The Season’s Cheat Sheet to Matching Your Scent With Your Style

Can’t decide on which perfume to put on? Take inspiration from your own personal style, so you can complement your fragrance with your looks.

Let’s face it. Who would want to smell all dainty and fresh like a bouquet of roses, while sporting a tough attitude in biker chic? So if you’re stuck in a fragrance rut, one piece of advice is to match your scent with your style.

We take fashion inspiration from the fall runways and tried-and-tested fragrances. Here are easy look-and-scent pairings you can peg, depending on your style.

Flower Girl

The look: Alexander McQueen fall/winter 2015
The scent: Christian Dior Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet

Alexander McQueen’s creative director Sarah Burton took blooming English roses as her inspiration for her fall collections. Blush dresses mimicking pink roses in all stages of bloom sashayed gently on the runway. It is only fitting to wear this look with Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet’s silky fragrance. The scent contains the floral essence of peony paired with rose extracts on a velvety base of white musk. Together, the flowery look and scent perfect Sarah’s vision of “beauty in all stages of the life of a rose.”

Lady Danger

The look: Balmain fall/winter 2015
The scent: Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium

Glam rock—that is the heart of both Black Opium and Olivier Roustieng’s fall collections for Balmain. Each of the elements in this lethal combination is a killer in itself: The scent shows the dark, mysterious side of YSL, while the velvet dresses and sharp frocks at Balmain impose fatality. The overpowering notes of coffee, pink pepper, and orange blossom sound like the perfect drug to match an all-black look, and to make it all the more look dangerously chic.

Minimal Gal

The look: Fendi fall/winter 2015
The scent: Chloé Love Story

There’s an irresistibly romantic air in this season’s white looks. The breeze could just be brought by the clean and fresh Chloé Love Story scent inspired by nothing else but Parisian romance. The top note carries the scent of white florals like neroli, orange blossom, and jasmine. When paired with the all-white Fendi minimalist white coats, it becomes an ode to luxurious simplicity. The look and scent together form a pristine, feminine charm.

Power Woman

The look: Oscar dela Renta fall/winter 2015
The scent: Marc Jacobs Decadence

High-octane glamor in the form of shimmering metallic skirts and glittering fabric elevate the season—this is where Oscar dela Renta comes in. But this opulence comes with added edge, a certain decadence only a Marc Jacobs’ scent can bring. This first “mature” fragrance from the brand is a sexy and sophisticated mix of Italian plum, saffron, and iris. The base contains warm liquid amber and papyrus wood, making it all the more elegant in sound and in smell. The spirit of the scent combined with the attitude of the dela Renta number brings in a new sense of premium. There is no messing with this woman.

The Everywoman

The look: Prada fall/winter 2015
The scent: Vera Wang Embrace

This is for the modern woman who is a little bit of everything; someone who can’t contain herself in a single bottle. The Vera Wang Embrace may offer three distinctly different scents, but all of them point to one kind of woman. There’s the Green Tea and Pear Blossom (the modernist), the Rose Buds and Vanilla (the zealous), and the Periwinkle and Iris (the traditionalist). The Prada woman is all three and never just one as well. So depending on your mood, there’s an all-encompassing scent and look pairing for the versatile woman.

 

Art by Dorothy Guya