“It’s So Good to Be Bad” is the tagline for Carolina Herrera’s new scent, Good Girl — billed as the biggest blockbuster for the brand’s reported $600 million fragrance business.
“It’s So Good to Be Bad” is the tagline for Carolina Herrera’s new scent, Good Girl — which is billed as the biggest fragrance launch for the brand in 14 years and the first new pillar to be introduced since 2007.
“It’s time to go back to the core, which is the mother of the Carolina Herrera fragrances. It’s the top of the pyramid, where it all comes down from,” Carolina Herrera Baez, creative director at Carolina Herrera’s House of Fragrances, told WWD of the new scent. The eau de parfum is packaged inside a bottled shaped like a teetering stiletto — a rich, navy hued pump with a gold, striated heel.
Good Girl, which is based on “the duality of woman,” according to Herrera Baez, will be the biggest push since she joined the company in her role in 1996. She said the team engaged in sessions where they discussed the women they admired in film and literature to conceptualize the scent, which hits retailers in the Middle East later this month and will retail from $93 to $119 for 50-ml. and 80-ml. sizes, respectively.
“It’s inspired by interviews that my mother has done. She has always said that mystery is one of the most important qualities a woman can have. There is nothing more boring than an open book,” Herrera Baez said. “She loves the idea of mystery and naughtiness — but goodness — in a woman. This is where this all came from. We can be both good and naughty; it’s the yin and yang.”
Herrera Baez, who headed the scent’s concept and design of the bottle, said that like many fragrances for the House of Herrera, jasmine is a key component. The very first Herrera perfume of almost 30 years ago was jasmine- and tuberose-based, she explained, and this one infuses jasmine and tonka beans.
“We had so many different prototypes of different heels and shoes and labels inside and labels underneath. We went from ballet slippers to Cinderella, to stripper to elegant. We had shoes for everybody until we said, ‘That’s it,’” Herrera Baez said of arriving at the final design for the bottle.
Good Girl will be the fourth scent under the Carolina Herrera New York pillar, which includes Carolina Herrera New York, Herrera For Men and Chic For Men, as well as the six-fragrance Herrera Confidential Collection and corresponding essential oils. The latter, which was released in the Middle East, the U.K., France and freestanding doors in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles, has a distribution of about 35 doors worldwide.
The fragrance will be the first new pillar to launch since CH was introduced in 2007, and in terms of scope of distribution, this will be the most significant launch for the Carolina Herrera New York fragrance portfolio in 14 years, according to Jose Manuel Albesa, chief brand officer at Puig. The Barcelona-based fragrance company has manufactured the brand’s fragrances since launching Carolina Herrera New York in 1988.
Good Girl will be rolled out in over 10,000 doors throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Russia and Spain between July and September. Industry sources project that the fragrance could do $100 million in retail sales during its first year. A corresponding ad, shot by Mario Testino, as well as a commercial will air in the above markets, featuring Karlie Kloss.
The fashion house’s fragrance portfolio — comprised of 22 scents spanning men’s and women’s to diffusion line CHNY — could do $600 million in sales this year, not inclusive of Good Girl, according to a source. The business is largely driven largely by sales in Europe, South and Latin America and the Middle East, with select distribution in the U.S. in the brand’s boutiques.
Albesa said that building up the Carolina Herrera New York pillar is a priority for the company going forward. Last year’s Confidential launch far exceeded expectations, Albesa said during an interview at Carolina Herrera’s headquarters in New York City, noting that sales for the first year were more than double projections. By the end of this year, door count will jump from 35 to 60, and in two to three years’ time this will expand to 150 doors globally.
“Confidential is the top of the pyramid, and this [Good Girl] is a more open exercise. [While] Confidential is a retail-oriented exercise, this is more of a push with marketing and advertising,” Albesa explained.
Currently, 85 percent of the marketing budget is dedicated to traditional channels such as print and TV ads, which will start to air in September and then again during the holiday season. The remaining 15 percent will go toward digital and social media, with exclusive Good Girl content to be posted by Kloss, Testino and on Herrera’s own social media channels.
Albesa said Good Girl will not be immediately available in the U.S., but Puig is in talks with retailers to develop a strategy for launching the fragrance Stateside. He called this a priority, as the fragrance “marries the momentum of the current ready-to-wear collection” with the brand’s scent business. He noted that the breakdown for marketing spend in the U.S. will skew more heavily towards digital and social, and the current 15 percent dedicated to digital will be bumped to 20 percent.
*This product can be purchased at UNI Cosmetics stores.
