Revlon’s Charlie outsold the French by selling women a perfume no man gave them.
In 1973 Revlon launched Charlie in February, not December, deliberately breaking the rule that perfume was a Christmas gift from a man. Its ads showed a lone woman in a tailored pantsuit striding past, no man in frame. The cheap drugstore scent sold $10 million its first year and became the world’s best-selling fragrance within three years.
Revlon on Brandseum