Opium by Yves Saint Laurent, from 1977

1977: a perfume launched alongside a collection about China

Yves Saint Laurent launched Opium in 1977, to coincide with his autumn-winter collection of that year, which was inspired by China. The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris names that collection Les Chinoises and says it followed the "Spanish" collection. The French outlet Journal du Luxe describes Opium as a women's perfume. It credits the house perfumer Jean-Louis Sieuzac, the name also given by the Fragrance Foundation France, an industry body. Some other accounts, such as the magazine The Rake, name two perfumers and add Jean Amic, so the credit depends on whom you read.

The idea behind it is reported in the same terms by two sources. The Fragrance Foundation France quotes Saint Laurent as saying that he wanted to create a perfume for the Empress of China. Journal du Luxe says it was first created to suit her. The name he chose, though, caused a stir.

A name that shocked

Saint Laurent called the perfume Opium, a reference to a drug that came from the East. The museum says the choice caused a scandal, especially in the United States. Journal du Luxe adds that the name first held some customers back from buying. The Fragrance Foundation France calls it a strongly polarising name that shocked many people at the time.

The word also carries a history that reaches Britain. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the first Opium War, from 1839 to 1842, was fought between China and Britain. Britannica adds that under the treaty that ended it China ceded Hong Kong Island to the British. The name got the perfume banned when it first went on sale: The Rake and the news agency AFP-Relaxnews both write that it was banned on its release in Australia and the Middle East, because the name evoked a drug. The United States launch came in 1978, and the Tampa Bay Times says the perfume arrived amid criticism in the West that its name glorified drug use.

A party on a ship, and the sales that followed

For that American launch, Yves Saint Laurent held a party in New York aboard the Peking, a tall ship berthed at the South Street Seaport. The Rake and the website 29Secrets agree on the setting and on around 800 guests, among them Cher and Halston. A statue of the Buddha weighing about 450 kilograms (a thousand pounds) was also there.

After the scandal came the sales: both the museum and Journal du Luxe describe a spectacular success, with shops struggling to restock and the perfume soon out of stock. According to the museum, sales in Europe reached 30 million dollars within a year, and Stiletto gives the same figure as the turnover of the first year. In the United States the advertising line was changed, because it seemed to encourage drug use, according to Stiletto and 29Secrets.

Mandarin, jasmine, patchouli and a bottle shaped like a box

The scent itself opens with mandarin, according to several sources. The heart is floral and spicy, with jasmine and ylang-ylang, and the base holds patchouli, vanilla and amber. Journal du Luxe calls the perfume floral and resolutely oriental. The Fragrance Foundation France says the concentration of Opium was raised to levels never reached before in France. The French outlet Stiletto calls that concentration completely out of the ordinary for the period.

The original bottle was entrusted to Pierre Dinand, who proposed taking as his model an inrō, a small Japanese lacquered case with compartments, worn at the belt. The Fragrance Foundation France says the inrō was used to carry medicinal herbs in old Japan, and several sources describe the bottle as inspired by it. The bottle is red.

Faces, posters and bans, 1977 to 2011

The 1977 campaign featured Jerry Hall photographed by Helmut Newton, as the museum and Stiletto both report. Over the years the perfume had other faces, and AFP-Relaxnews lists Jerry Hall, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss and, more recently, Emily Blunt. Stiletto adds Sophie Dahl, whose 2000 poster comes up below. In the 1990s the film director David Lynch also made adverts for Opium, which The Rake calls woozy. Stiletto dates them to 1992 and 1999, and 29Secrets mentions a television commercial from 1992.

The campaign of 2000 was conceived by Tom Ford and photographed by Steven Meisel. 29Secrets and Dazed describe it as showing the model Sophie Dahl nude, and 29Secrets adds that she lay on her back. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the British body that oversees advertising, banned the poster that year.

The number of complaints depends on the source: the Law Gazette wrote in 2003 of a record 730, HuffPost gave 948 in 2012 in reporting the ASA's ruling, and Marketing Week says nearly 1,000. HuffPost quotes the ASA as agreeing with the complainants that the poster was "sexually suggestive and, in an untargeted medium, likely to cause serious or widespread offence", an untargeted medium being one that cannot be aimed at a particular audience.

China, too, banned the perfume around the turn of the year. The Tampa Bay Times reported on 14 January 2000 that the government had ordered it off the shelves of department stores across the country, with the ban in force since the previous month. Among the reasons given was the "spiritual pollution" of young people. The paper described China as mindful of the heavy price it paid in the Opium Wars and the addictions of the nineteenth century.

The ASA returned to the name in 2011 over Belle d'Opium, a later version, which had a television advert whose line was "I am your addiction. I am Belle d'Opium". Marketing Week says the ASA banned it for suggesting drug use, and The Fashion Law quotes the ruling as finding the advert "irresponsible and unacceptable for broadcast".

Later years: Black Opium and twenty gold bottles

On 26 August 2014 came Black Opium, a version derived from the original, and it brings new notes. Journal du Luxe places coffee at the top and cedar in the base, alongside patchouli. Stiletto also lists coffee and cedar.

Three years later, for the 40th anniversary in November 2017, the brand YSL Beauté offered Opium as an extrait de parfum. It came in just 20 numbered bottles, hand-numbered according to AFP-Relaxnews. Numéro confirms the limited run of 20 numbered pieces, and AFP-Relaxnews adds that each bottle was coated in gold by the artist and gilder Manuela Paul-Cavallier.