This is the story of Tom Ford’s expensive perfume, object of desire in the novel ‘Maldito Hamor’

The sense of smell is key to evoke emotions and memories. It is so powerful and sensitive that we can remember up to 35% of what we smell. This happens because of our ability to associate specific situations with certain smells.

Each person has their own olfactory heritage that he has been accumulating throughout his life, unconsciously. Thus, upon perceiving a specific aroma, he will return to his mind the memory associated with that smell.

Thanks to the olfactory memory we can associate aromas with memories, people or moments. This olfactory memory is known as Proustian memory (or involuntary memory). The mere exposure to a stimulus automatically triggers an intense memory of the past.

(Do you know the origin of the most iconic perfume bottles?)

The name is due to the writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922), author of In Search of Lost Time, whose first volume, by way of swan, published in 1913, refers to a madeleine dipped in tea that evoked the memory of his aunt’s house.

The great perfumers have analyzed and investigated this phenomenon of memory that has its origin in our cerebral cortex ad nauseam. So those called “noses” in the sector are dedicated to the incessant search for suggestive, provocative and unforgettable aromas.

In this sense, the beauty industry launches every year more than 300 new perfumes, although only half a dozen survive. The professionals, true alchemists, are busy inventing and reinventing increasingly original blends, to transform them into the final result, into the perfume that we will remember for a lifetime.

the most expensive perfume

many of these aromas have gone on to swell the history of perfume and its price reaches very high levels.

The most expensive in the world that is remembered cost a million dollars, although the price was influenced not only by the effluvia of the precious liquid, but also by the container that contained it.

On that occasion, the designer Donna Karan teamed up with jewelry designer Martin Katz to design the perfume bottle most elaborate in history. The jar contained 2,909 precious stones which included 183 yellow sapphires, 2,700 white diamonds, a 7.18-carat oval cabochon sapphire from Sri Lanka, 15 pink diamonds from Australia, 4 rose-cut diamonds, a 1.6-carat turquoise Paraiba tourmaline from Brazil, an oval-cut ruby 3.07-carat diamond, a 4.03-carat rose-cut pear-cut diamond and a 2.43-carat yellow diamond.

the stones were hand laid for 1,500 hoursdrawing the skyline from New York City.

niche essences

Not reaching these extremes, but beyond the reach of most pockets, luxury brands launch or relaunch their most exclusive perfumes each season, the so-called niche perfumes.

Chanel and Tom Ford fragrances belong to this exclusive circle. Gardenia Les Exclusifs de Chanel is around €380 (200 ml) and can be purchased on the website of the house.

fucking fabulous de Ford is priced at €640/100 ml (€320 /50 ml) and can be purchased exclusively at El Corte Inglés.

‘Damned Hamor’ and perfume

The designer’s perfume, which has been on the market for six years, has become a fetish, such an object of desire that it even becomes a source of inspiration for many current writers, who include it in their stories.

This is the case of the second novel of Cruz Sanchez de Lara, Damn Hamor (Espasa Calpe, 2023).

The vice president of HE SPANISH and editor of magasIN narrates the love, first passionate and then unhealthy, that arises between the protagonist, the young Madrid architect Clea Castán, and an attractive English aristocrat, Henry Astor, who after entrusting her with the renovation of a family mansion in Biarritz and seducing her, traps her in a relationship marked by sex and psychological violence.

Sánchez de Lara recreates multiple details, providing brushstrokes so that the reader is fully immersed in this sexual game between the protagonists, which ends up becoming a nightmare for Clea. Definitely, one of the most evocative details is Tom Ford’s Fucking Fabulous perfume worn by Henry, the protagonist. A perfume whose name is already synonymous with provocation.

The story of the essence

The American fashion designer and film director who was creative director of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford, in addition to knowing how to create a great product, without a doubt, also knows how to launch it.

Tom Ford introduced the fragrance fucking fabulous during New York Fashion Week in September 2017, at a party held immediately after her spring 2018 show.

There they were Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid who wandered through an exquisitely scented space, lined in pink velvet and bathed in magenta light. And of course, every journalist, critic, celebrities and influencers they took home a bottle of the fragrance in question, to spread it in their media and platforms.

The scent became so popular that the brand included it in its permanent collection.. However, this perfume was about to not see the light, and Tom Ford recognized it in later interviews. “They didn’t even want to launch it,” Ford said of his conversations with the president of the Estée Lauder Companies, which owns Tom Ford Beauty.

The name, ‘fucking fabulous’ in its translation into Spanish, raised blisters, but the designer remained firm in his decision: “I knew it would be a success with that name. To the person who has everything, what do you give him? Well, a bottle of Fucking Fabulous ”, he assured.

The limited-edition fragrance is decadent, bold and luxurious. It is a tonic based on bitter almond oil, tonka resinoid, lily accord, blond cashmere wood, leather accord and sage oil. It emits key notes of fresh lavender, bitter almond, vanilla, orris root, iris flower, and leather.

The exclusive perfume is wrapped in an elegant black leather atomizer and is unisex and can be ‘smelled’ and purchased exclusively at The English Court.