Bluebell Moss / 03 August 2025 / Categories: Product and Brands, Fragrance

Balenciaga L’Edition Mer was my everyday favourite fragrance now discontinued and very rare

Balenciaga have sadly discontinued all their fragrance collection

All Balenciaga perfumes have been discontinued. Sadly for me as Balenciaga L’edition Mer is my all time favourite fragrance. And from time to time I find my self searching secondary market places to see if I can turn up a bottle. I have one full new 50ml one left I refuse to open and one with a third left in it I use sparingly and only on special occasions as I know replacing it will be impossible short of a miracle.

Balenciaga L’edition Mer is described as Aquatic fragrance with Lily of the valley and sea notes and this could not be more accurate.

I don’t recognise Lily of the valley in the scent especially but the fragrance does immediately take me to the sea. It’s sort of bitter which doesn’t sound great but I love it, reminding me of walks on the shoreline collecting shells, it has that distinctive sea air smell, that is almost like salty sea weed in a strange kind of way. I know I am not selling it.

Lily of the valley was the very first perfume I ever remember smelling so although I cannot expressly recognise it in Balenciaga L’edition Mer it could be the reason I was instantly attracted to this perfume. I bought a bottle in TK Maxx without even smelling it about 8 or 9 years ago which probably indicated it wasn’t very popular even back then as the release date is published online as: as late as 2015. And there’s absolutely no information when it ceased to be available. Probably because it didn’t do very well at launch.

The house of Balenciaga used to be a well known perfume brand. It has a long history with fragrances being produced as far back as 1947. I don’t know if L’edition mer was a limited release but it seems to have disappeared almost as fast as it was released along with all the other Balenciaga fragrances being no longer available by 2024.

Balenciaga stopped selling fragrance altogether sometime in 2024 when its license with big French brand Coty established in 1904 and responsible for many of the big brand fragrances we recognise through partnerships with Calvin Klein, Gucci, Burberry and Tiffany, expired. I seem to remember my earliest memories of squirting perfume, the Lily of the valley experience was by Yardley of London, an actual perfume house.

It’s funny to think how all the big fashion houses selling perfume, Chanel no. 5 a historic partnership and subsequent feud between Gabrielle Chanel and the Wertheimer brothers, who financed Parfums Chanel and effectively owned the production and distribution rights to the perfume, are done on license deals and the perfume is almost always created and then made manufactured and often financed by someone else. In the case of Chanel no. 5 it was created by French Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. Perfume sales are often the ultimate in consumer marketing experience.

From time to time I see a bottle of Balenciaga L’edition Mer pop up in a secondary market. There’s a bottle on EBay at the moment I’ve kept my eye on with a very high price tag over $300. It’s been there a while so even ardent fans like me aren’t prepared to pay that much for a bottle.

It would be so good if as luxury fashion houses struggle with declining sales they’d consider bringing fragrances loved and lost back into the forefront.

It’s a way women who can’t afford couture can have (or feel like they are having) a little more affordable taste of the elegance and style a brand like Balenciaga evokes.

There were over 30 Balenciaga fragrances listed on Fragrantica website with some other websites saying as many as 45 Balenciaga fragrances have been released since 1947 so I wonder how many other people are left wishing their favourite would all of a sudden be re released.

Surely it would be possible for someone else to take these iconic beautiful perfumes and bring them out again as limited editions for a short period of time so customers of old can stock up on what they love.

Just an idea.