All I Want for Christmas

I've just spent a headache inducing hour and a half in the perfume department of David Jones. My nostrils have gone numb - only a tub of Vicks can save me now!

I'm indecisive at the best of times, but I was under the added pressure of 15% off today ONLY! Despite several half-full bottles of perfume at home and in the drawer of my desk at work - I felt an overwhelming need for a new fragrance. It's not a simple matter this fragrance business: I've had to ditch a lovely fragrance (Euphoria, Calvin Klein) because despite buying it for myself, a certain ex-boyfriend coined it my "signature scent" and now I can hardly bear to smell it anymore. Weirdness.

Buying a new fragrance is hardly a simple matter though: first each of the dept stores (lucky there's only 2 here in Oz) have "exclusive lines, so you have to smell all of them to ensure full education as a consumer, and second there's the simply endless range of perfumes - there's a new fragrance any given week, let alone the newbies popping up just in time for Christmas! The cosmetics houses have their staples (Chanel No. 5 anyone?) plus limited editions (I wish Chanel would bring back its Gardenia limited edition - I can't throw out the bottle even though it's all used up... I loved it) then there's the celebrity endorsements (I think my loyalty to Britney can only stretch so far) as well as the snooty perfumeries. It's very confusing, and I'm seriously no expert on fragrance. Nor do I have much patience.

The beacon of hope at the fragrance counter of late is most definitely Bond No. 9 - the latest hot fragrance house. Bond No. 9 was established in 2003, and is based entirely on New York City: there are 34 fragrances for men, women, unisex each representing a specific down-town, mid-town or up-town locale or city-wide sensibility. So there's Chelsea Gardens (very florally and pretty), Chinatown (I love it - why the hell didn't I buy it again? Oh yeah - they're also expensive!), New York Fling, Central Park (grass-clippings-ish, if you can imagine it), West End, Park Avenue, Madison Soiree etc etc. All very cool, interesting-smelling and poured into a unique star-shaped bottle.

Bond No. 9 is the brainchild of the immensely talented Laurice Rahme who, at the ripe old age of 21 headed up Lancome's International Training division, and lead Lancome's expansion in the Middle East. Bond No. 9 was inspired by a perfume store she worked in (not surprisingly the address was 9, Bond Street, NYC) and "Yet, it is the events of September 11 that motivated me to make New York smell good again and take on the ambitious project of creating a fragrance for each of its neighbourhoods (this was done for Paris, my native city in the 20th century with a dozen fragrances made by a handful of companies created for Paris neighborhoods). Now, in the 21st century it is New York's turn to become the capital of fragrance."

I admire her ambition.

One of Bond No. 9's more widely publicised and highly prized fragrances is The Scent of Peace, which indeed is quite lovely (well.. I did buy it!). Does that make me a fashion victim? Perhaps.

It's like a more intelligent version of Anna Sui's Secret Wish (which I only just realised as I sat at my desk, sniffing away at my arm). I own Secret Wish which is a light, fruity, summery fragrance which I always forget to put on. It's possibly what attracted me to Peace. I'm half contemplating going back and switching for Chinatown - last minute, Christmas-haste induced purchasing is just plain silly, particularly when it's a fragrance which you have to live with for a good couple of months (and Bond No. 9 aint cheap!). Either way, these fragrances are certainly unique and multi-layered. As my housemate said when I brought home a pile of smelling cards: "It makes you smell so .... clever!". And it does. The fragrances are incredible, and I think the headache is definitely worth it.

Of course, no fragrance worth its salt and pepper is without its gimmicks - Bond No. 9 frequently releases limited editions (only 400 of each design): there have been couplings with Swarovski to create super sparkly bottles for Bryant Park (home to fashion week tents), there was a limited edition Andy Warhol design for Union Square, which apparently captures the florally fragrance of the new spring, which is where the artist liked to go and smell the "first smell of spring in New York". Very nice. Invariably, it's the Union Square bottle you see in much of the press for Bond No. 9, which makes minimal sense to me, as there are only 400 bottles available. Or maybe it does make sense, creating that aura of exclusivity and a breathless sales assistant "I'm so sorry, it's just walked off our shelves. What about Chelsea Gardens?"

Rahme's final word on Bond's success is: "The market that's saturated is the one of the mega brands. The one of the niche brands to which we belong to is very small and is growing rapidly with less than 10 companies worldwide. I don't think we have too much competition. We have the unique story of being the only New York niche in fragrances and this is what accounts for our success. The success of New York City."