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July 22, 2010

4 Sexy Paris Sillages: Perfumes that Say Follow Me, Fragrances that Say Remember Me {Fragrances of Paris} {Perfume Streetwear}

How best to report on sexy fragrances but as a form of up-to-the-minute account of what you encountered on the street when you were involuntarily pulled into the aura of seduction of a perfume?

The following are four perfumes that made me stop mentally and think about them while walking (or sitting) on an ordinary day, in an ordinary venue, realizing how infinitely seductive an atmosphere they could create. I did not halt and think "these fragrances are beautiful" or "What great taste!" but rather the perfumes seemed to have an uncanny ability to become part of the personality of the woman and prolong her presence, but also address itself to you.

The women who wore them were definitely enhanced by the scent they were wearing while creating an impression of mystery since what the perfume has to say, it expresses it without words.

Paris smelled and looked all the better for it.

Shalimar or Eros Unleashed

My epiphany came the other summer day smelling a trail of Shalimar left by a young woman who otherwise seemed to be completely lacking of any self-consciousness regarding her fragrance given her casual urban look and main occupation at the time: chatting with a group of friends, perhaps even holding a biker's helmet in her hand as I recall. But Shalimar, it has to be reasserted, is one of the great love fragrances of all time and a great erotic masterpiece. The vanilla and leather in it were designed to kill...

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September 8, 2008

White Musks Part II: Top White Musk Trails To Try Out {Perfume Short (Reviews)} {Perfume List}

Mainbocher Corset, Horst P. Horst, 1939

Following my last article on the unadvertised, nay, covert trendiness of white musks in Paris, in complete contradiction of course with broadcast Gallic preferences for foul odors, here is a list of top white-musk trails to try out. By white-musk perfumes I refer and pay attention here to perfumes that are the animalistic equivalents of soliflores - I once used the term solabestia to point to those compositions that single-mindedly decide to achieve the smell (or reek, some would admittedly prefer to say) of civet or musk or castoreum or ambergris. Now, I am also starting to like the sound and the look of solibête. And by this therefore I do not mean the numerous fragrances - too numerous to count - that end with a white-musk sweep of the tail in the base notes.

The more I think about it, the more I want to know who came up with that purely abstract antinomic idea of musk as and how come we do not have white civet and white castoreum bottled yet. In spite of the fundamental weirdness of the concept playing on symbolic inversion like black soap and black gloss or even black face-cream (cf. the new Le Soin Noir by Givenchy), not just people, but crowds love it.

The particular selection I propose is based on a mix of historic, qualitative and trendy criteria: 1) they are included because they are are those fragrances that have been on the perfume scene long enough to suggest that, maybe, these specific cleaned-up musks are popular and are here to stay; 2) they are defining or paradigm-shifting, have enough personality to be considered the best in their categories and you simply must try them out to make up your mind about what suits you or does not; 3) finally, we bring in two newcomers because one always needs to keep updated and unearth new scents.

TOP 7 WHITE MUSK PERFUMES TO TRY OUT: WHAT WHITE MUSKS PARISIANS MIGHT BE WEARING TODAY by Marie-Helene Wagner

THE BODY SHOP WHITE MUSK (1981)

The classic of classics as far as simple, unadulterated white musk fragrances go. It is probably the one that is the most easily accessible and affordable in Paris. In the US, it is one of the brands in this category that is the most imprinted upon people's retinas. If you are thinking: but hang on, what about Jovan White Musk sold at Walmart for a few miserly bucks? This one appeared a good 10 years later, in 1991 ( in case you don't know how to count). Jovan is more simplistic than TBS White Musk, nice, but somehow flatter and more one-dimensional. I did mention the fact that I would look at "simple" white musk scents, but there is a form of simplicity that relies on hidden ornamentation, as TBS White Musk shows...

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August 28, 2008

The White Musk Trend In Paris...Really? {Perfume Streetwear} {Scented Thoughts}

An early engraving of the musk deer, here called the "musk-cat" - Hortus Sanitatis, 1490

PERFUME STREETWEAR: THE WHITE-MUSK TREND IN PARIS... VRAIMENT? by Marie-Helene Wagner

Being in Paris, a capital-city bigger, more kaleidoscopic than Cambridge or even Boston, with more clusters of villages in it, I started experiencing first-hand how one can catch a meaningful glimpse, or rather sniff, of current perfume-wearing trends trailing sensually along the sidewalks, the subway corridors and as showcased in the intimacy of steamy, thronged buses in the summer. Finding myself in the privileged historic environment of an urban culture that is keen on burning incense at the altar of the gods of seduction and of the art of "paraître" (looks) through recourse to personal aromas (but without neglecting the interior life as the contemplative gazes of the cigarette smokers indulging in street-smoking reveals), and which is moreover conscious of its beautiful, multi-secular scented and fashion traditions, makes it all the more interesting to observe or rather take in while simply walking about.

Just as fashion-conscious Parisian women and men love to check out each other's shoes, accessories, clothes and style sense on the street, with more or less discreet patrolling surveillance-eyes that sometimes reveal a startled look of realization, one can bet one's bottom Euro that lovers of beauty are silently inhaling perfume inspiration when brushing past discerning perfumistas in the many busy areas of the city. Or is there such a thing as a perfumista in Paris and is my vocabulary just being contaminated by professional lingo? I muse on: aren't all French women and men expected to have been lulled to bed by the scents of their mothers and developed a seemingly innate appreciation for perfume from the time they were falling asleep in their cradles? Come to think of it: what if one were not just a perfumista but if one were just, is...perfume... in some meditative and deeply reflective sense? The thought is too deep to tackle right now, of course and besides I am thirsty, so I leave it aside. But it's about this idea that early education becomes something like second nature, and that other idea that perfumes that have authenticity about them are psychological constructs that contain doors one can open with invisible keys to enter in their universes...

Part II of this article: Top White Musk Trails to Try Out

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August 24, 2007

The Knize Ten by Knize {Perfume Review & Musings/Part II} {Fragrances of Paris}

After our previous excursus into some of the historic background of Knize Ten by Knize we now come to our impressions of the scent in part II of the review.

Knize Ten may have have had you expectant that it would hold the door for you and show off its perfectly pressed creases on its gray pearl pants while giving off "just the proper hint of Gentleman's Knize Ten cologne" as Patricia Soliman writes in Coco, The Novel, yet it suddenly morphs into a rococo, baroque form, a whirling ball gown under which some mirror-like shiny leather patent shoes peak and it suddenly is less Knize Ten and more Bal à Versailles created much later in 1962. The kinship is uncanny. It is that same treatment of the mosses and animalic odor di femina. But it could not have happened in the order we presented it to you. So what did take place? Little by little as the perfume unfolds, another familiar dancer appears that reveals yet another layer of historicity peeling back. Knize Ten becomes more clearly suffused with the golden light and round fruity peachy and plummy accents of Mitsouko by Guerlain introduced in 1919. This is a moving moment because Knize Ten now smells more like the ancient Mitsouko than the current Mitsouko itself. It has preserved this old gilded opulence and sillage of old Europe and sense of ideal Parisian elegance that have receded from Mitsouko.......

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August 23, 2007

The Knize Ten or 10 by Knize (1924) {Perfume Review & Musings Part I} {Men's Cologne} {Fragrances of Paris}

Knize Ten by Knize (pronounced "Kniesche") comes preceded by an aura of legend within certain circles as being one of the best leather colognes in the world, whose reputation has endured to this day and very rightly so. In some ways, it is the leather equivalent of Borsari Violetta Di Parma where violet perfumes are concerned both being confidentially, yet deeply appreciated by connoisseurs. Even more so than that, it is judged by some as simply one of the very best men's perfumes; it was in fact voted best masculine fragrance by The Best of The Best in 1989 and in 1999 it was listed (somewhere) amongst the 100 best fragrances to date. Knize Ten has enough character, complexity, yet also relaxed and comforting feel about it to become a signature perfume. That one fragrance that could not but be Knize Ten if you had to choose just one "eau de toilette" to bring with you to a desert island as writer Hans Habe once wrote, because then what would have mattered would not have been to love a beautiful woman but to strengthen one's spirit.......

Adolf Loos in the Knize store in Paris in 1927

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July 21, 2007

Rue du Petit Musc, Quid? {Scented Thoughts} {Fragrances of Paris}

Plan médiéval Paris.jpg

The other day, I posted a picture of a street in Paris, located in the IVth arrondissement, which is called "Rue du Petit Musc"(literally reading as "street of the little musk"), thinking that I should double-check its meaning and learn more about the history of that street. I have found a couple of books which will offer more complete information, but for right now I was already able to determine that the word "musc" here does not make reference to "musk", but to a history of illicit pleasures in the city......

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