Ten years ago, Missoni released a daring, excellent fragrance by the immensely talented Maurice Roucel. It was a pretty drastic flop, discontinued by 2011. Missoni has clearly learned their lesson: no good perfumes ever again! Instead, we get Escada summer release rejects. Missoni Eau de Toilette is a juicy, more-than-a-little-plastic-y pear-based fruity floral. It smells fine, if very Bath and Body Works, but it feels a little like wearing a full Juicy Couture tracksuit in 2016. Like, oh, are we still doing that? Are we still doing cash-grab fruity florals? I thought we were doing cash-grab gourmands now.
Maybe that’s too harsh. If an interesting and quality fragrance didn’t succeed, I gueeeeeess I can see how going in the complete opposite direction could seem like the right answer. But forgettable perfume is never the answer. Not in the age of 1,620 annual fragrance releases. (And that’s just 2014’s number.)
Disclaimers: This post is not sponsored (clearly!) and does not contain affiliate links. I tested Missoni Eau de Toilette at my local Bloomingdale’s.
SCENTS OF SELF 
Not being harsh. Not at all. Let’s call crap what it is: CRAP. The general level of high street perfumery out there right is dire, dire, DIRE. As in : I actually can’t bear to smell it – it doth assail one’s nostrils and cause DISMAY. Perfume, as far as I can remember, was supposed to be about something called PLEASURE.
Incidentally, Missoni once did a quite nice Fendi-ish spiced number that was much much better. I bought two bottles for my mother in law and she loves it.
Oh! I never realized there were other Missoni fragrances before Roucel’s! Fragrantica reveals there were actually quite a few- was the Fendi-ish number the one called Aria?
Just Missoni, if I recall. From around circa 1982 or something (and it smells it)…
But the bottle’s nice. 😀 I am lucky enough to have found a half-full bottle of the Roucel Missoni at a thrift sop. Too sweet in the first moment but it got on some fabric and smelled fabulous. Won me over completely.
What a find! Was that the first time you’d struck perfume gold at that particular store?
Indeed, it was the first time and the gold included 2 small Samsara EDT refills. Of course, these things are totally random. At a different store I scored Roucel’s Gucci Envy (a long time love) — full tester bottle for $10, But such shopping does make it possible to fritter away small amounts on likes instead of saving for the loves.
I think the Missoni Ginza refers to is Molto Missoni. I’ve never seen or smelled it, but it’s my guess from the notes description on Fragantica. Looks like Aria is supposed to be more floral. Meg/Olenska speaks glowingly of the original Missoni — a plummy chypre.
When I first spotted the ad for this, I was hoping it would be a relaunch of the original. HAH. I’m such a dreamer.
The year I fell down the rabbit hole there were 87 new releases…would love to go back to those days…..when “vintage” was NOT vintage, top notes were intact and the glorious fragrances were under 40 dollars a bottle (even the drugstore had some gems which would be niche standard today)…..and , btw, I happen to like the Escada limited releases…I believe I read somewhere they were once your guilty pleasure?