Tory Burch’s New Fragrance Collection Taps Into Our Layered Emotions

Without love, where would you be now? The Doobie Brothers lyrics are blasting out of Tory Burch’s laptop on an early morning in her Manhattan office. Burch is bopping along to the beat, watching the screen as the model Imaan Hammam leads a frolicking cast across a beachside hill­scape, channeling the halcyon vibe of Bill Backer’s classic “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” ad. “There were five words: love, freedom, joy, magic, and peace,” Burch tells me of the concept behind the video, which will serve as the campaign for Essence of Dreams, her five-piece fragrance collection out today and inspired by the idea of visualizing a better world, and countering chaos with unity.

It’s a tall order for a fragrance, let alone five of them, but Burch seems unfazed; in fact, she’s palpably excited about the arrival of her new project with Shiseido, her cosmetics licensing partner as of January 2020, which is meant to offer olfactory options that tap into our layered emotions—and the first glimpse of Tory Burch Beauty.

Burch gestures to the heavy glass bottles she designed with Malin Ericson displayed on her coffee table and singles out Divine Moon, explaining how for her, the heady floral evokes the tranquility of her home in Antigua, where the honey-laced scent of lady of the night wafts through the air around her family apiary. “When I’m there, I have an overwhelming sense of peacefulness,” she says. Other standouts include the black-currant-and-freesia-tinged Sublime Rose, which captures the romantic scents of Normandy, where Burch began spending time with her now husband, Pierre-Yves Roussel; while Cosmic Wood offers up something mystical with its spice-laden jasmine and hints of vetiver, a nod to Burch’s father, Buddy, who always wore the lush green note.

“This collection is personal to me,” Burch insists, looking out over 20th Street, her face bare save for a light trace of black eyeliner. Since 2019, when Roussel took over as CEO of the brand Burch founded in 2004, she has had more time to focus on the creative side of the business. “It’s been a reinvention,” the 56-year-old says; and having to slow down and look inward during lockdown only helped accelerate this awakening, which began to play out with her spring 2021 collection, a streamlined affair dedicated to the Shaker dictum “Beauty rests in utility.”

Burch’s own approach to beauty, which she hopes will “take some steps out of busy women’s days,” hinges on a few other terms as well, including confidence, individuality, and ease—big ideas that are, for the moment, just ideas, she says. But it’s hard not to see the potential for much more. Backstage at her fall show, Burch’s longtime runway collaborator, the makeup artist Diane Kendal, applied lashings of rich crimson lipstick instead of hewing to the designer’s signature clean, sporty skin. When asked what inspired the surprise pop of color, Kendal replied simply: “We’re evolving.”