聞香識名人

Perfume is one of the most 1)lucrative branches of the beauty industry. According to a research， nearly $6 billion is brought by perfume each year in the U.S. alone. The reasons for this are many.

With the fashion world becoming part of everyday pop culture due to such hit television shows as 2)Project Runway， Ugly Betty， and the fashion 3)commentary that accompanies the Oscars every year， fragrances are an affordable way for women to access glamour easily. The average working mom cannot afford a4)Dior 5)garment， but for $45 she can get a bottle of Dior J’Adore and feel like a movie star every time she wears it.

Nowadays， the perfume story goes in another direction. The biggest trend in the perfume industry today is celebrity fragrances， with every actress， model and singer imaginable lending her name， her face or both to one or more scents， with 6)J. Lo leading the 7)pack， as more than four fragrances bear her 8)imprimatur.

“Fashion and Beauty go hand-in-hand with celebrities. We live in a World of Beauty and all women (and many men) 9)flock to celebrities likes bees to flowers. Fragrance is business， and Stars sell，” said Lea Barnes， an editor of a fashion magazine. “Celebrities bring the world of fashion and beauty to the real world. Unknown foreign models look fantastic， but we can identify more with a celebrity we know. We feel a connection with them， so a perfume， 10)outfit， or 11)cosmetic they create or 12)endorse becomes a product we can believe in. The recent shift from celebrity endorsement to celebrity creation is a new trend in the fashion and beauty industry. Perhaps we can blame the reality television shows that have popularized this celebrity to designer 13)bandwagon. Who knows， and frankly， who cares! Welcome it and embrace the new star-14)studded products.”

The perfume industry’s worth is at pound;775 million in Britain alone and retail analysts say a major driving force behind this are the famous faces on the brands.

“For fragrance companies， it’s a very， very easy way to kind of 15)piggyback onto celebrity into the market. It’s a much cheaper way than spending millions and millions of pounds starting a brand 16)from scratch， which you then have no guarantee it will succeed. With the celebrity， you can just borrow the celebrity’s name; you have a target audience anyway because the fan base will be the first buyers. So you can guarantee sales almost instantly， and you know， whether it’ll succeed or not， it’s kind of irrelevant. If it does then it’s great， if doesn’t then we’ll just move on the next one，” said Abid Rahman， an analyst.

According to a sales report from a perfume shop in the UK， the perfume that is heading for the No.1 spot is the self-titled 17)Christina Aguilera. 18)Katie Price’s Stunning comes in at second， also self-titled is 19)Kate Moss’s perfume at No.3， and 20)Kylie Minogue’s Sweet Darling comes in at 4， and last is 21)Sean John’s Unforgivable for Woman.

Got the poster， worn the T-shirt， read the biography. It’s not enough though. To get closer to the idols， people need their scent， or at least the scent they are marketing.

So who is buying these star-endorsed fragrances?

“I think people who are buying the celebrity fragrances are not particularly 22)savvy when it comes to fragrances themselves. I think we are talking very much the mass market with lots of the 23)unsophisticated buyer.” said Hamish Pringle， the author of Celebrity Sells.

It is hard not to be cynical about these perfumes， although in 24)blind testing， some of them perform quite well. However， the market is becoming 25)saturated with these products and the average consumer may have trouble telling them apart. So there are a large group of people who are more interested in quality and being “me”. They would choose “professional” fragrances over the celebrity ones. One buyer commented upon the Christian Dior Dior Addict 2 she was using: “I find myself intrigued by the delicious aroma coming from it. This scent is absolutely heavenly. I simply adore it. It is so crisp， pure and beautiful. And the most intriguing part is that it lets me be me. I think every girl should have it. ”

美容業中要數香水最賺錢了。一項調查顯示，單單在美國，香水一年就可以帶來60億美元的收益。其中原因，可謂林林種種。

隨著《天橋驕子》、《丑女貝蒂》的熱播以及每年對出席奧斯卡頒獎禮的名人服飾打扮的點評，時尚產業已經成為日常流行文化的一部分;而香水則既能讓女士們輕易地增添魅力，而又花銷便宜。對一個普通的在職媽媽而言，迪奧時裝是負擔不起的，但只要45美元，她就能買到一瓶迪奧的“真我”香水，而每次噴上，她就感覺自己如電影明星一般。

時至今日，香水佳話又駛向新方向。當今，香水業界最大的流行趨勢莫過于名人香水。你能想象到的每一個女演員、模特、歌星， 她們的名字或是臉蛋或是兩者兼而有之，成為了一個或多個香水品牌標識。在他們之中，詹妮弗·洛佩茲領導潮流，如今已經有超過4款得到其許可而生產的香水了。

“名人名流總離不開‘時尚’與‘美麗’。我們生活在一個講求美的世界里，所有女人(還有很多男人)對于名人的追捧，有如蜜蜂對于鮮花那般。香水是一門生意，明星本身就具賣點。”一位時尚雜志的編輯利·巴恩斯如是說，“名人把時尚與美麗帶到了現實生活中。不知名的外國模特雖然也很棒，但是我們對自己認識的名人更有認同感。我們會覺得他們有親切感，所以經由他們設計或代言的香水、時裝或化妝品可以贏得我們的信賴。而在時尚美容界，最新的趨勢則是從名人代言轉為名人設計。或許你可以指責是電視真人秀引發了這股名人變身設計師的潮流。……