An Evening in Paris
It wasn't so long ago that spending an Evening in Paris with an admirer had a much different meaning than it does today. And, if you were really special, you might even get a gift set.
I'm referring to the signature cobalt blue bottles of cologne produced by Bourjois that just about anyone over the age of 45 will likely remember.
Many collectors who don't actually remember the era have seen Evening in Paris (referenced as EIP by many collectors) items for sale at shops, shows and antique malls.
During the last few years, this niche has continued to grow and gain popularity with collectors. In fact, anything with the Evening in Paris logo, from bottles to compacts to advertising pages from magazines, captures the attention of dedicated EIP collectors.
First introduced in the U.S. in 1929, EIP found popularity from the very beginning. There hasn't been much done on these popular collectibles in the way of reference material, but there are some booklets simply called Evening in Paris by Sue Mattioli and Bev Nelson that give some information on Bourjois, address pricing and show catalog/magazine reprints.
Mattioli and Nelson attribute EIP's phenomenal success largely to marketing techniques that made the fragrance available to all women. The cologne sold in 25 cent bottles in dime stores and in crystal bottles with glass stoppers in fine department stores.
They also note that some of the most popular items with collectors are the graphic boxed gift sets fromt he '30s and '40s. These turn up as originally inexpensive one or two piece sets all the way to large elaborate sets of eight or more items in beautiful satin lined boxes.
Also prized by enthusiasts are novelty items such as bottles on cardboard christmas ornaments and other interesting holders like an Eiffel Tower replica, a high heeled shoe and even a champagne bucket.
From a collecting standpoint, there seem to be far more bottles in styles produced during the 1950s on the market today than those from earlier eras. Although these are popular and have risen in value over the past few years, they don't sell for quite as much as the earliest examples.
Often included in the gift sets, many of the accessory items with the EIP fragrance, like talc bottles and powder boxes, also appear on the must find lists of numerous collectors.
Most of the EIP items seen these days have been used. Being quite functional in their day and often carried in purses, many bottles have worn labels and caps. As with most other collectibles, condition remains important in retaining value. The bottles are still pretty, even if the label is missing, but keep in mind that top dollar should be saved for a mint condition purchase.
Some of the most expensive individual EIP items these days are the compacts. Part of this comes from the crossover collecting when compact collects purchase EIP items for their own collections. There are only so many to go around since they weren't as widely produced as the cologne bottles. And like the bottles, they were often carried in handbags so condition can be less than perfect more often than not.
Lucky for collectors, however, the wonderful gift sets and their contents seem to show up on the market in mint condition fairly often. I'm not sure why this is, but I've often speculated that it's for the same reason that my husband saves his new shirts and socks for a while before wearing them. If he uses them the he won't have anything nice and new in reserve.
And this is actually quite understandable, after all, a box lined with satin filled with the deep blue bottles and nicely decorated accessories is striking if not downright mezmerizing. It's really no wonder that the lucky ladies who received these gifts wanted to enjoy them for as long as possible.
To order the Evening in Paris booklets by Mattioli and Nelson, visit the Passion for Perfume website.
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