Today’s Trash, Tomorrow’s Nostalgia?

Talk about your buried lede: here’s the penultimate sentence from a long fluffy puffy piece on celebrity fragrance in the UK’s Sunday Express:

An impressive 73 celebrity scents were launched last year . . .

Jumping Jiminy. That’s a new smellebrity perfume every five days.

Express writer Georgia Gould credits Elizabeth Taylor for making possible the smash perfume hits by Alesha Dixon [Who?—Ed.] [Alesha D-i-x-o-n. The one who become a judge on the seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2009. Duh.] and Coleen Rooney. [Who?—Ed.] [Uh . . . haven’t the foggiest.]

Gould also captured this insightful quote:

“Celebrities must be at the peak of their popularity when launching a fragrance,” says Shelly Smyth of beauty distributors SAS & Company, which is behind One Direction’s [Who?—Ed.] [Zip it.] imminent (and currently top secret) launch. 

Then there is this gem:

“Fans are always the first to purchase a fragrance as it allows them to feel closer to their idol.”

There’s an all-purpose sentence! Substitute any noun for “fragrance” and it remains true. Try it yourself : “bubble gum card,” “key chain,” “mouse pad,” “temporary tattoo,” “novelty underwear.”

This is where industrialized celebuscents have taken us. But there’s a bright side. Perhaps someone, fifty years from now, will take as much nostalgic pleasure in an empty bottle of Alesha Dixon as I take in my 1964 Boog Powell trading card.

Nah.