The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Vice Versa arrived in 1999 as a limited edition, a rarity from a house that had spent decades treating fragrance as statement rather than accessory. Karine Dubreuil-Sereni built the composition around a single provocative idea: opposites that don't cancel each other out, they amplify. Red and pink and orange, the brand said. Sweet and savory. The name itself means 'turned the other way', a reversal, a flip, a refusal to choose one side when you could have both.
What makes this work is the restraint. Tomato as a top note is confrontational, it smells green, almost vegetal, like crushed stems. Most compositions would bury it under sweetness to make it palatable. Vice Versa doesn't. Instead, the mandarin arrives citrus-bright to cut the earthiness, the raspberry adds a jammy softness, and the whole thing holds its tension until the florals arrive. Tuberose is generous here, creamy and heady, but it doesn't apologize for the strangeness that came before. The contrast is the point, not resolved, but coexisting.
The evolution
The first twenty minutes announce themselves with confidence: mandarin's tart brightness followed immediately by tomato's green snap. It smells like cutting into something at a farmer's market, immediate, tactile, alive. The florals don't wait their turn; they arrive alongside the opening, the tuberose already stretching toward the skin. By hour two, the fruity-floral heart has settled into something warmer, peach, melon, a whisper of peony. The drydown belongs to iris and vanilla, powdery-sweet and close to the skin, lasting another four hours if you're lucky. On fabric, the vanilla holds until morning.
Cultural impact
Vice Versa was a 1999 limited edition, part of a pattern where YSL paired its seasonal makeup collections with namesake fragrances. In Love Again came before it; Vice Versa followed. Both were statement pieces, not meant to live forever, but to make noise while they were available. The tomato note positioned it as deliberately polarizing, more interested in being remembered than being liked.
