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Kenzo poppies in Toulouse, France

Posted by Robin on 1 September 2009 31 Comments

Kenzo poppies in Toulouse, France1

Kenzo will plant a 'field' of 200,000 red paper poppies in front of the Place du Capitole in Toulouse, France this Friday, September 4th. The poppies will remain until the following day, when they'll be given away to passers-by. The event is in honor of their poppy-inspired fragrance, Flower by Kenzo, and follows similar events around the world, the most recent in Lyon this past May. If you go, send us pictures!

Update: there will be another event on the same dates (September 4th and 5th) at Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, Johannesburg, with about 30,000 poppies on display. Then next week (September 11 and 12), look for a field of 150,000 poppies at Castle Square, Warsaw.

Filed Under: perfume in the news
Tagged With: johannesburg, kenzo, kenzo poppies, scent event, toulouse, warsaw

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31 Comments

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  1. AnnS says:
    1 September 2009 at 1:40 pm

    I was kind of late in the game discovering Flower by Kenzo, which I really enjoy as a wonderful fresh beautiful powdery fragrance. I’ve especially liked wearing it on these few hot days over the summer. I can’t wait to sample the new “Essentielle” or whatever it’s called to see if it is better than the original! Strong suggestion indeed from Octavian at 1000fragrances!

    http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/2009/07/flower-by-kenzo-essentielle-divine.html

    It would be nice to see one of these poppy events in France for sure!

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 2:55 pm

      That one really does sound nice!

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  2. Bela says:
    1 September 2009 at 2:17 pm

    A few years ago, another company ‘planted’ a field of lavender on Place Vendôme, if I remember correctly. Real lavender – not paper flowers. It remained there for a little while. I saw pics of it: it looked stunning.

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 2:56 pm

      Oh, how nice!

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  3. megank4 says:
    1 September 2009 at 3:21 pm

    what are they doing, the Tour de France? Wonder if they will come to Marseille.

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 3:40 pm

      Supposedly they’re coming to Marseille soon!

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      • Robin says:
        2 September 2009 at 9:26 pm

        Never mind, apparently they’re not…but see above, they’ve added Johannesburg & Warsaw.

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  4. alltheprettythings says:
    1 September 2009 at 3:21 pm

    I wish they would bring this display to the US.

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 3:40 pm

      Me too! Preferably to my town.

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  5. green girl says:
    1 September 2009 at 3:31 pm

    In British commonwealth countries, paper poppies commemorate Armistice Day. I wonder if they do that in France?

    Haven’t gotten into any Kenzo perfumes. Maybe I’ll have to take a scent tour.

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 3:41 pm

      Do, they make lots of great scents.

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    • annemarie says:
      1 September 2009 at 6:24 pm

      Yes: ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row …’. (From the poem by John McCrae.)

      This is such a powerful image in Britain and in countries of the former British Empire which took part in the First World War. Pretty crass of Kenzo to choose red poppies as as a marketing tool, I reckon.

      Anyway, do poppies have a scent?

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      • Robin says:
        1 September 2009 at 7:36 pm

        No, no scent — they’re just “inspired” by poppies in a visual sense.

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  6. cazaubon says:
    1 September 2009 at 5:28 pm

    I saw this years ago in Paris, it was quite fun! They’ve been doing this for quite a while. And yes, I think they also do hand out poppies in France for armistice day.

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 7:37 pm

      Thanks!

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  7. bergere says:
    1 September 2009 at 8:41 pm

    I’ve read that both poppies and cornflowers have symbolized the Flanders Fields of WWI. I agree with Annemarie, it’s pretty callous to trifle with such a solemn symbol just to attract market share in a splashy way.

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    • Robin says:
      1 September 2009 at 8:55 pm

      Well, gosh, do you really think it’s so very linked that you can’t do anything else with poppies and/or cornflowers without being callous? I just don’t see it that way.

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      • pyramus says:
        2 September 2009 at 3:44 am

        I don’t, either, but you do have to remember that the red poppy in Commonwealth countries is inextricably tied to not only the Second World War but also the sense of devastation and loss of life. The remaining veterans take it VERY seriously. (The local Michaels craft store, which sells zillions of artificial flowers of every possibly description, actually had to stop selling fake poppies because the veterans complained to the head office. They sell little stylized poppies as lapel pins every fall, and they must have figured Michaels was horning in on their act or something. Ridiculous, really, but that’s how important it is here in Canada.)

        Having said that, I figure that since you can grow poppies in your own back yard (and they’re actual opium poppies, papaver somniferum, and you can actually harvest opium from them if you have a mind to), and since Kenzo uses the poppy in its Flower artwork, and since France isn’t a Commonwealth country, all of these people can do whatever they damned well please.

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        • Robin says:
          2 September 2009 at 10:04 am

          But Flower has been a bestseller in France since it came out …. so can only assume that people there don’t find the use of the poppy callous or insulting.

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          • bergere says:
            2 September 2009 at 11:21 am

            Sorry to keep flogging, but I wanted to clarify. . . it’s not the use of the poppy as a symbol of the fragrance that bothered me, or pictures of poppies, or poppies in floral arrangements. It’s that the company mounted a huge public display of the flowers in a very public, official-looking place (la Place du Capitole); it’s not just a poppy, it’s a field of poppies. In a place that is a center of government administration and public ceremonies. Sure, it’s infortunate that such a happy-looking flower now has this connotation; I see no reason why it shouldn’t be used as the logo of a pretty fragrance. But Kenzo had to have been aware of the flower’s connotation, and their decision to put up the display how and where they did seems weird, to say the least.

          • Robin says:
            2 September 2009 at 11:50 am

            No need to apologize…I’m flogging too — I think this is interesting. Can only say that they have done these all over the world, and it does not appear that it has ever caused any kind of stir — quite the opposite.

        • Patrizia says:
          2 September 2009 at 12:12 pm

          Poppies in France have no such symbolic connotation, I don’t see why they should bother with what someone thinks in another country.
          There are lots of things that in one country have a certain meaning and in another one no particular significance.
          Should we take into account every possible connotation of everything in every latitude?

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          • Bela says:
            2 September 2009 at 1:48 pm

            I was going to say that! Poppies have absolutely no WWI connotation at all.

  8. Patrizia says:
    2 September 2009 at 3:28 am

    Actually, I’ve never linked poppies to tragic events and commemorations until last year.
    The world isn’t only Britain and the Commonwealth, you know?
    I live in Italy, my sister in France and she’s never heard of that symbol either.
    Poppies have always been a joyous image to me and I can’t see anything gross or unsensitive in a field of paper poppies. Since it isn’t the first city in France to do this, I guess the French have a very different opinion on it as well.

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    • annemarie says:
      2 September 2009 at 4:32 am

      Yes, these are all good points and perhaps I over reacted personally in my comment above. Speaking for myself perhaps I should downgrade my former ‘ crass’ to ‘a little lacking in taste and sensitivity towards some people’.

      But in Australia (and from what pyramus says it sounds the same in Canada) the association between the red poppy and war commemoration is overwhelming. I simply cannot conceive of the red poppy being used here in a marketing campaign for perfume or anything else. Veterans groups would go ballistic. This is how things stand. Unfortunately.

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      • Robin says:
        2 September 2009 at 10:06 am

        Don’t mean to beat this horse to death, but Kenzo Flower is a big seller, and would be very surprised if it wasn’t a big seller in Australia as well. And the poppy is right on the bottle cap. Have never heard of a veteran’s group ANYWHERE protesting Kenzo Flower. Of course, I might just have missed it!

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        • Bela says:
          2 September 2009 at 1:57 pm

          Just because a flower may have a certain connotation in one country doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyed for its own sake in that same country.

          That said, I would think it a bit morbid if someone used chrysanthemums to sell a perfume: to us Frogs, they are a symbol of death. People put chrysanths on the graves of their loved ones on All Saints’ Day. But then I don’t like the look of that flower whereas I adore poppies.

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          • Robin says:
            2 September 2009 at 2:01 pm

            I don’t like chrysanthemums either, although so far as I know they are not a symbol of death in the US. The flower is see most often in the cemetery near my house is the carnation…but don’t think most people see that as a symbol of death either.

        • lyra1227 says:
          2 September 2009 at 4:24 pm

          I thought Kenzo picked the poppy because it was the original designer, Kenzo Takada’s favorite flower. In Japan, the red poppy symbolizes someone fun-loving. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanakotoba

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          • Robin says:
            2 September 2009 at 9:26 pm

            I think that’s right.

        • annemarie says:
          2 September 2009 at 6:25 pm

          Sorry, I should have clarified – it was the field of poppies I was thinking of. bergere puts it well, above. A single poppy on a perfume bottle would not raise an eyebrow here.

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