Over the past several years, there have been many books about perfumery published. In many ways, the knowledge we have today about the world of fragance comes from Michael Edwards, the world's leading authority and the industry's most accurate sourceof perfumes past and present. His work is a legacy for generations to come. Having had the pleasure of meeting Michael for some hours, his knowledge is without peer and he is a wealth of anecdotes and information.
Think back to the 1980s and the era of the super-scents, the extroverted fragrances that mirrored the excess and colour of the time. They were the ground-breaking perfumes that couldn’t be ignored: Giorgio Beverly Hills, Ysatis, Paris, Poison, and Obsession to name a few. They took the wearer to places she had never been before and the fragrance industry to new heights. And it was in 1984, the year Chanel presented Coco, the first fragrance to be released since the death of Mlle Chanel, that Michael Edwards launched his unrivalled Fragrances of the World guide and a career that has earned him the title the "experts' expert".
How did it begin? An explosion of scents had bombarded customers and Edwards saw a need to make sense of it all. Having worked in the fragrance industry since the 1970s, he had experienced at first hand the speed at which ingredients and technology changed. At the counters, he could see sales associates grappling with the new perfume releases, mostly selling the fragrances they liked, their ‘tried-and-tested’. Edwards, who was an executive at Halston at the time, envisioned a guide to help distance them from their personal likes and dislikes and simplify the process of selecting alternative fragrances from similar families. “One of my first clients was a group of pharmacies, who asked me to help develop their fragrance category,” explains Edwards “I could train their staff, but I needed a guide, a sales tool to help them select the right fragrances for each customer. The only one then available was very technical which was why I was forced to create my first guide. The 1984 edition listed just 38 new fragrances. "In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined that thirty years later, I would track more than 1,400 new fragrances in a single year or that the tiny guide would grow to become the industry's 'fragrance bible." Every fragrance launch including celebrity, limited edition and niche is categorised, giving the reader the ultimate reference tool at their fingertips.
How has the industry changed? For example in1993, Edwards' Guide inlcuded 132 fragrances, 24 were what we now call "niche". In 2013, Edwards lists 395 Niche perfumes. For the 30th Anniversary Edition, Edwards’ famous Fragrance Wheel’ comes to life with a pictorial timeline that shows the evolution of the iconic fragrances within each family.
This is more than a book, it is a resource that is a must for every one interested in fragrance -whether you are an experienced perfumista or just starting out. You can order the 30th Edition at www.fragrancesoftheworld.com and for a limited time there is a 10 percent discount worldwide.
(source Fragrances of the World)
–Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief