Cellophane was invented in 1908 by Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger. The new term was coined as a contraction of "cellulose" and "diaphanous", transparency being one of its chief characteristics. If transparency is not a new effect in perfumery, the reference to the material cellophane is. Cellophane is used to keep food, but also flowers, fresh, and sometimes, women (certain rituals of beauty include the use of cellophane and olive oil, for example). It is both a functional and a beautifying material when wrapped around a bouquet of flowers, or candies, making them seem more fragile and precious, as if kept under crystal panes or ultra-shiny brittle silk. Its plasticky quality gives it a hard edge and a modernist sense of romanticism once you associate it with flower gifts. Even eroticism if you go farther into the night.
There is also a sexual connotation attached to cellophane as it is an erotic inspiration for some to wrap a naked body in this thin, see-through film (the clingging kind often, but not only), which can nevertheless become more opaque as layers are added onto layers. Bondage fetishists make it one of their choice toys, together with latex or leather.
But cellophane is special. Perhaps it is the most transgressive of those materials, associating in one stroke memories of cellophaned bread on the kitchen table, decent, flirtatious bouquets of flowers, and a metaphor on nudity.
Precisely. Smelling the new Nuit de Cellophane by Serge Lutens one reaches a first conclusion that this work seems to be in its most characteristic aspect a work on the sensuality of floral notes, mostly jasmine, osmanthus, with a certain undercurrent of vanilla-and-magnolia softness, and narcisuss drenched in honey (as in Ozbek by Rifat Ozbek). Followers of Serge Lutens will recognize his palette of colors, his strokes, his self-referential quotes as he opens the boundaries existing between his different perfumes. But to what effect this time?...
Cellophane Show Girls, Rara Avis
Continue reading "Serge Lutens Nuit de Cellophane (2009) {Perfume Review & Musings}" »
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0e1cf2ef-a169-49dd-9eaa-2c15006a5cb2)
Bond No. 9 will launch its 34th fragrance inspired by a trendy geographic location on April 1, 2009. After concentrating exclusively on New York City neighborhoods for inspiration then branching out to some of its famous commuting grounds and then on to still further twists on the basic idea, including a Florida scent, the perfume house is going back to its roots and even to its very own neighborhood.
Digg This
Stumble
Facebook
Del.icio.us
