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DECEMBER 18, 2007
Interview with Douglas Hopkins Part II: Perfumery As A Labor Of Love - {Passion for Perfume - Portrait}
(Continued from
Part I
of the Interview - please take a cup of tea and enjoy the second part!).
Douglas Hopkins
: The story my new friend revealed over the course of many months -- she came to trust my genuine interest in my product, was notone of lawsuit, but one of her own life-long desire to revive the family fragrance [Prastara]. Thisstory tied in quite directly to the events of the end of WWII. Many people believe fragrance is at all levels a “money printing machine” – as thefounder of Revlon once called it, but this exists only at the mass market level. Art versus commerce --commerce is where it is truly “juice”; as yourdevotees know, these are scents that most often don’t last beyond the first year and backed by a 20 million dollar launch promotion. As an art, it is alabor of love.
Marie-Hélène Wagner: Do you know the cologne’s original French name before it was christened with a Slavic name?
 DH: This is subject to continuing investigation.
MHW: As this was a cologne developed by a chemist to Louis XIV, one would think there would be some documentation left about it inFrance? Have you conducted research from that angle?
 - It is my understanding that there is no such documentation, but I must say in a case of high coincidence, one year after we offered the VersaillesMuseum the privilege of selling Prastara, they came out with their own brand claiming a French perfuming expert derived it from research. I've beenunable to track this any further so I don't know one way or the other about its authenticity..........
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Page 1of 3Passion for Perfume - Portraits | The Scented Salamander: Perfume & Beauty Blog3/12/2008http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/passion_for_perfume_portraits/ 
 
DECEMBER 14, 2007
Interview with Douglas Hopkins of DH & Co - Part I: The Story of Prastara & a Fashion Photographer TurnedFragrance Developer {Passion for Perfume - Portrait} {Celebrity Fragrance}
If you are an amateur of historical perfumes, you are bound to have happened on
Prastara Royal
, a perfume based on a recipe created by a chemist toLouis XIV, as the tradition recalls, and now faithfully re-created by
Douglas Hopkins & Co at the Perfume Factory
. We asked its founder DouglasHopkins to tell us about the story of this fragrance and his own role in shaping anew the destiny of this ancient eau. It turns out this is not just aninspired marketing project, but more an adventure taking its main hero, Douglas Hopkins, from the milieu of the New York fashion industry to RoyalAustrian castles and post-Communist fragrance factories in Eastern Europe. The material contained in this exclusive interview will be part of aforthcoming photography book,
 Real.Views
.
Marie-Hélène Wagner: The story of Prastara seems complex; I see that there is a Polish brand that sells a similar product. Do you have anyinformation about that other Prastara?
 
Douglas Hopkins:
The short story is that I bought the Prastara trademark from the Poles back around 1987, from a trip with a fragrance industryexpert, looking for investments after the Wall went down. The Communist factory keeps the domestic Polish market, I have the rest of the world. I'vesince created three other scents, Prastara Blue, Åse (OH-say), and Zazou. I was friends with a number of European royal families, stemming fromportraits I did during twenty years as a New York fashion photographer, and through their exquisite private castle libraries (You can yet see a photo of one on the first page of our old site
www.DouglasHopkins.com
). I found intriguing formulations, which I used in creating my scents. With mybackground as a volcanologist at MIT/NASA, I expanded into geothermal-based skin care products, which did exceptionally well. They were licenseda few years ago and are being redesigned for a new launch. We made an unintended splash in the fashion press for a $800 per ounce "Deep Sea"limited edition, therapeutic mud, which sold out at Bergdorf Goodman in a week. We have been more or less exclusive to Bergdorf's for 15 years, butare now expanding into a wider market. We have been a hit in Italy for a decade, and recently entered Galeries Lafayette in Paris, the first Americanniche fragrance in the store. These are a few of the highlights........
Page 2of 3Passion for Perfume - Portraits | The Scented Salamander: Perfume & Beauty Blog3/12/2008http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/passion_for_perfume_portraits/ 
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