In the sea of so-called ‘iconic fragrances’, very few have managed to actually seal the deal and truly live up to that soubriquet. That is, many have been re-released as limited editions, or reimagined and re-packaged for a modern or younger audience.  Others touted under that label have failed to survive beyond even a couple of years.

So the tenth anniversary of Narciso Rodriguez’s For Her should be celebrated for what it is in perfume terms: a milestone of popular acclaim, and an impressive feat of longevity in a market that is constantly shifting.

‘Some mileage, right?’ he laughs, when I meet him in New York for the celebrations – a dinner in a penthouse apartment that has, in its minimalist bathroom, a sunken tiled tub not unlike the one Madonna reclines in in Who’s That Girl – overlooking the Hudson below, of course. Pure luxe, that’s Narciso Rodriguez: indulgence of so high a calibre you barely notice how fabulous everything is. A bathroom with a view – but would you expect from the man responsible for so many of Manhattan’s best dressed?

‘The vision for the fragrance was born from the ready-to-wear,’ he explains. ‘It’s one that based in a grace, a femininity, a modern kind of elegance, and a youthful kind of elegance. It’s something that is quite timely and that you appreciate as much today as you did ten years ago.’

Milling around the room are editors from across the globe, many of them wearing Narciso dresses – recognisable for their simple lines, fluid cuts and sparse, sporty and practical glamour – that they have clearly had and worn for a while. It’s the greatest compliment one can pay a designer like Rodriquez, who has made his name creating beautiful pieces that women are encouraged to weave into their everyday existence.

If anything, his approach – one favoured by so many New York designers, from the Golden Age of American sportswear in Clare McCardell and Hattie Carnegie to, latterly, Donna Karan and Michael Kors – is one that has prevailed across both fashion and beauty in recent seasons, through straitened times and refined, restrained tastes and palettes.

And it’s the same model as the fragrance, of course: a modern take on white musk, based on an Egyptian oil of that scent presented to the perfumiers by Rodriguez in 2003. It’s heady, glamorous and exotic, with floral and woody notes, but it’s also a quotidian choice – a clean take on the chypre family, nonchalant but enduring.

‘As I get older and more entrenched in my ways, more of what interest me is how good design is part of everyone’s lives,’ he says. ‘Both the fragrance and the ready-to-wear are a tribute to women, that they become not a passing moment in their lives but something that is profound to them, and that they keep for a long time.’

So it is for For Her’s many acolytes – it remains a best-seller (in Paris, many men wear it too) and a constant on counters a decade after it was first released, recognisable for the simplicity of its Bauhaus-inspired bottle (much more severe than the romantic scent it holds), and for the now-famous image of Karmen Kass, taken by Inez & Vinoodh, that has been its unchanging advertising campaign since its inception.

‘I’m so proud of the fragrance,’ Rodriguez continues. ‘Because it’s almost like the beginning of my career, when I made a decision that this is the woman I dress, and this is my muse, and this is the fragrance she wears.’

He was heavily involved in building its notes from the very beginning, entering the process with three unbending critieria: that the scent would be based on a musk; that the Kass image would form its visual identity; and that the packaging would resemble a vintage glass bottle he himself already owned.

‘I have had different musks and collected all my life,’ he explains. ‘We used to shop for it on 8th street, and buy these little serpentine bottles. And when you’re a kid, you buy something for $8 and you have to make it last an eternity.’

The perfumiers Rodriguez worked with on the scent tell of how he was able to root out a musk base in any sample they passed to him. In the end it became a test – but the designer was as wed to his initial concept as his customers have become to what it turned into. An abstract musk, he dictated, nothing too floral or too specific. ‘The feeling you have when you enter a flower store,’ he smiles. ‘You smell flowers but you don’t know which. I wanted the effect, the surroundings.’

A version of For Her musk oil will be released later this year as part of the anniversary, but its famous packaging is also enjoying an update, in keeping not only with its original look but with the traditions of Parisian Haute Parfumerie, available from tomorrow.

‘I have this relationship with fragrance,’ says Narciso Rodriguez. ‘Some I go off, but there are some that you love and that you always go back to, that are part of you. They’re a ritual.’

He should be proud, I suggest, to form the basis of so many people’s daily routines, but he is too gracious to take the compliment. The sales – and the years – speak for themselves.