On a sunny Sunday afternoon at Village Pointe Shopping Center, 7-year-old Grace Williams wasn't window shopping. She was after two things, and she found them — conveniently situated in adjacent displays — at Sephora.
Taylor Swift's Wonderstruck. Justin Bieber's Someday. They're two of the hottest things in women's fragrances.
At Dillard's Oak View, a group of high-school-age shoppers squealed when they located Wonderstruck's sparkly purple bottle, strung at the top with a few gold charms. They snapped photos with their cell phones.
Earlier, 16-year-old Margaret Altman had passed through Dillard's with her 10-year-old sister, Emma, and their mother, Mary. Margaret picked up the display bottle of Someday (also purple), pulled off the cap — an oversize red-and-pink plastic rose with heart-shaped petals — and spritzed a bit on a card.
"It smells so good," she said.
"It smells like him," Emma said, giggling.
"It's sweet," Mary said. "I'm not a 'sweet' person. But it's age-appropriate."
And most likely, she said, to be expected at the Altman house on Christmas Day.
Plenty of celebrity names are being dropped in fragrance departments this season. Gwen Stefani, Kate Walsh and Jennifer Aniston are floating around Sephora. Aniston is at Dillard's, too, along with Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Jessica Simpson. Carey, Perry and Swift are all at Von Maur in Westroads Mall. Down the hall, Younkers boasts a similar lineup.
About half of those celebrities released fragrances just this year, though the celebrity-endorsed fragrance idea is an old one. The best-selling scent in the genre, Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds, was released in 1991. Bloomberg Businessweek reported earlier this year that scents with Taylor's imprint, including Passion and Passion for Men, brought in an estimated $69 million at retail worldwide in 2010, according to tracking firm Euromonitor International.
The popularity of celebrity scents, like that of their couture design house counterparts, is partly based on price point, said Dillard's cosmetic and fragrance manager Stephanie Rawson.
"When you look at the longevity of Chanel No. 5 or Christian Dior or Guerlain, these are couture houses that branched out from what their expertise was," she said. "Not everyone can afford a couture gown at the starting price of $10,000. But with a fragrance for $85 or $95, you're now part of that couture family."
In the same way, she said, "not every little girl got to go to Justin Bieber's concert when he was here, but for $32.50 they can have a 1-ounce bottle of Justin Bieber perfume.'"
It's personal, too. Take Jennifer Aniston's eponymous scent, which Rawson said is "blowing out the door" with women in their 40s.
"When I was in my 30s, 'Friends' was my most favorite show in the universe," she said. "In buying the fragrance, am I trying to recapture my youth? No. But am I feeling closer to this person who, every Thursday night at 8 o'clock, felt like my best friend? Yes."
Of course, there's a third reason for selecting a fragrance. Perhaps it is best summed up by the 7-year-old Grace, who left Sephora with samples of both Wonderstruck and Someday in order to make a final decision.
"I want to be able to smell pretty," she said.
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