We can hardly believe it’s already ten years since master perfumer Olivier Cresp was comissioned to create the original ‘magical perfume’, Nina. Based on the cheekily chic Parisian fashion house of Nina Ricci, the character of the fragrance itself was inspired by the couture atelier – a French house synonymous with charm, innocence and joie de vivre.
Cresp created an upliftingly playful floral with a sparkling (almost fizzy) heart. Wrapped in toffee-apple scented twists, and mingling the freshness of citrus fruit with a lightly skin-musk-y, woody dry down, Nina became a worldwide success. The passing years have seen some further twists in the tale and a number of re-inventions, but this has to be the most fun incarnation of the bottle yet.
Now, Nina is going pop-crazy for her tenth birthday, with a re-imagined pop-art inspired bottle by French artist Coco. Bright splashes of colour decorate the bottle of Nina Pop.
Nina Ricci say: ‘Once upon a time, there was a princess who… Stop! An arty fairytale doesn’t start with “once upon a time”. It’s here and now. There’s a young woman dreaming of femininity. A fantasy that exists, thanks to her, dreaming with her eyes open. A tale where you can go home whenever you want. Where the established rules have been shaken up. And where you make up your own dangers.
For her birthday, Nina has invited her hopes, her emotions and her desires. Those for yesterday, those for today, and those for tomorrow, brought together in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. Music booms out. Nina dances. The dance plays thrills and spins. The dance lives out dreams and memories, memories of who she was and who she will be.’
‘Nina. At each turn, and each laugh that pours out, you make a new dream appear. Of yourself, perhaps? A hint of some unquenched desire. Ten years ago, ten years from now, never mind, everything is here. Nina is seeking herself out, unveiling, surprising, testing and rediscovering herself.
Ten years is an eternity when it comes to blowing out a few candles.
Nina does so. And at that very moment, for Nina is a magical perfume, she feels more alive, and freer than ever before. Breathing. Biting into the apple of love. Nina. Your life’s ahead of you.
Have a lovely birthday, Nina.’
And so say all of us…
Nina Pop 10th Birthday Edition £42 for 50ml eau de toilette
At John Lewis
