Lady’s Gaga’s Fame/Black Fluid: Dark, Compelling, Visionary…Like the Artist Herself
Multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning artist Lady Gaga’s first fragrance, released worldwide through the artist’s own Haus Laboratories in association with Coty, is yet another example of the breadth of her creativity.
Surprising no-one who is familiar with Lady Gaga’s boundless vision and originality, the scent leaves far behind all the longtime standard practices in the fragrance industry with its groundbreaking technology. Lady Gaga Fame is the first ever black Eau de Parfum that sprays clear and becomes invisible once airborne. The black-to-clear fragrance is a fantastic, exclusive innovation of patent pending fluid technology.
Gaga collaborated with fashion industry legends in the creation of Lady Gaga Fame: the bottle was designed in collaboration with Nick Knight, and the ad campaign was directed and photographed by Steven Klein. For those of us who are drawn to the darker color palettes in all that we wear and surround ourselves with, the black liquid is a spectacular visual change from the usual pastel fragrance shades; put on display in a bedroom or powder room, it is an eye-catching statement.
The revolutionary nature of Lady Gaga Fame goes beyond the black-to-clear fluid: the olfactory structure itself is also very rare for the fragrance industry. Traditionally, perfumes have a pyramidal structure ~ a hierarchy of sorts, with top, middle and base notes. This fragrance, however, has a unique structure called “push-pull technology,” where the ingredients interact with each other to highlight different olfactive aspects of each note at the same time, without one overpowering the other at any time. All of the notes were crafted to work together harmoniously thanks to the complimentary properties of each ingredient, which allow for a true metamorphosis of the scent when worn on skin. The hype surrounding that “metamorphosis” is well deserved; the first time I wore the scent it reminded me of a delicious-smelling red wine for a bit, then of a sweeter concoction ~ maybe a very refined, fruity “liquid potpourri for the skin,” and then I noticed touches of a slightly less sweet but still subtly floral quality.
The scent is built around three main accords: dark, sensual and light. The dark accord was inspired by Belladonna, the deadly nightshade possessed by haunted beauties since the 18th century ~ somehow so appropriate to represent one of the many facets of Lady Gaga’s personality, that eerie-tortured-yet-still-stunning quality. From this darkness, the fragrance evolves to sensual opulence, a fusion of dripping honey, saffron and apricot nectar. And lastly, the light accord whispers magnificence with its rich floral appeal from Tiger Orchid and Jasmine Sambac embodying timeless beauty. The three main elements blend harmoniously to create a fragrance of floral and fruity elements, with the star ingredient inspired by Belladonna and giving Lady Gaga Fame its signature as a mysterious, magnetic scent.