The Varon Dandy neighborhood celebrates its one centesimal anniversary and the Badalona Museum (Barcelona) has organized an exhibition to pay tribute to what was one of many symbols of town of Barcelona together with the Anís del Mono liqueur. The legendary perfume related in the present day with gents of a sure age was fairly a revolution in its time, because it grew to become the primary males’s fragrance and the one one which was bought for years.
“It was very dangerous as a result of males didn’t put on fragrance, it was thought-about effeminate,” explains historian Núria Casals, who has carried out analysis on the cologne and Perfumería Parera, the corporate that patented it. “When the retailers went to promote the cologne for males within the cities, in lots of they threw them with stones,” provides Casals.
They counterattacked with a robust promoting marketing campaign: “The title of the fragrance already indicated that it was for males, who have been additionally elegant and refined. And on the label they drew a hat, a cane and gloves,” says Casals. The slogan already mentioned it, it was the one fragrance for males, males.
Image of the exhibition 100 anys by Varon Dandyniusdiario.es
The perfume of the gallant of the time
“The commercials of the time present the picture of a really masculine and complex man. He wears a hat, a monocle and smokes with a mouthpiece. He was the person that each girl would wish to exit with at the moment,” the director of the Museu de Badalona, Margarida Abras.
Perfumería Parera utilized for the patent for the cologne on December 16, 1922. It obtained it in 1924 and the proprietor, Joan Parera, accompanied the manufacturing of the cologne with a powerful promoting funding: “It was marketed in La Vanguardia and in magazines similar to Mundo Gráfico that each week that they had an commercial for certainly one of their colonies”, explains the historian. In 1930 the corporate’s promoting price range was 100,000 pesetas.
Advertising picture of Varon Dandy, created by Josep Masananiusdiario.es
Little by little, Varon Dandy opened its market area of interest and new beauty merchandise for males got here out, similar to lotion and hairspray. “They bought hundreds of liters earlier than the Civil War and from the 50s, they have been thousands and thousands in Spain and Latin America,” says Casals.
Success in Latin America
Parera Perfumery maintained its manufacturing facility within the middle of Badalona and opened a fair bigger manufacturing plant in Lima (Peru). Varon Dandy arrived in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba…”. In Puerto Rico they bought so many bottles that they joked about it: “They did not know in the event that they drank it or showered with it,” explains the historian.
The Museum of Badalona has collected greater than 300 journal clippings with commercials for the colony and a whole bunch of bottles donated by collectors: “It was a medium-sized firm within the metropolis however very important. Few know that the colony was born right here and that’s the reason we needed to dedicate it to the e book and the exhibition”, explains the director of the museum.
“The manufacturing facility acquired Miss Europe candidates within the Thirties and gave them Risler magnificence merchandise to advertise them. It marketed them as imported from the United States however we found that it was a business technique as a result of they have been manufactured right here,” says Abras.
Brando and Cocaine in Bloom
The firm was additionally chargeable for different fragrances similar to Pyn’s, Jack’s, Giovanna and a widely known one within the Thirties known as Cocaína en Flor: “It was very profitable on the time. Cocaine was nonetheless utilized in many medicines and it was turning into identified that it was very addictive. Joan Parera averted coming into forbidden territory and in promoting the fragrance he performed with ambiguity, interesting to sensations”, explains Abras.
Cocaine Flower cologne bottle for mujerniusdiario.es
They have been additionally the founders of the Brando neighborhood, standard within the Eighties with the older crowd: “The proprietor was afraid Marlon Brando would sue them for utilizing his title and he discovered an individual right here named Brando they usually paid him for the rights to make use of his title,” says Casals. But they did not move up the chance to capitalize on the title: “At that point it was well-known for the film A Streetcar Named Desire, so the catchphrase was Brando, a weapon known as need,” he provides.
Badalona’s city plan within the 70s compelled industries to go away the middle of Badalona. The firm moved to a polygon in Granollers. They bought it in 1985 when Joan Parera’s son retired: “The firm was going at full throttle nevertheless it didn’t discover generational reduction,” he explains. The Varon Dandy cologne, within the arms of Coty, continues to be being bought 100 years later in liter containers and the label retains the point out of Parera, its creator.
The exhibition Perfumeria Parerea.100 anys by Varon Dandy shall be open on the Badalona Museum till May 2023.