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October 23, 2014

Scene and Heard: Alexander Vreeland

Alexander Vreeland
Photo Credit: Drew Altizer

“Last week I was in Paris and I had a meeting with Pierre Bergé [Yves Saint Laurent’s longtime companion and business partner],” said Alexander Vreeland during a luncheon held at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco on Tuesday, October 14. “He said to me, ‘We’re always told people are replaceable, but your grandmother was not replaceable. That will never happen again.’” The grandson of fashion editor, Diana Vreeland stopped by the department store to launch a new fragrance collection, Diana Vreeland Parfums, that pays tribute to his grandmother and her celebrated sartorial legacy.

Vreeland’s grandmother was famously known for pumping fragrance through the air conditioning ducts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during her years as special consultant to the Costume Institute, and her vibrant personality and eye for the extraordinary inspired each of the five fragrances in the collection. “I wanted to do everything as authentic to my grandmother as I could,” said Vreeland “We went back through all of her books, her memos, and found these great little phrases and expressions that she had used,” he added. Vreeland and his team used her words to name each scent.

When asked which of the scents Vreeland suspects would have been the late editor’s favorite, he replied “She wore sandalwood a lot so Perfectly Marvelous, with its red bottle and notes of jasmine and sandalwood, I think that probably would be the one.” Vreeland noted that the editor, who worked for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, was always searching for fresh new ideas and inspiration. “My grandmother hated nostalgia, so I didn’t want to just try to recreate the fragrances [that she wore]…I really wanted to do something that if she were alive today would speak to what she would wear. What she would love.”

By Jennifer McCullum

Pictured: Alexander Vreeland
Photo by: Drew Altizer

 

 

 

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