Stop the Presses!!!

I am staring at the back page of my New York Times Sunday paper right now, and there is a full-page ad: “Introducing Donna Karan, The Fragrance Collection. A wardrobe of seductive fragrances.”

Donna Karan Chaossqueeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Donna Karan Signature — ????

Donna Karan Black Cashmeresqueeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! they killed it off to rebottle it?

Donna Karan Fuel for Men — isn’t that one of those long lost deals Basenoters are always longing for? Like Chaos? I don’t see it on their list, oddly, but there’s a bottle for $175 at a resale joint.

And those four essences — lavender, wenge, labdanum and jasmine, which were lovely but had fairly limited distribution. I love the wenge in particular.

August 13, 4 to 6pm Beauty level, Bergdorf NYC –

Hokay, SOMEBODY IN NEW YORK, PLEEEASE GET ON THIS. I have many questions, like: do they smell the same? BTW all the bottles look the same, I can’t see anything about the sizes. They’re black cylinders with very plain colored (gold or silver) labels, no concentrations listed.

UPDATE: A friend just emailed me a photo, Chaos is an EDP. Also since the pic looks like it’s sitting on his bookshelf, I assume these are available for purchase now, not starting Weds. Can’t quite read it, but I think it’s 1.7 ozs, don’t hold me to it. No pricing info.  NOPE — 3.4 for $85!!!!   That’s practically free, in my book.  Go, Donna!

#2 — Dudes, you can order it! See comment below!! Cheap!! Also, Fuel’s topnotes are gasoline and pineapple, and I don’t think my leg is being pulled.

#3 — we think “Signature” is the DK robo-duck scent rebottled. Maybe.  We are pretty sure, yes.

#4 But will Chaos smell the same?  I guess we will know soon enough.  Here, I’m gonna consult my crystal ball and make a completely random guess for the fun of it — it will be “close” but somehow tweaked for the market — slightly more gourmand, maybe?  Pink pepper?  Snerk.    Also, is this a trend?  Are we having a Woods Moment (Sensuous, Magnifique, sort of)?   I am all for it.

PS. Anyone else watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Wow, they were beautiful! I was expecting something … less and was thrilled to be watching on our big-screen TV.

  • zara says:

    oh boy. i envy you people in the US.

  • Gina says:

    I just ordered two bottles. Anyone recall what the shipping fee’s were from Bergdorf Goodman New York ? I purchased two bottles.:)

  • Tania says:

    Ooh – I feel a trip to Harrods coming on…..:x

    I still have my original bottle of what they are now calling ‘Signature’. I tried it the other day, and for a second there, I had to check in the mirror to see if I was wearing shoulder-pads!

    • March says:

      I have a bottle too, and isn’t it hilarious? Shoulder pads is right. To be honest, I didn’t like it at all at first, and over time it’s grown on me. Or my tolerance for assertive frags has increased, more likely. I very much want to try Fuel.

  • pyramus says:

    March, you REALLY need to try Fuel: it’s amazingly messed-up in the best possible way (assuming they haven’t reformulated it). Think Bulgari Black, but with all the vanilla and musk drained from it and replaced with gasoline and leather and viciousness. It takes no prisoners. I can’t believe I didn’t sock away a few bottles when I had the chance.

    • March says:

      I think Fuel sounds wonderful, and googling it in the original, those bottles were so cool! I wonder if it sold? Too weird? The bottles remind me a bit of the DK signature scent robo-ducks, only even cooler. They’re a little Star Wars…. I can’t figure out, did they stand upright? I can’t see how.

      • pyramus says:

        It does look dreadfully unbalanced, doesn’t it? But the glass bottle inside the outer casing is more or less up-and down, and the part that appears to be cantilevered out into space weighs much less than the bottle itself, so it’s actually very stable and not at all tippy.

        And the gunmetal-coloured part wasn’t actually metal (as far as I remember), but it had this metallic coating that reacted with the oils from your skin and patinated over time, irregularly, so it became more beautiful as you used it.

        And to spray it, you grabbed it and positioned your index finger over that rounded portion and aimed the side of the bottle at yourself and squeezed the trigger, like shooting yourself with a freakish Cronenberg handgun. So insanely cool!

        I can’t believe I got tired of it and swapped it away. (I did the same thing with Le Feu D’Issey. Clearly I am an idiot.) I hope whoever ended up with it enjoyed it.

  • Gaia says:

    March, I just got the bottle (the husband was in the city today, so I sent him to Bergdorf) and I’m wearing it on my left wrist. I need to dig up what’s left of the sample you sent me eons ago and do a comparison, but so far it feels right.

    • March says:

      Oooh, ooooooh, more reportage!!!! I really would be thrilled if it were the same. By coinkydink I have a bottle of Anarchy on the way (hey, it was on sale for $15!) so maybe I’ll do a three-way comparison….

      • Louise says:

        March, be sure to use your indelible marker to note which is where….or hey, let’s do the comparison over coffee and cake :d/

  • Rick says:

    :((
    You guys that lives in US and UK are so lucky. I’ve tried an oil copy of chaos, and it was one of the best dried spices that i’ve worn on my life. Only on my craziest dreams they’d relaunch it!
    Now I’ve to find a good soul that buys me one and ships it to my country (in this hours I hate to live in Brazil; all of these jewels never arrives here :(( )
    Black Cashmere is one of my favorites, i’d have it in 1l if it was available.

    • March says:

      When they d/c’d Black Cashmere I was so disappointed. Although I will miss the cool pebble bottle, I am glad to see it return so quickly, in what I hope is more or less the same formula.

  • Elle says:

    Oh. My. God! Must call BG *now*! Free Chaos! How the hell did I miss this in the Times yesterday? I’m praying it’s that same gorgeous bottle as well. Have a total thing for DK’s bottles.

    • March says:

      Nope. Different bottle. They all have the same bottle, which is like a canister. There’s a pic up at Now Smell this and Bois de Jasmin if you are curious. Early report (from Gaia below) says the smell is the same, though.

      • Elle says:

        Yep, saw the new bottles. Minor detail. The scent’s the thing and I’m beyond thrilled to be able to stock up on more Chaos…just hit me what a genius name that is.

  • violetnoir says:

    Chaos! Finally! Hooray!

    Fuel for men, if it’s the one I am thinking about, it wonderful, March. My husband wore it, and it smelled really good on him. I hope DK sends those releases out to California.

    The Opening Ceremonies were amazing, but long-ng-ng-ng. The Chinese want everyone to trade with them…just keep your mouth shut, know what I mean?

    More exciting was last night’s men’s freestyle relay. Talk about exciting! The US won it in the last two strokes!

    Hugs!

    • March says:

      Oh, I should probably stipulate that so far as I am concerned, the opening ceremony’s over when the Parade of Nations starts :d I just like the bombast at the beginning. The magnitude of synchronization among the performers blew me away.

      I am assuming these will all show up posthaste on The Perfumed Court. :-w /:) 8-|

  • Musette says:

    I am wearing Chaos today, courtesy of a gorgeous little brunette fairy…….I love it but it’s a bit elusive on me…I am going to give it another spritz. Of course, I have Rochas Femme on the other arm and it beats nearly anything else down (except Aromatics Elixir which can take the paint off an Abrams tank!).

    Fuel is pineapple and gasoline? Am I reading that right? If so, it could be the perfect bike fragrance!

    xo

    • March says:

      A bit …. ELUSIVE?!?!?

      =))

      To steal one of your favorite emoticons.

      Chaos is as subtle as a truckstop on me. I love it except for when it works my Very Last Nerve.

      Yeah, the Femme has cumin-bombed your nose into submission.

      • Musette says:

        Must be me….I have spritzed it twice (and while I didn’t go hog-wild I wasn’t chintzy with it, either). It’s there…but really close to the skin (El O looked askance to see me with my arm buried up to my septum, trying to smell it). By contrast, Femme is sitting right there, strapping a shiv to her left thigh and loading a couple of knuckledusters into the pockets of her St John suit…

        that little rofl emoticon is such a cutie, inty?!

        • Louise says:

          Nope, March, Chaos is soft on some of us /:) My skin doesn’t eat it, it just is rather mellow, herbal even. Love 😡

  • moi says:

    Thanks for this!

    The only Donna Karan perfumes I’ve sniffed are Cashmere Mist (yawn) and Gold (revelatory gorgeousness). So I think it only fair I pop for Chaos and Fuel. Right? And, dudes . . . pineapple AND gasoline? Be still my heart.

    • March says:

      I am dying to try Fuel, not having smelled the original, and of course I am curious as to whether the re-releases smell the same as the originals.

  • kathleen says:

    Here’s something strange. On the donnakaranbeauty site the Essences are still listed at their original price. 3.3oz for $165 and the oils for $90. When I inquired price from the Karan rep at Bergdorf, she seemed to quote the price at $85 across the board. I could have misunderstood. Has anyone else priced the Essences?

    • March says:

      Ah, I bet they sell them for the original prices, and more fool anyone who buys them 😉

      Another option is that the newly released “essences” are in fact EDPs rather than the originals, which were oils and (one could argue) more expensive.

      • March says:

        Duh, I just reread what you wrote. I say they keep them the same price and see if anyone notices… can’t remember what the bottles looked like but am not recalling anything stunning?

  • Nava says:

    I believe “Signature” is the “robo-duck”. I found it at a Macy’s last spring and it was $85 for 3.4 oz. Can’t wait to sniff Chaos. Another one that was probably way ahead of itself that will now be a huge success.

    You see the logic here? Create major buzz with limited distribution in order to get all of us clamouring. I remember the stampede over at MUA for Wenge and Labdanum was like the bulls running in Pamploma. :d

    • March says:

      Babe, if they bring back Chaos and rekindle a trend for woods at $85 for a 3.4 I don’t care if they make us stand in line at 4am, like those dweebs waiting for their new iPhones. 😉 I’m for it.

      I somehow missed the Essences stampede and was instead merely very impressed the first time I sniffed them, blind. The lavender doesn’t do much for me but the others were beautiful (if much, much too expensive.) And the SA firmly corrected me on the pronunciation: WEN-gee (hard g like penguin) rather than WENJ, which is how I was saying it. :”>

  • Olfacta says:

    Can’t wait to try the much ballyhoo-ed Chaos! And Not Reformulated? Hmmmmm…..I’ll wait for samples to show up somewhere.

    As for the opening ceremonies, they were fantastic, a visual/artistic triumph, better by far than any I’ve ever seen. But something about them made me uneasy. It was as if the Chinese were claiming their century.

    That’s history, that’s how it works, but the whole place, the government, huge cities full of ex-agricultural workers now living in dorms, trapped in numbing, ant-colonylike piecework assembling eyeglass frames and everything else we buy at the Wal-Mart, well, there is something about it that just feels fundamentally wrong to me.

    I felt like the underlying message of the ceremonies was, “look how many billions of compliant people we have!”

    • March says:

      I just updated the post — nobody’s smelled it yet but I feel like guessing — it will have been tweaked slightly for the market, or at least WE (the Perfume Snobs) will deem it so. Less of something, more creamy whatever. Can’t wait to try it. As I already said up there somewhere, all of us at this point are comparing it to aged juice, and certainly the top notes of my vintage bottle are getting a bit off — sort of nail-varnish-y. Won’t miss that.

      I hear what you’re saying about the Opening Ceremonies. At the same time, according to what I am reading in the papers (admittedly in English and possibly biased) the Chinese in general are thrilled with the way things are going, and happy to have this event. And I feel like I could use a twist on your argument for almost any country. If we were hosting right now, people could say: they can’t give their own people universal health care, and folks are living on the streets, and they’re killing people abroad, and yet they get up there and beat their chests!!! On some level it’s all fiction. 😕

      • Olfacta says:

        Well, you’re right of course. My imagery about the dorms was based on the documentary film about Wal-Mart. It just seemed horrifying, hardly one rung above slavery. For some reason, that has stayed with me, and I kept thinking of it during all of the pagentry. I’m sure the people are happy, and can see why they would be, about the new China.

        • Lee says:

          But it was overall choreographed by Zhang Yimou who does celebrate Chinese history in his work but is a long way from an apologist for the state apparatus. And if you haven’t seen Red Sorghum or Raise the Red Lantern, do so!!

          I think I have to try Fuel. Maybe I’ll order blind… What’s wrnog with me? Am I getting back into my rhythm?

  • Judith says:

    Yay for the return of Chaos. I am, um, supplied. I think I paid more, but I don’t care: I’m just glad everyone can get it. I didn’t see all of the opening ceremonies, but the drumming was amazing (if also somewhat scary):).

    • March says:

      The drumming and the fireworks and their giant on-the-floor LED screen — it was all so cool.

      Chaos for the Masses. We seem to be on a woods trend (woods — the new lychee?) and I couldn’t be happier. <:-p

  • Rick says:

    The bottles are actually 3.4 oz., so the $85 tab on this makes it seem almost a bargain – especially when you consider what Guerlain (for one example) has been charging for its reissues.

  • Silvia says:

    Sorry for the seemingly random comments above, it was supposed to go in Dinazad’s box, something not quite working.

    • March says:

      I think the perfume fairies sometimes get a little over-excited and refuse to thread properly. And our emoticons are sometimes completely random. :)>-

  • Silvia says:

    Of course you are, you WROTE it ! :d

  • Silvia says:

    Hey, at last I can get a sniff of the famous Chaos ! Thanks for the tip.
    Loved the drumming at the Olympics opening, in fact it was all pretty amazing.

  • eliza says:

    🙂 hi there! which store in VA? thanks!

  • BBJ says:

    I guess I should try Chaos. I tried Black Cashmere, and simply didn’t get along with it. There’s some weird overpowering note in there–something between cinnamon and anise–that numbs my nose, and just doesn’t make me happy. I think whatever it is is in Feminite des Bois too. Sadly.

    :((

    • March says:

      Chaos is less difficult than Black Cashmere, IMO (although I love both). If you like the “idea” of Chaos but can’t quite deal with the smell, there’s a dupe called Anarchy that’s really nice….

      hey, I wonder if DK’s doing new BODY PRODUCT?!?! Sign me up! The Black Cashmere lotion was gorgeous.

      • kathleen says:

        The Essences come in lotion as well. I have the Labdanum & Jasmine. Both are beautiful and aid in the sillage/staying power of the fragrances themselves. $55 for 6.7oz is also quite reasonable.

        • March says:

          Wow, I bet those are GORGEOUS. I am not generally a lotion fan but Black Cashmere was wonderful, and I bet Chaos was great.

  • dinazad says:

    Oh, bother. Doesn’t look as if this were coming to Switzerland or even continental Europe anytime soon (and postage from the UK is worse than postage from the US). Ain’t fair. Grumble.

    On the other hand – I’m glad somebody can get their fingers on it, so have a go, girls, and stock up!

    • Silvia says:

      I will definitely go to Harrods to sniff Chaos (at long last) so happy to pick a bottle for you and post it, if you wish. You are in Switzerland, right ?

      • March says:

        Hey, that’s so sweet! And I think you’re right, unless she’s moved.

      • dinazad says:

        Silvia, that’s just too sweet of you! However, I’m in the happy position of owning half a bottle of Chaos – frankly, it’s the Fuel I’m curious about. Do you think that would be possible (oh dear, another unsniffed purchase :-\” )? How can I reach you?

        P.S. Yes, I’m in Switzerland. And sorry to be answering your generous offer so late – I forgot to check the comments last night (*blushing*)

        • Silvia says:

          Fuel, sure not a problem at all. You can try to email me via the Posse forum if it’s working or MUA, my nickname is Funkly in both. If that doesn’t work, I’ll be checking the comments on this post again.

    • March says:

      I am assuming these will show up on TPC?

  • Louise says:

    I’m on it. We just happen to be running up to NY early today…Bergdorf just became the first stop on the trip :d/

    It sounds so exciting! Good price, large size, un-reformulated.

    The big question-what’ll happen to the ebay dealers selling the older Chaos for college-tuition level prices 😮 ?

    • March says:

      Oh, yeah, um, my heart BLEEDS for those guys on fleaBay selling their bottles for $800. Although those lucite containers are so gorgeous, particularly the parfum, I wouldn’t be surprised if bottle collectors keep the price up.

  • Nattygold says:

    I ordered Chaos Saturday.I asked if it had been reformulated and was emphatically told No! :d

    • March says:

      I am looking forward to the opinions on that topic on MUA and the blogs as the new stuff gets dispersed. Of course we are all of us at this point comparing it to vintage juice… not sure how old my original Chaos bottle is, but it’s been awhile.

  • Catherine says:

    Up until now, I’ve studiously avoided even desiring to sniff this much vaunted fragrance. Oh, dear. I shall wait with baited breath to see if it’s been reformulated or not, then ponder the wisdom of an unsniffed purchase.

    • March says:

      Heh heh. Can’t avoid Chaos for too much longer, hon. >:) This makes me so happy. For once I feel (even if I’m wrong) maybe DK listened to the fanbase.

  • Rai says:

    FYI, this is via google –

    “In August of 2008, Donna Karan relaunched her discontinued fragrance line from the 1990’s. These include DK Fuel for Men, Signature, Chaos, and Black Cashmere. Four Essence fragrances were also introduced: Lavender, Wenge, Labdanum, and Jasmine. They are available exclusively in the United States at Bergdorf Goodman New York and in England at Harrods Knightsbridge.”

    A call to Bergdorf first thing tomorrow is in order, I think!

  • kathleen says:

    As of now, Chaos & Black Cashmere are on their way to VA. They are 3.4 oz EDP at $85 per. Very reasonable. I had to call back to make sure the rep didn’t say $185, but, no, they are $85. Thank you for posting this info. (I don’t know which of you it was)

    • March says:

      Kathleen, thanks for the info! That’s fabulous pricing, isn’t it? There’s a trend I’d like to see continue.