Yvresse

Yves Saint Laurent launched a new women’s fragrance called Champagne in 1993, conceived, according to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, for light, happy and sparkling women. Its success was immediate: in less than three months, it became the third best-selling fragrance in Europe.

A forbidden name

The Comité interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne sued the house at once, since the name is reserved for the region’s wine. The lawsuit forced Saint Laurent to change the name in France, and the fragrance was first called simply Yves Saint Laurent.

In 1996, it took the name Yvresse, a play on the French word ivresse, intoxication, which begins with the designer’s initial. It is under this name that the eau de toilette is still sold, in the house’s Heritage collection.

Sophia Grojsman

The fragrance is signed by Sophia Grojsman, to whom the house already owed Paris and who had composed Trésor for Lancôme. Angela, of Now Smell This, finds in it the peach and rose accord the perfumer had set in Trésor before slipping it into Paris.

The house’s own words

Yves Saint Laurent today presents Yvresse as a fruity chypre inspired by champagne, for women who sparkle. With it, says the house, perfume turns subversive and chypre becomes festive: life is savored like champagne, with finesse and intensity.

The house sees in it a page of the designer’s declaration of love to women, one of a freedom that celebrates play and pleasure: the Yves Saint Laurent woman dances because she loves to dance, without waiting to be asked.