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| Snazzy bottle, boring name. |
Where lowly Brut, a drugstore cologne as ubiquitous as Q-tips, has benefitted greatly from a recent buyout via High Ridge Brands, questions are being raised as to whether the luxury house of Creed will see the same fate under its new proprietor, Kering. Having only been owned by BlackRock LTPC for about three years, the observing public bore witness to precious few changes under that marquee. Yet in the span of only a few months with Kering, there is a new perfume slated for release this autumn: Absolu Aventus.
A few things strike me as odd about Kering. They have yet to list Creed as their brand on their website. Also, their site really, really sucks. Lots of awkward drop-downs with weirdly small type, and not much information. People in the fragcomm are whining about how Kering has done Balenciaga and Gucci dirty, and while the former has certainly suffered one travesty after another (a bunch of pedophilic fashion ads spring to mind), the latter hasn't really been that bad off. The Gucci Bloom line has been relatively successful and well received, and you could argue that the Gucci Pour Homme fragrances were at least noble attempts at great perfumery. One complaint that finds traction is with the company's inexperience with high-end niche perfumery, and people are understandably suspicious that Creed's perfumes will be degraded to Gucci-level designer quality.
Absolu Aventus is a frightening start. The only good thing about it is it's being offered in a 2.5 oz bottle; I never understood why BlackRock ditched that size. It makes me wonder if Kering will bring back the 4 oz bottles, which would also be a good thing, although I'm not holding my breath, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they scrapped the 100 ml bottles altogether and made 75 ml the new standard size. The bottle is a glossy lacquered black, which also looks sharp, so okay. In regards to packaging, Kering is doing pretty well, but that's where the wins end. Another Aventus flanker? What's with that? Niche brands aren't supposed to churn out flankers. The whole point of niche is that their fragrances are one-of-a-kind. Flankers aren't luxurious. Flankers are for designers, things that are priced under $150 a bottle. We need another version of Aventus like we need another Cool Water or CK One Summer flanker. It's embarrassing, especially for a brand like Creed.
Then there's the notes breakdown. Absolu Aventus sounds like some sort of awkward clone of the original. Bergamot, blackcurrant, grapefruit? Cinnamon, ginger, cardamom? Vetiver, pink pepper? Jesus. Might as well just go back to 2010 and retread months and months of chads yapping on about how much of a "designer" frag Aventus is (for a Creed), and how much of a bangin' club-mix panty-dropper it is. Yes Kering, I want to relive the stories about how Aventus got some anonymous internet douchebag laid last Saturday. That sounds really, really great. I've been saying forever that I wish Creed would go back to basics and release perfumes that "luxe-up" old standards like Old Spice and Brut, and stop trying to cash in on the generic "fresh" frags of discount stores. In some ways, Viking (2017) was a stab at upgrading Old Spice, although I think it was also an attempt to update an early nineties spicy fougère theme, but sadly it was one of the last things the Creed family put out before all the wheeling and dealing started.
Now Creed is no longer run by the Creed family, which raises big doubts about whether there's any point in viewing the brand as "Creed" any longer. Kering is yet another faceless corporate entity with little to no personal stake in upholding Creed's off-beat innovative spirit. Wind Flowers was a pathetic attempt by BlackRock at continuing the family tradition, a perfume in a cheap-looking bottle with a flatulence-inspired name. BlackRock thought Creed was broken and needed fixing, so they changed the bottle shape, added artificial coloring to the liquid for the first time in the brand's history, and released a Chanel-like fruity-floral that nobody really wanted. It's hard to see how Kering could do much worse, but if the future of Creed is Aventus flankers and more pointless fruity-florals using designer-grade chems, they might as well just discontinue the entire house and let us remember Creed as it was, before the "C" was replaced by a "G."