Senior Fashion Editor Sarah Cristobal is on assignment this week in France to discover what goes into creating the world's top fragrances. Read her daily blogs as she travels to perfumeries in Paris and Grasse, and dutifully observes the ooh la la of French culture.
Mmm...chocolate. AXE Dark Temptations Shower Gel and Deodorant. Photo courtesy of AXE.
Just when we thought life couldn't get any more français, who do we run into but the restaurant's owner and accomplished actor Gerard Depardieu! He was finishing a meal with his family and we all took pleasure in learning that he dines there almost every evening. It took all my restraint not to yell, "I loved you in Green Card!" as he plunked down on his scooter and rode off into the night.
But the Depardieu spotting wasn't our only celebrity run-in of the evening...
A booty-shaking session transpired at Le Baron, and shimmying next to us on the dance floor was none other than Beth Ditto from The Gossip. Dressed in a long white T-shirt and heavy eye make-up, we looked around anxiously for cameos by her new BFF's Kate Moss and Karl Lagerfeld, but alas...
The next morning we were up early and at Givaudan, the oldest and largest producer of flavor and scents in the world. Like IFF, it can lay claim to some of the world's top fragrances starting with Elsa Schiaparelli's Shocking in 1937, all the way up to Calvin Klein's Secret Obsession. A chronological history of men's fragrances was presented (note: Aqua di Gio, which was created in 1996 has been the most successful cologne of the past ten years).
AXE Instinct. Photos courtesy of AXE