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"  Photo: Gucci In the midst of the glitz and glamour of the 2012 Venice Film Festival this weekend, Gucci marked the debut of its latest fragrance, aptly named Premi\u00E8re, with a sumptuous dinner and screening of the commercial for the scent, starring Blake Lively and directed by Drive auteur Nicolas Winding Refn. Lively arrived at the event at Hotel Cipriani (via boat, naturally) wearing a light-catching red sequin Gucci mini-dress, and was later joined by boyfriend Ryan Reynolds and her Savages costar, Salma Hayek.  The fragrance, which was inspired by the Gucci Premi\u00E8re couture collection that debuted at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, was conceptualized by Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini as an homage to the mystique and elegance of Old Hollywood. Effervescent top notes of bergamot and orange blossom provide the opening credits for a lush white floral and musk heart, followed by a dry-down of smoky leather and creamy balsamic woods. After the gala, ELLE sat down with the newly minted Gucci girl to talk about the art of smelling gorgeous. Plus, watch a never-before-seen video of Lively and Winding Refn on set. ELLE: You requested that Nicolas Winding Refn shoot the commercial. Why was he your first choice? Blake Lively: I love Nick so much. And the concept of Old Hollywood in other hands could be very literal, but all of his movies exist in their own reality, or lack thereof. So the imagery in the commercial is very Old Hollywood, but it&amp;#039;s juxtaposed with music that&amp;#039;s incredibly modern and almost futuristic sounding. The look is very iconic\u2014it could be a woman from the &amp;#039;40s, a woman from the &amp;#039;70s, or even in the future. It was a fun idea to explore.  ELLE: What was the first perfume you ever owned?  BL: It was really bubbly and very yummy smelling, but I don&amp;#039;t remember what it was. The scents I wore when I was younger were more cheery, sweet, and almost saccharine. As I&amp;#039;ve grown older, they&amp;#039;ve gotten a little heavier. I even sometimes mix cologne with perfume when I want a more empowered-woman type of smell. Premi\u00E8re has wood and leather notes so it gives you that strength, but it also has the floral and citrus, which keep it bright and feminine.  ELLE: Do you use fragrance as a confidence booster?  BL: Definitely. I think that when you smell good, you feel good. You know how when you&amp;#039;re in a room and someone else smells good, you&amp;#039;re like, &amp;#039;Where is that?&amp;#039; They have such a power over you in that moment\u2014you want more, and you need to find them. And you can see the way someone reacts when you say, &amp;#039;you smell good&amp;#039;\u2014they just lift up. So to be that person in a room always feels great.  ELLE: It can also make you very memorable.  BL: Yeah! If you miss someone and you smell their scent on something, it evokes such emotions\u2014it&amp;#039;s even more powerful than hearing a song that brings you back to a place. My family lives across the country from me, and there have been times when I&amp;#039;ve smelled a candle or something that reminds me of my brother or my mom, and I&amp;#039;ve almost gotten weepy. It&amp;#039;s a weapon, if you choose to use it. If you want someone to miss you, go secretly and spray your fragrance somewhere. You can say, &amp;#039;Oh really, it came off? I didn&amp;#039;t even realize it got on your sweatshirt\u2026&amp;#039;  ELLE: How do you think that Premi\u00E8re embodies the sensibilities of Gucci as a fashion house?  BL: I think the thing about Frida that&amp;#039;s so amazing is that she always starts fresh with every collection. The Gucci woman can be the equestrian woman, the woman in the suit, the woman in the flowy bohemian dress, or the couture woman. I feel like this fragrance embodies all of them. That&amp;#039;s pretty cool, because it isn&amp;#039;t about being couture in an elite sense, it&amp;#039;s about a woman in her finest, most realized form, feeling her best. And that can be at any time\u2014even just going to the grocery store. You should always feel like the world is at your fingertips in some backless, sparkly number.  Watch Lively behind-the-scenes at the fragrance shoot.      View the full campaign video.      Then, check out the blonde beauty in these exclusive backstage photos.  Photo: Blake Lively and Nicolas Winding Refn; Photo: Gucci   Photo: Gucci  Photo: Gucci   Photo: Gucci  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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