For the relaunch of its iconic Belle D’Opium fragrance last Thursday night, Yves Saint Laurent pulled out all the stops in an effort to recreate the 1977 launch of the designer’s original Opium scent down at South Street Seaport. It worked–but in an updated manner. While the scent is less spicy than the original–jasmine and gardenia were immediately recognizable top notes–the party for a few hundred nearest and dearest was certainly not.
Ashley Olsen, M.I.A., Olivier Martinez and Katie Lee–who’s working on a new cookbook, natch–were on hand for the bash, held at a raw space in Midtown that the French label dubbed “The YSL Stage.” In keeping with the modern times–of which YSL Beauté has wholeheartedly embraced–guests at the “Parisian bôite” were encouraged to Twitter from the party with a special #YSLParty hash and, upon arrival, were handed special blue YSL card cases with iTunes cards to download the night’s song mix deejayed by Alexa Chung and Alexander Richards (who spun tunes while Cirque du Soleil-style entertainment such as fire-breathers and contortionists performed below).
Guests were ushered into the YSL “experience” room, where they sat on cushioned benches in a white-walled room. As the platform began to spin, projections from a YSL video were splashed on screens to seemingly exude the aura of the fragrance.
“When Opium first came out, I wasn’t even born yet!” laughed 28-year-old French actress Mélanie Thierry, who appears in the product’s commercials. “Just tell them you like smelling good,” Chung chided. Maggie Gyllenhaal, however, was one guest old enough to remember the original Opium. “I did the research and I was one year old when it came out,” said the actress, resplendent in a strapless pink diaphanous gown.
