Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 31, 1995 TAG: 9508310086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Black Pearls - the Elizabeth Taylor fragrance - may just have become even rarer than it was intended to be.
The perfume's manufacturer, Eliabeth Arden Co. of New York, issued a terse statement late Tuesday announcing that it and Taylor have "mutually agreed to cancel the 1995 launch" of Black Pearls because of "recent changes of management."
Just what the news means was unclear Wednesday to many who make and market the pricey perfume. Folks who know aren't saying; folks who don't know are doing plenty of speculating.
At the Elizabeth Arden plant in Roanoke, the sole production site for Black Pearls, no one was answering questions. Plant manager Don Hergrueter apologized as he referred all inquiries to the cosmetics maker's director of public relations in New York.
Company spokeswoman Susan Arnot Heaney also apologized, saying only that production of Black Pearls had ceased and that all promotional activities planned for the formal September introduction had been canceled. She said that the company hadn't decided what to do about the Black Pearls merchandise already in stores.
Being scrapped is a $12 million advertising campaign that included 42 million scent strips and print ads featuring Taylor immersed in a lagoon - some of which have already run in magazines.
As for merchants, apparently the company hadn't had time to tell all of them about the decision.
Bill Webb, manager of the J.C. Penney Co. store at Roanoke's Tanglewood Mall, said he had heard nothing about the cancellation. Nor had John Montgomery, the manager of the same shopping center's Leggett department store.
Nor had any of the women selling the fragrance at either store.
"But we've been taking down names and numbers of customers who want it," said J.C. Penney sales associate Debbie Newcomer when she was told - by a reporter - about the perfume's uncertain future.
Amy Quinn, who has worked at the women's fragrance counter at the Leggett store at Valley View Mall for nine years, said she has never seen anything like this announcement.
"We've had some perfumes come and go, but that's because they didn't smell good," she said. Black Pearls has been selling very well, she said. Even though the formal introduction wasn't scheduled until next month, some stores have stocked the fragrance since early last week. One-ounce bottles of the perfume have been selling for $25, 1.7-ounce bottles for $35 and 3.4-ounce bottles for $45.
The fragrance became controversial after some upscale department store chains that usually sell Arden products, including the May Department Stores Co. - St. Louis parent of Hecht's - and Minneapolis-based Dayton-Hudson Corp., refused to carry Black Pearls. The retailers cited recent cuts Arden made in its contributions toward paying counter salespeople, a common practice in cosmetics retailing. In response to the boycott, Arden turned for support to more downscale or regional retailers including J.C. Penney Co., Sears Roebuck & Co. and, in Southwest Virginia, Leggett.
Chen Sam, the New York public relations firm that speaks for Elizabeth Taylor, said the actress had no comment on the cancellation. But a fragrance industry observer, who asked to remain unnamed, thinks that Taylor may have been "more than just passably upset" at the fact that her new scent was being released at less prestigious stores than the traditional New York venues for products bearing her name. If true, this could have contributed to Tuesday's announcement.
Annette Green, president of the New York-based Fragrance Foundation trade group, believes that Arden's parent company, Unilever, has decided to cut its losses and regroup under its new management. Kimberly Delsing, president and CEO of Arden and the executive responsible for the sales clerk cost-cutting that led to the department store boycott, resigned Aug. 16.
"They just had to re-look at the whole way the fragrance was being released," Green said.
"Like any military organization, sometimes when you see the clouds coming it's better to run and come back to fight another day," another fragrance industry insider said.
And as far as the perfume that sits, unwanted, at the plant on Plantation Road in Roanoke, don't expect to smell its warm, Oriental scent in the city's sewer system. The company won't say how much of it has been made but Green thinks Arden will try to market it again in early spring, just in time for Mother's Day.
"It's a success story waiting to happen," she said. "It's not going to go away."
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
by CNB