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FORGET the clothing, it’s scented water that makes the big money for luxury fashion brands these days.

Gucci and Emporio Armani were yesterday banking on it when they launched their new respective fragrances before their spring-summer catwalk shows as part of Milan Fashion Week. Each house projected its new fragrance campaign films on massive screens above the catwalks moments before models strutted down them. Gucci by Gucci - nothing like saying it twice to drive the point home - is the first new perfume launched during the reign of the house’s design director, Frida Giannini.

Directed by David Lynch, the film was a short essay on desirability, with three of the current crop of new international models clad in gold dresses dreamily emoting to Blondie’s Heart of Glass. At Emporio Armani, the new Diamonds fragrance was launched with a black-and-white film featuring a sparkly Beyonce belting out an upbeat version of the Marilyn Monroe classic Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.