ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 16, 1996 TAG: 9602160091
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
Diamonds may be forever, but pearls apparently have quite a shelf life, too.
Black Pearls, Elizabeth Taylor's newest - and most controversial - perfume, was introduced by manufacturer Elizabeth Arden Co. late last summer, then abruptly pulled from store shelves. The scent is back again, accompanied by a Hollywood-style marketing blitz.
"We are very, very excited," said Roy Drilon, director of logistics at Arden's Roanoke operations, where the fragrance is manufactured.
The company, which operates a plant on Plantation Road and a logistics center off Orange Avenue, started getting letters around Christmastime from customers who had snapped up the perfume's initial offering and wondered when Black Pearls - advertised as a "soft, sensuous and shimmery" scent - would be back on the market.
Just in time for Mother's Day, it turns out. Black Pearls will be shipped from Roanoke starting March 3 and will be at store counters by April, said Susan Santora, an Arden spokeswoman in New York.
But don't look for the perfume in all the same places where it was introduced last August; this time, Arden is playing by the well-established fragrance-industry rules that it flouted last summer.
The uproar began when Arden cut the portion it paid to help cover salaries of department store counter clerks who sell its cosmetics and perfumes. The upscale retailers who had launched Taylor's other perfumes - also Arden products - responded by boycotting Black Pearls.
Arden then took the unusual step of peddling the fragrance to other, less posh, national retailers. Sears Roebuck & Co. and J.C. Penney Co. picked up the scent, as did a number of regional department store chains, including Leggett.
Taylor, however, balked at the less-than-royal rollout of her new creation. The launch of the scent was abruptly halted and was followed by the resignation of Arden's president.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Arden, with a new president at the helm, has agreed to pay the usual commissions to store clerks. And the miffed retailers, including Macy's and Marshall Field, are back on board.
Leggett stores will again offer Black Pearls. So will Hecht's, which last time was dragged into the boycott by May Department Stores Co., its parent. Penney, which introduced the scent last summer, will not be part of the initial relaunch. Calls to Sears headquarters in Chicago were not returned Thursday.
Despite - or, perhaps, thanks to - the cancellation and delay, Taylor's new perfume is bound to be a best seller, said Annette Green, executive director of the Fragrance Foundation in New York, an industry trade group.
"Anything that has her name attached to it is going to be very successful," Green said. "The question was never if they were going to introduce it, but when. The fragrance was always wonderful, the package was always wonderful."
The relaunch marketing blitz will begin Feb. 26, when Taylor will appear on all four CBS Monday night sitcoms - "The Nanny," "Can't Hurry Love," "Murphy Brown" and "High Society." The plot of each will center around a lost strand of, what else, black pearls.
"It's terrific," Green said. "I'm thrilled that something new is being done. Fragrance should be fun."
Arden's Roanoke facilities, where about 675 are employed, are prepared for the relaunch, Drilon said. There's plenty of inventory left over from last summer, and it has been packaged and ready to ship since August. That doesn't mean the Pearls are past their prime, he assured.
"No, no, no," he said. "The shelf life of a fragrance is very long. We made provisions to store it. It will be fine."
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Black Pearls is described as "soft, sensuous andby CNBshimmery.''