A new designer wasn't enough for Rochas, they needed a new nose, too.
They've plucked Jean-Michel Duriez from P&G's Jean Patou, to work on the development of new fragrances under the Rochas label. Even though P&G shut down the fashion side of Rochas in 2006 after no one actually bought Theysken's dresses, they held on to the name until this October when they licensed everything out to Gibo who appointed Marco Zanini, formerly of Versace and a failed Halston tenure, to head up the new ready-to-wear division. But P&G hired Duriez on their own, not under the Gibo umbrella, despite the fact that they obviously want almost nothing to do with the fashion side of the label.
Anyway, because we still think of Theyskens when we think of Rochas, there's really no aesthetic indication of what's to come on the perfume front - we'll have a better idea once we see Marco Zanini's first collection come February.
Which, by the way, we expect to be major. After all, if P&G's refocusing all this money and energy into the very company they shuttered, they must have come up with some great ideas over these past two years, right?
