The universe tends toward ever-increasing disorder; earlier this year, the luxury fashion house Lanvin released several varieties of scratch-and-sniff T-shirts priced at $590.
At one time, the scented T-shirts would have been unscented hats, because that is what Jeanne Lanvin sold in the Parisian hat shop she opened in 1889, roughly one and one-quarter centuries before a multibillion dollar private Chinese conglomerate called Fosun International acquired a majority stake in the luxury fashion brand born of her enterprise.
The shirts came in four sizes, three varieties and two genders — cherry (for men), blackberry (for women), and strawberry (for both).
Their scents were faint but not subtle. A person standing nearer the wearer than manners permit would be met with the brazenly synthetic aroma of artificial fruits. The cherry T-shirt smelled of cherry-flavored cough drops. The blackberry T-shirt smelled purple, the flavor of artificial grape. Over email, a Lanvin representative
