Insider Guide: Beautiful People.(Carolina Herrera)(Interview)

Insider's Guide: Beautiful People

Fashion Scents

Carolina Herrera: Designer

By Kari Molvar

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rowing up in Venezuela, Carolina Herrera's earliest memories are of scent. "Every night, the lush, intoxicating smell of jasmine would drift through my bedroom window," recalls the fashion and fragrance designer. Enamored of the floral note, she bottled a homemade mixture of jasmine and tuberose oils and brought it with her when she moved from Caracas to New York City in 1981. Six years later, the anonymous blend evolved into her eponymous eau de parfum. "A professional nose went through thousands of tries to match my signature concoction exactly-like a lover, he kept wooing me with attempts."

Herrera was obviously smitten with the results. She launched ten more scents in the years that followed, the latest of which, 212 on Ice, she whipped up after last year's fall fashion shows. "I did have some help," she admits. Daughter Carolina Adriana worked with her to create the sexy, ?citrus-infused spin-off of the original formula. "It's young and fresh, just like she is," says Herrera, smiling. "But I still love my Carolina Herrera parfum best."