Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
01/30/2016
BrianBuchanan
353 Reviews
BrianBuchanan
Top Review
7
Wonder-bilt
Orange blossom and tuberose ride on a gentle wave of aldehydes, where they meet fresh green, and citrus - pineapple. A praline accord fills the space underneath with a quite neutral and slightly oily hazelnut paste, and this sits opposite a dry, lightly spiced tobacco leaf. There is a vague hairspray ambience, as though someone has just done their hair ready for an evening out before spraying on the Vanderbilt.
Being a floriental it's a night time scent, more at home in a cosy cuddle than with daily routines. It's soft, very feminine, and may even be cloying when the drier and spicy sides demur to it's pink sweetness.
As the intro unfurls towards the more stable body accords it's a bit uneven from time to time. Then, when it's established, the profile boils down to a sweet pink and light rosy floral with strong orange flower and tuberose accents over a layer of tobacco; set on a dry, woody tinged oriental that lasts and lasts.
Vanderbilt takes a lead from one of the biggest phenomena of seventies perfumery. A construction similar to Charlie's aldehydic head of hyacinth - cyclamen - muguet is used, but in Vanderbilt it's pushed into the background. The melon and plasticky leather heart which dominates Charlie is replaced by a heavier praline note, and Charlie's almost indiscernible spice is boosted up. The same high pitched riff is played by both, but in Vanderbilt it's almost drowned out by the backing band. It's instructive to compare the Vanderbilt note pyramid here on Parfumo with the pyramid for Charlie on Wikipedia. Given the similarities in head and base notes, you could be forgiven for being surprised by how different they actually smell.
Vanderbilt also differs in its level of sophistication; it's technically way ahead of the rather cheap pragmatism of Charlie, at least in the samples I have where the Charlie may be a reformulation.
But then, so is this.
Being an oriental, the bottom half of Vanderbilt's profile can be interpreted as a reference to another game changing seventies smash, one that couldn't be ignored. Vanderbilt uses the spices and opoponax base of Opium but tones them right down. What we have is a structure that takes the functional and blasé notes of Charlie, and an Opium-Lite style oriental base, and deploys them in a soft rosy floral which is characteristic of Sophia Grojsman's style.
Perfume is a sign of the times - like any cultural product - and this one reflects the eclectic flux of fashions that that were around in the early eighties. Trainers (sneakers) appeared for the first time, headbands and brightly coloured sports wear; and unisex clothes for women - big jumpers, trench coats, and Gloria Vanderbilt's own pioneering brand of figure hugging jeans - of course. And all this ran parallel to a legacy of flowing, more traditional feminine clothes, made in natural fibres and muted colours.
With its elements of the conservative oriental form, Vanderbilt the perfume reflects this fashion milieu of traditional seventies forms, but it also quotes the new paradigm, Charlie's cool aldehydic floral - which represents the modern styles emerging at the time.
This L'Oreal product is pretty, well crafted and the makers were canny enough to give it the right moves. It was a big hit in its day, but it's is now at odds with current taste. By the standard of today's market (ie. what sells on the high street) Vanderbilt is heavy and over mature, its style rather passé. Even so, it remains popular. French supermarkets still sell it in box sets at Christmas, and that's proof of lasting appeal if ever there was one.
Being a floriental it's a night time scent, more at home in a cosy cuddle than with daily routines. It's soft, very feminine, and may even be cloying when the drier and spicy sides demur to it's pink sweetness.
As the intro unfurls towards the more stable body accords it's a bit uneven from time to time. Then, when it's established, the profile boils down to a sweet pink and light rosy floral with strong orange flower and tuberose accents over a layer of tobacco; set on a dry, woody tinged oriental that lasts and lasts.
Vanderbilt takes a lead from one of the biggest phenomena of seventies perfumery. A construction similar to Charlie's aldehydic head of hyacinth - cyclamen - muguet is used, but in Vanderbilt it's pushed into the background. The melon and plasticky leather heart which dominates Charlie is replaced by a heavier praline note, and Charlie's almost indiscernible spice is boosted up. The same high pitched riff is played by both, but in Vanderbilt it's almost drowned out by the backing band. It's instructive to compare the Vanderbilt note pyramid here on Parfumo with the pyramid for Charlie on Wikipedia. Given the similarities in head and base notes, you could be forgiven for being surprised by how different they actually smell.
Vanderbilt also differs in its level of sophistication; it's technically way ahead of the rather cheap pragmatism of Charlie, at least in the samples I have where the Charlie may be a reformulation.
But then, so is this.
Being an oriental, the bottom half of Vanderbilt's profile can be interpreted as a reference to another game changing seventies smash, one that couldn't be ignored. Vanderbilt uses the spices and opoponax base of Opium but tones them right down. What we have is a structure that takes the functional and blasé notes of Charlie, and an Opium-Lite style oriental base, and deploys them in a soft rosy floral which is characteristic of Sophia Grojsman's style.
Perfume is a sign of the times - like any cultural product - and this one reflects the eclectic flux of fashions that that were around in the early eighties. Trainers (sneakers) appeared for the first time, headbands and brightly coloured sports wear; and unisex clothes for women - big jumpers, trench coats, and Gloria Vanderbilt's own pioneering brand of figure hugging jeans - of course. And all this ran parallel to a legacy of flowing, more traditional feminine clothes, made in natural fibres and muted colours.
With its elements of the conservative oriental form, Vanderbilt the perfume reflects this fashion milieu of traditional seventies forms, but it also quotes the new paradigm, Charlie's cool aldehydic floral - which represents the modern styles emerging at the time.
This L'Oreal product is pretty, well crafted and the makers were canny enough to give it the right moves. It was a big hit in its day, but it's is now at odds with current taste. By the standard of today's market (ie. what sells on the high street) Vanderbilt is heavy and over mature, its style rather passé. Even so, it remains popular. French supermarkets still sell it in box sets at Christmas, and that's proof of lasting appeal if ever there was one.
2 Comments
Tonttu
Elysium
Jazzy76
Bcars10
