Iconic Perfume: Opium by Yves Saint Laurent
The legendary perfume Opium by Yves Saint Laurent resonates like an ode to the emancipation of the woman of the late 1970s and heralded a new generation of perfumes throughout the decade of the 1980s. A provocative perfume in the image of its creator.
Yves Saint Laurent, Provocative Designer
Born in Oran, Algeria, in 1936, Yves Saint Laurent took an interest in couture fairly quickly. At 18, he arrived in Paris to take drawing courses at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, where his talent made him famous in only 3 months. Christian Dior noticed him and appointed him a pattern designer. After the latter’s death, Saint Laurent continued the work of his mentor, thus taking over the direction of the House of Dior.
An undisputed genius, Yves Saint Laurent opened his own fashion house in 1962 with the help of his friend Pierre Bergé. Determined, the couturier then lived the apogee of his early hours, and the name Yves Saint Laurent became an essential of fashion.
A provocateur at heart, he broke the codes and made his know-how an artistic expression of feminism by launching a collection drawn from the men’s clothing world. The trouser suit now gave women the opportunity to wear trousers to work. The Saharienne jacket was diverted from the hunting wardrobe to make it an essential of his collection. Avant-garde, he dared to make the tuxedo a garment for women, cementing his aura in the world of fashion.
However, as early as the end of 1976, the press spoke of his excessive disappearance from the media, and magazines were already preparing retrospectives about him, as if he were soon going to die.
But Mr Saint Laurent was only writing his legend, and in response to this relentlessness, he launched with unprecedented success this narcotic juice with a transgressive name: Opium.
Opium by Yves Saint Laurent
Context of Its Release
In 1977, under the artistic direction of Chantal Roos, Yves Saint Laurent offered a modernised version of the oriental perfumes neglected since the 1940s. Opium was an olfactory and marketing coup advocating the emancipation of women, increasingly asserting their femininity.
The couturier wished to create a luxurious fragrance and imagined a bottle that went against the grain of what had been done until then.
For the bottle, Pierre Dinand innovated by slipping a glass flask into a sheath of amber plastic, inspired by the inrō cases that samurai used to store spices, medicinal herbs and opium.¹ He adorned it with a black silk tassel of Napoléon III inspiration, showcased in Yves Saint Laurent’s collection of the moment.
“It was a completely revolutionary object, a thousand miles from traditional glass bottles,” “It’s a period when Yves Saint Laurent is truly in the richest, most complete, most intense expression of his art,” notes Yann Andrea (International Marketing Director YSL Fragrances 2010–2014).
Opium concretised the fascination Yves Saint Laurent had with the Orient.
Sold on average 30% more expensively than its competitors, the perfume was such a success that French retailers quickly found themselves out of stock. It was the marketing tour de force aimed at reinforcing its prestige and its attractiveness.
In 1978, the advertising slogan was reworked for the American market. “Opium, pour celles qui s’adonnent à Yves Saint Laurent” (“Opium, for those who give themselves over to Yves Saint Laurent”) became tamer—some would say too prudish—”Opium, for those to whom Saint Laurent is a habit.”
Opium was immediately noticed, making the perfume the beginning of a myth. Indeed, the launch party took place on a boat moored in South Street harbour in Manhattan. Precisely where the ships coming from Asia loaded with opium arrived. The message was provocative, just like the couturier.
Opium, the Modernised Oriental
“If I chose Opium as the name for this perfume, it is because I intensely hoped that it could, through all its incandescent powers, release the divine fluids, the magnetic waves, the kiss-curls and the charms of seduction that give birth to mad love, love at first sight, fatal ecstasy…,” wrote Yves Saint Laurent. Transgressive, he wanted a sensual, hyper-opulent, extravagant, provocative, enigmatic and liberating perfume.
Olfactorily, Opium is largely inspired by Youth Dew (1953) by Estée Lauder (by Josephine Catapano) and the carnation-patchouli accords of Tabu (1932) by Dana (by Jean Carles). Its longevity is excellent; Opium opened the way to a lineage of sensual, sophisticated perfumes for glamorous femmes fatales, heralding an uninhibited, exuberant perfume industry for more than a decade.
Moreover, Estée Lauder replied to Yves Saint Laurent in 1978 (the year of Opium’s American launch) by creating Cinnabar (by Bernard Chant)… a revisited version of Youth Dew, very close to Opium.
Under the artistic direction of Jean Amic, Jean-Louis Sieuzac, Raymond Chaillan and Françoise Marin composed this dense, powerful perfume that nonetheless keeps an accuracy throughout its evolution.
It joins the oriental olfactory family, a powerful, heady spicy floral amber.
The Olfactory Notes of Opium
A fruity start of mandarin, peach and plum combines with aldehydes to give a certain brilliance and volume to this opulent heart.
The carnation accord studded with clove is the star of this composition. Dusted with cinnamon, it surrounds itself with rose, jasmine and ylang-ylang. These spicy floral facets nestle in an ambery, mysterious base adorned with myrrh, patchouli, vanilla, labdanum, cedar and sandalwood.
It is dense and captivating, addictive and enveloping. Musks and castoreum make this voluptuous, sensual fragrance wild.
It is a carnal perfume with much elegance. The carnation-patchouli accord is sublimated by a characterful, imposing ensemble.
However, the reformulations of the fragrance failed to keep the very essence of the original perfume, making it smoother and more conventional and perhaps less impactful, less provocative.
After Opium, the Story Continues with the Re-editions
No fewer than 25 flankers (reinterpretations) have come into being since the creation of Opium in 1977.
Variations on the concentration of the perfume—eau de toilette, eau de parfum, extrait or elixir—but also on their compositions have come into being; here are a few examples:
- Opium pour Homme (1995)
- Opium Fraîcheur d’Orient (1998)
- Opium Fleur de Shanghaï (2005)
- Opium Fleur Impériale (2006)
- Opium Légende de Chine (2007)
- Opium Elixir Voluptueux (2008)
Let us also note the creation in 2016 of Black Opium, nearly 40 years after the release of Opium, by 4 perfumers—Honorine Blanc, Marie Salamagne, Nathalie Lorson, Olivier Cresp—propelled to the rank of commercial blockbuster.
Black Opium represents, according to the brand, the new generation of Opium, provocative and rock & roll with a falsely relaxed style since it is perfectly mastered. Meaning to be rebellious and avant-garde in the image of the original Opium perfume, Black Opium—whose addiction is breathed in by the coffee note—is described as magnetic and sulphurous.
And you, do you prefer the initial version of Opium or its reinterpretation Black Opium, hewing to modern standards of what represents exuberance?
Watch our Master Parfums video on the question of the Opium perfume by Yves Saint Laurent.
References
- Les 111 parfums qu’il faut sentir avant de mourir, page 101. Y. Cervi
Banner photo credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wvfonseca/23827977442
