I Think You're Crazyyyyy...Tell Me Lies S2
Lucy and Stephen need to stop!
My favorite 2024 soap opera set in 2007—Hulu’s Tell Me Lies is back this week. It’s such a specific time capsule that really brings me back to my college days and I love just how soapy and insane it is. Below you’ll find a bit about a vintage-y fragrance I’ve been wearing and a bit about 2007-2008 in fragrance thanks to Tell Me Lies.
What I’m Wearing: “Vintage” Edition
Thierry Mugler, the French fashion designer known for his boundary pushing fashion, launched his first fragrance Angel in 1992. And in 2005, their second perfume, Alien was launched—both now incredibly well known and worn. I’d never really smelled either Mugler perfume and recently a friend gave me an old bottle of 2021’s Alien Goddess, a new spin on Alien, described as a “solar floral bouquet.” Smelling it at first I wasn’t sure how it would smell on me, but I’ve been digging Alien Goddess of late—there’s a bourbon vanilla, bergamot, and jasmine—a scent I’ve been toying around with lately. It smells fresh and a little sweet but not cloying. While it was made in 2021, there’s still something that feels decidedly 90s-ish to me. When I wear Alien Goddess, I’ve been pairing it with my most “90s sitcom or rom-com third tier best friend who just listens to the protagonist go on and on about their romantic life” outfits—think a lot of loose sheer dresses and loafers or flats.
What Fragrances Did You Wear in 2007-2008? An Ode to Tell Me Lies.
My favorite deranged television show is finally back. Tell Me Lies, which premiered in 2022 and is based on a novel of the same name. Beginning in 2007, the Hulu drama follows the psychotic relationship between Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen (Jackson White) who meet in college and continue to manipulate each other over the next 8 years. Season 2 dives into the Baird College crew as they respectively start their sophomore and senior years. After the end of last season’s Stephen and Lucy drama where he leaves her at a party for his ex-girlfriend Diana (Alicia Crowder), Lucy is determined to have a fresh start post-Stephen as her bffs also navigate their own messy relationships.
Season 2 begins in September 2008 and the whole series for us who were in our late teens and twenties in the show is a complete throwback to sloppy keggers, Gnarls Barkley, and the lack of social media. For a show that pushes the envelope, it’s fun to see them somehow shock and delight even more with surprise couplings, more toxic Stephen drama, and a very hot professor that Bree (Catherine Missal) has a connection with.
As someone who went to college then, I love seeing the very specific signifiers of the time period and especially what they say about the characters. In the first 2 episodes of the new season, tiny bags abound and Stephen is obsessed with his new hand-me-down iPhone. I’m particularly obsessed with all the Tiffany’s and Tiffany’s adjacent jewelry Lucy wears because it tells me exactly what kind of bitch she is—super hot, lightly terrifying, and more likely than not, a sociopath.
It got me thinking about what things I wore as I was trying out what I thought “adulthood” looked like—I wore a lot of long earrings to counteract my pixie haircut, had a brief stint with stilettos to try to live out my Carrie Bradshaw dreams, and in accordance with that SJP’s Lovely was my signature scent of the time. I was curious about what others wore during this pivotal time—so I asked social media. Dolce and Gabbana’s Light Blue got the most response, a scent so ubiquitous, one of my respondents immediately recognized the scent walking in Central Park. Heart notes of jasmine and white rose are coupled with Granny Smith apple and lemon and cedarwood had a chokehold much like Stephen does on Lucy. The other most mentioned was Clinique’s Happy, the longtime bestseller, which also has a lot of crisp citrus in it with notes of ruby red grapefruit, spring mimosa, and bergamot. Honorable mentions go to Lolita Lempicka, various Britney Spears perfumes, Marc Jacobs Daisy, and Viva La Juicy. Some of the more fun outliers are the Ralph Lauren Pink Pony Polo and Victoria’s Secret Strawberries and Cream.
According to the Fragrance Foundation’s archives—in 2007 they awarded Juicy Couture the Bath & Body line of the year and fragrance of the year and in 2008 Marc Jacobs Daisy won in two categories including women’s fragrance of the year and Light Blue Pour Homme won for men’s. I’ve been saying since last year, especially with the influx of Y2K fashion, it seems like this fragrance era might crop back up. So if you want a time capsule of a simpler, more citrus forward time, check out Tell Me Lies immediately. It’s a season of television so off-the-rails in a perfect way. And just a FYI, I think Lucy probably wears D&G Light Blue too.
What fragrance did you wear in 2007-2008? Leave a comment!
Perfume Ad of the Week
Speaking of D&G Light Blue, this ad for the fragrance is so funny to me. It feels so much of the era, down to the male model’s cum gutters. It’s supposed to be sexy, but also doesn’t feel sexy at all either, despite how hot everyone is in it.