August Highlights 2024

Aurélien Guichard, Fabrice Pellegrin, Christophe Raynaud, Fanny Bal, Véronique Nyberg and Aliénor Massenet, renowned perfumers, have composed the olfactory score for each scent, celebrating the brand's history and savoir-faire through significant dates, places and characters. Their elegant, clean-lined bottles are adorned with the distinctive eight symbol, representing the enduring heritage of the house of Rabanne.

La Collection Rabanne is distinguished by its bold design, inspired by Calandre, the brand's iconic first fragrance, and incorporates radiant glass framed in metal, Rabanne's signature material.
It is currently available exclusively at luxury UK department store Selfridges and will be available in selected shops worldwide from September.
The eight fragrances of La Collection Rabanne:
Oud Montaigne
Midnight Sex
Night Soul
Mesh Metal
Silver Skin
Rose 1969
Armure Mara
After Club

The rose is the protagonist of the new Absolue Les Parfums perfume collection by Lancôme, an olfactory proposal that offers eleven expressions of this flower that are positioned in the highest segment of perfumery. With this launch, the brand inaugurates a new era of olfactory experiences by creating its first line of haute perfumery.
The centifolia rose, symbol of the French beauty house and emblematic flower of Grasse, has been declined in eleven unexpected facets that combine French savoir-faire with innovation.

To preserve the qualities of the rose from its origin, Lancôme has cultivated the rose at its The Rose House centre on the Domaine de la Rose estate in Grasse, where the brand works with Ecocert-certified organic plantations, contributing to biodiversity.
Absolue Les Parfums Collection:
1001 Roses
Storm and Roses
Not Your Rose
6 AM Rose
Absolue Le Parfum
Hot As Rose
Rose on the Moon
I Burnt a Rose
Hell of a Rose
Rose or Die
Oud Bouquet/Rose Gone Oud

Amouage has introduced a new frankincense essential oil, developed in collaboration with ingredient supplier dsm-firmenich. The new perfume ingredient is based on Wadi Dawkah frankincense oil, linking Oman's heritage and culture with an international approach.
This project came about in 2022, when Amouage signed a partnership to develop a premium frankincense growing area in Oman in order to boost its cultivation under ethical and sustainable criteria. It took until 2024 for the first distillate from the frankincense harvest to be available to the perfumery community.

The Omani niche perfumery brand is continuing its success story in 2024. Sales figures for the first half of the year reflect the strongest growth in the brand's history so far, with an increase of 25%. The momentum is due to the brand's strong performance across all geographies and channels: +37% physical Amouage shops (including the new US flagship shop), +59% e-commerce Amouage, +75% China, +62% travel retail and APAC grows by 118%.
The success of Amouage's perfume collections has contributed to the brand's growth: Guidance has positioned itself as the best-selling fragrance (doubling sales compared to 2023), while Secret Garden has quadrupled its figures and sales of Exceptional Extraits have climbed 152%.
In addition, the brand has won the award for Best Niche Independent House Perfume at The Fragrance Foundation France awards.
Amouage's explosive growth has put it in the spotlight of major beauty groups such as L'Oréal, which has expressed interest in acquiring a minority stake in the niche brand, which could mean an injection of more than €3 billion.

Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), owner of the luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue, has confirmed that it has reached an agreement to buy Neiman Marcus Group for $2.65 billion. The deal will create Saks Global, owned by HBC, which will encompass and maintain each of the conglomerate's brands: Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks OFF 5TH and Bergdorf Goodman, plus the new addition. Saks Global will also include HBC's U.S. real estate assets and the real estate assets of Neiman Marcus Group, creating $7 billion in capital.
"For years, many in the industry have anticipated this transaction and the benefits it would generate for customers, partners and employees. This is an exciting time in luxury retail, with technological advances creating new opportunities to redefine the customer experience, and we look forward to unlocking significant value for our customers, brand partners and employees," said Richard Baker, executive chairman and chief executive officer of HBC.
What is unique about the deal is that Amazon has proposed itself as an investor in Saks Global and will work with the corporation to drive innovation. This is a move by the company into the luxury universe which, in return, will give the group access to its technological and logistical capabilities. The softwate company Insight Partners will also enter as an investor.
The operation aims to give more muscle to the large luxury multi-brand distributors that are seeing how the selective firms are betting more and more on their own shops. In any case, the Federal Trade Commission has alleged that such a purchase could harm competition, so it remains to be seen whether it will be approved.

Art, fashion and fragrance come together in the Sleeping Beauties exhibition on view at the Metropolitan Museum in New York until 2 September, an exhibition that traces four centuries of fashion with nature and the olfactory stories created by the Robertet Group as a common thread.
The perfumers of the French fragrance and scent house have created three exclusive perfumes around the rose. Thorn Again, by Jerome Epinette, revolves around a futuristic rose that reveals the potential of clothing and is inspired by Sleeping Beauty with Grasse rose and iris butter. "Thorn Again is my vision of what we will learn from our Futuring Naturals partnership with Interstellar Lab and the roses we plan to plant in our Biopod in Grasse in 2024," explains the perfumer.
The other two fragrances, Rosycycle and Roseland, have been created by Elena Valdivieso Ruiz. The first is the result of the company's recycling programme, using Damascena rose. The second is made from Turkish Damascena rose and is Fair for Life certified.
Visitors to the exhibition can view 220 garments and accessories spanning four centuries of history, as well as smell the exquisite fragrances created for the occasion by Robertet.