In 2017, when Emporio Armani, Giorgio’s younger, more accessibly-priced sibling, first debuted its Stronger With You cologne, the vanilla-forward juice didn’t take in the U.S. Perhaps, said Silvia Galfo, president at Armani parent L’Oréal Luxe, the market wasn’t ready for the particular scent at the time, she said.
At one point, the scent was discontinued in the U.S. market, but it remained in the U.K., where, thanks to the lively community on #PerfumeTok it has experienced a resurgence the brand couldn’t have anticipated. “We took it away, out of the market, after a couple of years. And in the second half of 2023, … we started hearing a lot of TikTok reviews coming [from] younger U.K. FragTokers, saying how great this juice was and that it was not available in the U.S.” Galfo said. Local sales started picking up, and tastes in the U.S. and the U.K. tend to correlate, Galfo said.
Covid saw the surprising spike of the fragrance market, which has sustained, and brought new and interesting demographics into the fold, including teen boys. “[Eight] years ago, the market wasn’t there. … Users of fragrances were probably a bit older, right? They were not Gen Z. … Men were using fresh scents that made them feel athletic. … At the time, this juice may [have been] perceived as being too strong, too spicy or too in-your-face. [But since then] the market has completely shifted,” Galfo said.
She added, “It started after Covid and has accelerated in the last two years, with younger generations coming into the category looking for super strong, intense, spicy, long-lasting juices.”
It’s a point that was echoed by Callan Blumears, who is known as @Calcologne on TikTok, where he has accumulated over 544,000 followers in less than a year of posting about fragrances. “My community — younger guys — love vanillas, and Stronger With You is a very strong vanilla that lasts a long time,” he said.
“It is not easy to reintroduce a product to the market. Retailers are hesitant, so it was not an easy sell. We were convinced, however, because we know how much influence TikTok has. The FragTokers experts talk really well about the juice — they were spot on with how to describe it and how it makes you feel.”
In March, Emporio Armani launched the fourth iteration of the growing Stronger With You collection, the Stronger With You Parfum. To celebrate, on May 22, it hosted an open-to-the-public performance by rising pop star Benson Boone (5.5 million Instagram followers; 8.7 million TikTok followers) in Venice Beach. The location was true to the Emporio identity, Galfo said. The people are more “alternative, authentic and creative” than perhaps in Malibu, where Giorgio Armani events have taken place. As for Boone, Galfo said “[He] embodies the values of what Stronger With You is: bold but authentic, not trying too hard, naturally captivating, in his element and doing whatever he wants.”
Around 1,000 fans were able to gain access to the Boone concert via the RepBets platform. After the concert, the brand hosted a VIP party with guests including Barbie Ferreira, Lukas Gage, Benito Skinner, Adam DiMarco and Owen Thiele.
Blumears, who Armani flew to Los Angeles for the Boone event, said, “The Stronger With You [product] lineup as a whole is mass-appealing. It’s for everybody. There are people in the industry who love niche fragrances, which are very funky smells, in my opinion, but with the Stronger With You [scents], Armani has done a good job of coming out with different variations — there’s a variation for every demographic, every age. The reaction to the new [release] has been really positive,” he said. He noting that, for his younger audience, some of whom are as young as 10, fragrances are like “modern-day trading cards.”
The fragrance’s comeback is proving successful. For its part, Sephora has recently seen an 80% increase in Armani men’s fragrance purchasers.
