Rebecca Minkoff To Launch Fragrance With The Premiere Group

UNITED STATES — Last year, D.M. Fashion Book reported that American fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff was adding perfumista to her forever growing resume (see it here).

Today, more details were revealed.

Minkoff is launching Rebecca Minkoff Eau de Parfum with The Premiere Group. Available in three different sizes, the new scent will be available at Macy’s, Belk, Von Maur, QVC and rebeccaminkoff.com, with prices ranging from $30 to $95. It will also be available for Scentbird members. Industry sources estimate $10 million in retail sales for the scent’s first year on the market.

Minkoff said she had a clear vision for the fragrance since before its inception. “Fragrance is always something I’ve wanted to launch, and for a smaller brand such as ours, the opportunities were few and far between,” she said. “From the beginning, I had clear ways of how I wanted to think about fragrance, with sustainable packaging and ingredients, and [The Premiere Group] was on board.”

The fragrance is vegan and gluten free, and two of the three bottles are designed for refill, and the outer carton is made of FESC-certified material.

The fragrance also acts as a less expensive brand entry point for potential customers than the leather accessories for which Minkoff is most known. “Customers come to my brand for pivotal moments, ‘My first job, my first affair, my first raise, my first crush,’” she said. “She identifies our brand with, ‘I’ve reached this point in my life for an affordable luxury product.’ For customers that haven’t discovered the brand, this can be a great place for them to take that first step.”

Created by Givaudan perfumers Rodrigo Flores-Roux and Linda Song, the scent plays to Minkoff’s masculine-meets-feminine aesthetic sensibilities. “When I used to go to 39th Street and pick out the leather myself, I loved the smell of leather. People talk about ‘new car smell.’ I love ‘new bag smell.’”

The fragrance’s heart notes include jasmine and tobacco accord, and the top notes highlight bergamot and cardamom. When she had customers in her boutiques vote on their favorites from a selection of five scents, the two muskier options outperformed the others. “That was a happily surprising outcome. I was told Generation Z wants a very clean, crisp, citrusy scent. And that’s never been something I’ve been interested in,” she said.

Minkoff has plans to augment her offerings with another scent within the next six to eight months, but also dreams of expanding into color cosmetics. “It’s something that’s on our radar, my brother and I talk about it all the time,” she said of her firm’s chief executive officer and cofounder, Uri Minkoff. “We were aggressively pursuing it, and then when the pandemic hit, we decided to focus on the core business and revisit it after.”

Photos Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Minkoff