muttering “my precioussssss.” Because I’m well-adjusted like that.
My DVF sample is from Nordstrom, and I see that it is also on the Sephora website as well.
I tried not to stare — or glare as the case may be. My philosphy is when in doubt just wear black. I don’t care if that means a black dress, or a suit, or even just black jeans and a sweater. Showing up in ratty printed leggings, a henley and Uggs is not ballet appropriate.
And I totally didn’t reply to the right comment. Oh well.
I’m afraid to ask what the print on the leggings was. I have a bad feeling it was leopard.
They were actually white w/ multi-coloured hearts w/ metallic accents all over them. Like, something you’d see a child wearing on some early 90’s sitcom. This was a grown woman.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m almost positive that I owned those leggings at age 8. So that’s where they went!
I owned them, as well. Probably at 8. Of debatable cuteness then. Horrifying now.
Love the bone structure!
Violets – it depends.
They’re in my DNA (yes, on’t ask), yet I found very few violet-based fragrances to my taste.
Well I adore attrape coeur, violet vov is its nickname, and own too many back up bottles of it.
I’ll try this DVF if I see it around!
BTW, you look lovely and the dress is beautiful (that color!!!want!!!).
Your blog is great fun (just discovered it).
You did not rate the DVF with the Harayuko Lovers – I noticed!
You won my heart when I finally saw your gravatar up close – I previously identified You with a yellow bottle, while you were a rose in number five! Quelle gaffe!!
Noooo!!! You’re so right, I completely forgot about the Harajuku Lovers! Thank you so much for your compliment on my dress, and I’m so glad you’ve started reading. But now I MUST ask- how are violets in your DNA??
Oh this sounds sniffworthy indeed! Love Diane sooo much, and this scent sounds quite lovely.
You made me laugh with the BBW sweet pea reference. My daughter had that one *gag*
There were a few years in middle school when the female student body was divided into Sweet Pea wearers and Warm Vanilla Sugar wearers. There was also a similar divide over mint gum chewers and cinnamon gum chewers. To have to smell it constantly on a family member must have been awful! I hope your daughter has moved on to bigger and better things!