Well, I got quite the shock the other day when I went into the beauty and fragrance department at Neiman Marcus — the big bay that used to house Guerlain was gone, replaced by a smaller one for a line that I’d never heard of. “Where did you move Guerlain?” I asked one of the SAs. “Oh, it’s gone — been completely pulled from the store,” she told me. “But I think it’s still online.” Another SA later told me that it was also gone at Saks, and when I visited Nordstrom (which only had a small selection), Guerlain was nowhere to be found.
At first I thought it might have been an exclusivity issue. I recall many years ago when Tiffany’s fragrances were widely available, then they pulled them all back to their own jewelry boutiques. And if memory serves, Cartier and Hermes did something similar at one point way back then, although I could be mistaken.
As for the Guerlain, no one knew for sure what had happened, but I got the impression that perhaps lackluster sales and/or the need for floor space for newer, hipper lines might have been to blame.
I didn’t know much about their skincare or makeup line, save for a few lipsticks that I loved, but oh, the fragrance! I did look at NM, Nordstrom and Saks online, as well as Bergdorf Goodman, and most of the line was there, but … where will we go to get a live sniff of the new L’Art et la Matieres, the classics or the Aqua Allegorias? One SA said he thought that the flagship locations of the stores (New York, Beverly Hills, Seattle, etc.), might still have a Guerlain presence in-store, but he wasn’t sure. It’ll be interesting to see if anything Guerlain remains at Sephora brick and mortar. A peek there online shows 14 or 15 items in the fragrance category.
I just know that if it weren’t for Surrender to Chance, I certainly wouldn’t have had the chance now to sample the delightful Guerlain Joyeuse Tubereuse. And heaven knows when I would get to New York or Las Vegas to visit the Guerlain boutiques. And I never did get to sniff the Neroli Outrenoir, grrrr …
So what do you guys think? Anyone else seen/heard anything else about this turn of events?
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