Narciso Rodriguez For Her

Narciso Rodriguez for Her is an eau de toilette-strength perfume launched in September 2003 by fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez and created by perfumers Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian. It has won Fragrance Foundation awards in France and the US, both at its original launch and retrospectively. The original eau de toilette is primarily a musk, amber and orange blossom scent. Narciso Rodriguez subsequently released an eau de parfum version (2004, again signed by Nagel and Kurkdjian) and many other versions, known as flankers, that include other notes. Background and development Narciso Rodriguez, an American fashion designer of Cuban ancestry, drew acclaim for his 1996 wedding dress for Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and launched his eponymous label in 1997. He began developing a women's fragrance to accompany the line circa 2001. Perfumers Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian created the fragrance for Rodriguez. As he was a longtime fan of musks, devoted to Egyptian musk oil he'd first received as a gift in high school—"I sort of shower in it"—this became a centerpiece for the fragrance. In the course of development, Rodriguez also sought out the opinions of women he worked with, including actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who said she loved his fragrance (and went on to create her own musk-based fragrance, Lovely, a few years later.) Launch and reception Narciso Rodriguez for Her "achieved almost cult status when it launched in 2003." The fragrance, an eau de toilette with notes of orange blossom, amber, vanilla and musk, was lauded in The Globe and Mail as "a serious and sexy scent, ideal for candlelight." The Sunday Times described it as "soft as cashmere." The Vancouver Sun gave it 10 out of 10 marks, calling it a "gorgeous scent, slightly spicy but extremely soft and subtle." At the United States Fragrance Foundation awards, Narciso Rodriguez for Her won 2004 women's perfume of the year in the "Nouveau Niche" category. The perfume has twice been recognized by France's Fragrance Foundation Awards (FiFi Awards), first in 2005 for best women's fragrance, then again in 2012 with the "Twenty Years of Creativity" Prize at the 20th anniversary of the FiFi Awards: Narciso Rodriguez for Her was selected as the most iconic women's fragrance of the 20 that the Foundation had honored with its annual prize over its 20-year history.