Frederic Malle

It's the beauty giant's third acquisition in a month.

Sometimes a gift of perfume can feel a bit uninspired. It's easy to run out at the last minute and grab your sister/best friend/mom a bottle and call it a holiday. But there's a way to give fragrance without looking like the last-minute gift shopper you secretly are.

John Malkovich is partnering with Yoox for a capsule under his Technobohemian menswear label. Seriously. {WWD} Cartier is (unsurprisingly) less-than-happy about the unauthorized line of beanies that turned their name into something naughtier. They're threatening to see the maker in court--presumably not next Tuesday. (C-U-Next-Tuesday--get it?) {HuffPo} Michelle Obama is supposedly going to wear Reed Krakoff for her rumored April Vogue cover. {Washington Post}

n Friday, French perfumer Frederic Malle cut through the evening’s fog to make an appearance at his longtime home, Barneys New York. “I see Barneys as sort of my second wife,” he told us of the store. And just like any good husband, Malle has done something special for his better half: He’s retooled the bottles of some of his most famous fragrances to include his abstract sketches on their labels.

Often the very best jokes are laden with insight, and one of my favorite such jokes belongs to Demetri Martin, who says, “It’s interesting that ‘cologne’ rhymes with ‘alone’.” Zing! The word cologne evokes images of greasy dudes in Ed Hardy t-shirts, teenage boys with more scents than sense, and clueless divorcees getting back into the “dating scene.” This was my presumption when Fashionista asked me to look into men’s cologne, yet once I ventured down this particularly pungent little rabbit hole, I realized just how misguided that presumption was. Beginning with the name.