One Perfect Rose by La Prairie c1990

One Perfect Rose by La Prairie: launched in 1990. Created by Guy Robert and the PFW essence house.

In 1987, Georgette Mosbacher, wife of then Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, purchased the Swiss skin care company La Prairie. The One Perfect Rose perfume was to be La Prairie's first foray into the world of fragrance. 

Mosbacher said that the fragrance was created to "celebrate the La Prairie customer," but said that she carried around the idea for the fragrance for 10 years - long before she bought the La Prairie company. She said that bringing the idea to fruition took two years.

Mrs. Mosbacher described it as "feminine, sensual and aristocratic . . . hopefully, it will be a classic. I put one crucial question to the great perfumers of Europe and America. If you wished to capture the most perfect symbol of love in a fragrance form, what you would you choose? The reply was inescapable the same from Paris to the Vale of Kashmir. If you seek the perfect essence of love, you seek the rose." Mosbacher explained her inspiration, "I was tired of being assaulted instead of tantalized by fragrance." She said that she and perfumer Guy Robert "had brainstorming sessions all over Paris. We met in the middle of the night in bars, at seven in the morning at cafes," revealed Mosbacher.

Mosbacher unveiled her first fragrance on St Valentine's Day in a rose-filled penthouse apartment at the Stanhope Hotel. It was here that she presented a Boehm limited edition porcelain bottle holding 1 ounce of Parfum which was to retail at $1500. Mockups of the other two items in the line were also shown: a one ounce Gilded Rose container that retailed for $350; and the Rose Embellished Spray, a 1.7 oz Eau de Parfum atomizer that retailed for $85.

The fragrance line was to be shipped out to stores in late April 1990. in time for Mother's Day, May 13.

La Prairie at the time was sold by 240 retailers, but only 150 of them would sell the fragrance. Mosbacher debated whether to sell the fragrance at La Prairie counters or at department and specialty-store fragrance bars. Mosbacher claimed that "We want to do more sales in the distribution we have now. We are committed to limited distribution." Eventually, the fragrance appeared in the better shops such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom's, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus and I. Magnin.

To create demand, Mosbacher planned to break the mold of the limited edition bottle at the end of 1990. While the mold for the porcelain bottle was destined to be destroyed, the fragrance was to continue to be available in two lower-priced versions. She said that "it's meant to be a collector's item. Its for our customer to have something quite unique and quite special apart from the fragrance of the month."

Fragrance Composition:

Notes of Bulgarian rose and other mysterious floral, a perfume developed in France of all natural essences. It contains the essence of over 300 different roses, each of which is unique, for a very distinct, evocative fragrance. Mosbacher said that each ounce of the parfum contains the absolute of 10,000 perfect rose petals. The scent has a top note of narcissus, Tunisian cassis and peach that yields to the heart note of rose. It also has gardenia, jasmine and tuberose with a base note of vetiver, sandalwood and exotic musks.

• Top notes: narcissus, Tunisian blackcurrant bud, peach
• Middle notes: rose absolute, Moroccan rose absolute, gardenia, jasmine absolute, tuberose
• Base notes: vetiver, sandalwood, mousse de chêne, musk

Bottles:

One Perfect Rose was available in four beautiful bottles. The most commonly found bottles are the miniatures and the Eau de Parfum Sprays. The 1 oz Parfum and the Limited Edition 1 oz Boehm porcelain bottles are considered quite rare.

Miniature Bottle Presentation:

The clear glass miniature bottle is coated in a sea foam green fired on paint and is topped with a gold plated screw cap. It is accented with a tony pink ribbon rose tied around the neck of the bottle. The base of the bottle is marked "Made in France" and was made by Verreries Brosse.

This 0.13 oz miniature Parfum bottle stands at just 1.25" tall.

Rose Embellished Spray Bottle:

The clear glass bottle is coated in a sea foam green fired on paint and is topped with a sculptured rosebud spray cap in fine plated gold. The base of the bottle is marked "Made in France" and was made by Verreries Brosse.

The Gilded Rose Parfum Bottle:

The clear glass bottle is coated in a sea foam green fired on paint and is topped with a gilded crystal stopper. The hand polished rose stopper was molded from pure lead crystal and acid etched to prepare it for its cover of 18kt gold which was individually hand applied in France using an age old tradition and then fused to the crystal in red hot ovens. This individual application of gold makes each stopper a work of art which accounts for variations in tonalities and makes each stopper unique. The base of the bottle is marked "Made in France" and was made by Verreries Brosse. This 1 oz Parfum bottle stands about 3" tall.

The Limited Edition Flacon:

In 1990 Mosbacher asked Helen Boehm of England's House of Boehm, to design a hand painted porcelain flacon to hold the One Perfect Rose fragrance. The bottle has a celadon porcelain base in the shape of a small oval box further embellished with a ribbon hand painted with 24kt gold leaf.  A delicate pink rose formed the top. For touch of whimsy, a tiny ladybug is found perched beneath the rose. On the base of the sculpture is a hand painted label in the style of antique perfume bottles. "I saw a framed montage of old perfume labels in a friend's house. I was mesmerized by it," Mosbacher said.

It came with a glass bell dome and wood base, and contained one ounce of One Perfect Rose Parfum. This limited edition Boehm porcelain bottle with retailed for $1,500 an ounce.  

Mosbacher preferred to call the limited edition bottle "a work of art" rather than a bottle, adding "it is meant for the very discerning client that wants a collectible or for a gentleman who wants to buy a lasting gift of love."

 Mosbacher admitted that producing it was in her words, "a technical nightmare. It's porcelain, and that hadn't been done as a perfume bottle in 50 tears." Because each porcelain bottle was individually handmade, hand-gilded and fragile, the number of experts in the field were limited. 

 

Fate of the Fragrance:

Discontinued in 1994.