Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508220059
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Apparently, business deals in the perfume industry don't always come out smelling as sweet as the bottled scents they produce.
Elizabeth Arden's newest fragrance, Black Pearls by Elizabeth Taylor, is being manufactured at the Arden plant in Roanoke, but you won't find the scent for sale at all the usual Roanoke retailers.
Hecht's at Valley View Mall, which carries other Elizabeth Taylor fragrances including Passion and White Diamonds, will not be stocking Black Pearls due to a boycott of the scent by the store's parent company, May Department Stores Co. Diane Martin, a spokeswoman at the Hecht's office in Arlington, said Friday that she was not able to comment on the issue except to confirm that the company will not be carrying the product.
Also on Friday, New York-based Arden spokeswoman Barbara Panetta said that the fragrance and cosmetics company would not respond to any further questions about Black Pearls until a formal press kit had been issued later this week or early next week.
But according to a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, the upscale retailers that traditionally have carried Taylor fragrances - the May Co., Dillard Department Stores Inc. and Dayton-Hudson Corp., among others - refused to stock the new scent after Arden cut the contribution it paid to help cover salaries of counter salespeople from 5 percent of the brand's retail sales to 3 percent.
This action followed an earlier announcement by Arden that it would no longer share the costs for advertising, catalogs and window displays for Arden products.
In response to the boycott, Arden turned to other national retailers to market the scent. J.C. Penney Co. and Sears Roebuck & Co. both picked up the fragrance, as did a number of regional chains, including Leggett.
Black Pearls arrived at the Leggett store at Valley View Mall last week, and the shell-shaped bottles are now on display in the cosmetics department.
Customers seem to like the "warm, Oriental" scent, said Amy Quinn, who works at the store's women's fragrance counter. Leggett is selling 1-ounce bottles of Black Pearls for $25, 1.7-ounce bottles for $35 and 3.4-ounce bottles for $45, she said. The store also sells scented body lotion and tiny $10 promotional bottles of the fragrance.
Roanoke-area J.C. Penney stores also are carrying Black Pearls, although right now only the $10 bottles are on the shelves.
Kathy Proctor, who works at the cosmetics counter at the Valley View Penney store, said she has sold several of the promotional bottles since they were introduced late last week.
The rest of the Black Pearls products should arrive within a few weeks, she said.
The Roanoke Arden plant, which is the company's only manufacturing center in the United States, began producing the scent in mid-July, according to plant manager Don Hergrueter. Production levels for Black Pearls have been lower than those for previous Elizabeth Taylor fragrances, he said.
by CNB