Gucci may have taken top honors at this year’s Fragrance Foundation’s FiFI Awards -- scooping up the Luxe Fragrance of the Year award for Guilty -- but the focus was squarely on celebrity fragrances at this year’s event, which took place at Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center.
Halle Berry won the Elizabeth Taylor Celebrity Fragrance of the Year award and the Broad Appeal award for her fragrance Pure Orchid. Fergie won the New Fragrance Celebrity of the Year award for her scent Outspoken, which she created in conjunction with Avon. She told us her reason for launching a fragrance: “I just want women to feel comfortable in their own skin. A great fragrance just gives women that extra boost of confidence before they walk out the door each day.”
Of course, the fact that Outspoken has become the top selling scent in the Avon roster doesn’t hurt either. She said of the process, "They [Avon] would give me candles to take home and I’d put them in different room in the house. Twenty minutes you walk in and the essence is there. Just a lot of details and nit-picking went into it."
Mary J. Blige, who won the Direct to Consumer award for her fragrance, My Life, accepted the award by saying, "It’s not just a fragrance, it’s a movement -- a movement of women who want to be better." My Life, available on HSN, sold over 60,000 units in just a few hours during its debut.
Even celebrity attendees that weren’t up for awards were hinting that they wanted to get into the highly lucrative fragrance business themselves. Trey Songz told us, “[A fragrance] is definitely in my future. I’m a guy who loves women and the essence of a woman is her scent. That will be my inspiration."
Willie Garson, of Sex & the City fame, had a simple reason for never having done a fragrance: “No one’s ever asked me!” He admitted to just having gotten off of the phone with Sarah Jessica Parker, who has found her own success in the fragrance world. “She told me to make sure you tell people that you are wearing musk oil from Morocco that I got you!”
Other big winners from the night were Issey Miyake, who took the Fragrance Hall of Fame Award, and Chanel’s Bleu de Chanel which won the men’s Luxe Fragrance of the Year Award.
