Actresses and actors not unfrequently wear perfume to get into character. In the highly popular TV series Downton Abbey, The vanity table of Lady Mary - the most seductive of the three Crawley sisters - displays a constant array of fragrance bottles in which she would have decanted her favorite perfumes as was the custom of the day. In the last episode of Season 2, in the Christmas special, a packaged perfume by Guerlain is offered to Isobel as a discreet dramatic prop to help us relive the era. Given the fact that quite a bit of historical research goes into the series, we will assume it's more of a prop than a plain product placement. Your first thought when seeing it is "Aha, Mitsouko ca. 1919!"...
As any followers of the defunct Princess Diana know, it is well nigh impossible to know without the shadow of a doubt what fragrance she wore for her wedding day as so many contradictory reports have emerged overtime. Unless you were there, she didn't mix it and it wafted off her long enough to make sure it was not an illusion or a trail coming from someone else.
This is why we thought it was essential to nail down the details of the perfume that Catherine Middleton wore on her wedding day, while they were fresh, making sure that there would be as little room left for ambiguity as possible. Good thing too since already two contradictory reports have appeared in the media. After a little inquiry, we think we can safely say it was Illuminum White Gardenia Petals over Creed Fleurissimo, the latter being presented as the scent the royal bride wore on April 29, 2011 by popular French people magazine Paris Match...
Are you giving in to the media pressure surrounding "the Royal Wedding of the century" (I hope not, meaning let's hope for more extravaganza)? I have, and have been watching a series in two episodes just released by the BBC on April 17 to help whip up the frenzy around the preparation for the wedding of Catherine Middleton and Prince William. So, while I was reviewing my wedding history, set in Albion, I retained a couple of historical facts that have to do with scent in the series entitled Britain's Royal Weddings. These facts are discreet, but they were mentioned....
The history of Quelques Fleurs (1912) by Houbigant Est. 1775, is so compelling and interconnected with that of other significant perfumes that it is today a reminder to me of why I do not review those deep historical fragrances more often: they reveal so many ramifications and further pockets of shadows to shed light on, that it is difficult to contain all the information and questions within one article. It is probably actually laughable to try to do so. In fragrance anthologies, and for some reason, Quelques Fleurs is often overlooked as preference is usually given to L'Heure Bleue by Guerlain when proposing a canon of classics for and around the year 1912.
I had therefore to simplify and decided to offer three short comparative reviews of three versions of Quelques Fleurs which I have available at hand and make them be preceded by a general historical summary.
This is a project which was triggered by the reception of the most recent version of the perfume, a recreation entrusted to fragrance expert and unflagging defender of the great classics, Roja Dove of Haute Parfumerie at Harrods. He worked in collaboration with the Perris family who are now the proprietors to the rights to Houbigant fragrances as their grand-father had ties with the original Houbigant family, we were told. The re-worked jus was re-introduced in 2009, the last one in a series of relaunches and tribulations in the course of its existence. Again, for some reason, Quelques Fleurs does not merit a separate treatment even in the book signed by Dove, The Essence of Perfume.
Quelques Fleurs is an early floral aldehydic perfume which inspired in particular the creation of Chanel No.5 in 1921, with a detour for Ernest Beaux the nose of No.5, via Le Bouquet de Catherine (1913) which was meant for the Russian market.
I happen to have at my disposal the version which was reintroduced in 1985 as "Quelques Fleurs l'Original."
The Neiman Marcus site, which also sells the Quelques Fleurs Royale version, states about the 2009 version that,
"The true Quelques Fleurs formula has never been published. An ancient
formula still kept in the family archives, this fragrance will never be
duplicated. The blend of soft, sensual florals uses over 250 different
raw materials and more than 15,000 flowers to create just one ounce of
Quelques Fleurs eau de parfum."...
Nicolas Ghesquière explains the thought processes behind the olfactory personality of the new Balenciaga Paris perfume (see here and here ) and the choice of images of the advertising campaign with actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. The video which lasts more than 5 minutes is in French...
The opening of a new Creed boutique on Madison Avenue received the attention of Mayor Bloomberg who sent a letter of welcome to the perfume house on the occasion of its inauguration.
My French translation is available after the jump/Ma traduction en français est disponible dans la deuxième partie de l'article.
"Dear Friends:
It is a great pleasure to welcome all those attending the Grand Opening of the CREED boutique on Madison Avenue.
Family-owned and -operated businesses are the heart and soul of New York City. And while few can claim to be as time-honored or internationally renowed as CREED, we're proud to welcome Emmanuel and Thomas Saujet and this legendary company to midtown. This brand has been synonymous with quality since it began almost 250 years ago, and it has matched its success with a dedication to giving back to the community. This new store will not only create jobs and contribute to our economy, but it will also be a great place for CREED to shwocase their fine wares in one of the world's most celebrated shopping districts.
As the capital of global business, New York City is no stranger to the sweet smell of success--and with a tremendous and thriving market of residents and visitors to cater to, I'm sure this new store will only add to the aroma. On behalf of all New Yorkers, please accept my best wishes for an enjoyable opening and continued success.
A 19th century British perfume brand that few remember today, Grossmith, has been re-established by a descendant, Simon Brooke, with the help of perfume expert Roja Dove.
J. Grossmith Son & Co which has had slightly differing company names since 1835 the year of its original establishment was a contemporary of familiar-sounding fragrance brands to the contemporary ear like Eugene Rimmel, Yardley, Jean-Marie Farina or more obscure ones like George Payne from the Isle of Wright and T. W. Fisher & Co.
One of their bestsellers seems to have been Shem-El-Nessim the Scent of Araby. When looking at advertisements for Grossmith perfumes, one cannot but be struck by how they carried the prejudices of its time offering some of the most colonialist imagery I have seen, and certainly as appearing behind the name of a fragrance.
For Wana-Ranee the Perfume of Ceylon and in 1918 it won't do if the perfume is not presented as a quasi devotional offering by a deferential Indian woman who is either on her knees or hunched and extending her arms from afar (in terms of social distance hinted at by her gesture) towards a group of Blond, European maharanis as if all English women ought to be ideally blond as cherubs. It is unsettling to the modern eye and we see that Grossmith was a great supporter of the British imperial crown...
An article in the Wall Street Journal takes a gloomy look at the spiraling down of the Christian Lacroix brand. Despite the known qualities of the vision of the couturier, the problem has always remained that unlike Christian Dior who consciously defined haute couture as part art, part commercialism, Lacroix stuck too much to an artistic conception of high fashion. That and other reasons.
What the article stresses is that the launch of C'est La Vie in 1988 which was a flop marked the beginning of the end for the couturier. It is hard to judge the importance of that factor. What we learn is that Lacroix did not have his way with the design of the bottle and found it "disgusting". Apparently he is still sensitive to the trashing he got in the press because of that bottle design. It seems a bit blown out of proportion but it is true that the Lacroix perfumes never succeeded in being as cool as the Yves Saint Laurent ones, say, also a newcomer to the world of fashion who was luckier in that he got the unwavering support of business man and life partner Pierre Bergé. As for C'est La Vie, I just remember how, without thinking of a human heart and finding the bottle "disgusting", I felt uninspired by the color of the brown glass which looked a lot like that of cheap glassware favored by retirees with staid tastes...
So called marine scents have known an explosion of interest that came from the top in the 1990s, with the use of molecules such as Helional and especially Calone (discovered in 1966 by Pfizer), but that does not mean that in previous eras the motif of the sea was left blank and pushed outside of the history of perfumery. Even before Calone came into existence - pardon us for being so didactic - people had noses, enjoyed promenades by the sea, or breathing the salubrious coastal air. If a perfumer happened to be among the crowd of strollers or dreamers, then an impression for a perfume might be born.
Common sense can make us see retrospectively that it would be exaggerated a view to think that perfumes have not incorporated the experience of the seaside in one way or another and that perfumers never contributed this experience to perfumery. In fact, going further back in time, one could point out that the famous oakmoss found on the island of Chypre is a very early reference to the aromatic palette that can be experienced by the ocean, if for nothing else than sensations of dried heat and salty vegetal nuances.
One example of an early 19th century seaside motif which I have discovered is Les Fleurs du Guildo by Guerlain, which is a fascinating illustration of an early, avowed attempt at capturing the quality of the olfactory atmosphere in the region of Brittany, and in particular in the specific context of its moors expanding around the ruins of the castle of Le Guildo as it was advertised at the time.
By selecting this locale alone, Guerlain is expressing an interest for an earth-and-sea contrast. As its name indicate, this perfume wanted to distill the scent of flowers growing on the coast, the so-called Côte d'Armor....
Spotted a genealogical link between a set of three perfume bottles from the 1950s and the distinctive Betsey Johnson EDP issued in 2006. The Betsey Johnson stopper is not 100% identical but very much inspired by their forerunners similarly made out of bright plastic. The glass flacon is also a copy with a twist.
I think we have found the lost grand-mothers of the more recent Betsey Johnson Eau de Parfum. The 50s bottles do not seem to come from a famous brand. They must thus for this reason as well be reproductions of more ancient flacons as one would doubt that they would have had the resources to do original research and design.
My guess is that they are cheap but cute imitations of Art Deco Czech perfume flacons.
Here is a video from the Research Institute on Fragrance Materials (RIFM) on popular perceptions of fragrances and fragrance safety. Everyman answers questions on the curbs of New York City in June 2008. A few humorous moments such as: who knew perfumers used "yak pee" in their perfumes? Now, that's an idea...Or the guy who wouldn't be happy about lack of fragrance in products... because his wife wouldn't be happy about it "and that's not a pretty thing" verifying on the spot the cliched notion that men's thinking about perfume is primarily mediated by their relationships to the fair sex.
This is a picture of a female torso in ceramic called Odore di Femmina created by Johan Creten while he was artist in residence at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres. It was meant to be an illustration of the perfume by the same name created by perfumer Françoise Caron for the 2007 exhibition Essences Insensées...
When the movie Perfume came out in 2006 (see our movie review), one knew that Thierry Mugler had been concocting an ambitious project, that of translating Patrick Süskind's narrative into real perfumes created by perfumers Christophe Laudamiel and Christophe Hornetz. The Mugler coffret, with its 15 scents (see also First Impressions on the Thierry Mugler Coffret), was the talk of the town towards the end of 2006 (and I have yet to review it fully although I will eventually get there, if only to recapture that highly exciting period of discovery)...
The dominant interpretation, that I am aware of, regarding the origins of the celebrated Femme by Rochas composed by perfumer Edmond Roudnitska (1905-1996) has been one reported by Michael Edwards in Perfume Legends (1996). Last summer, I came across the summary of a very interesting conversation that took place over a business luncheon one day between Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus and Armand Petitjean, the founder of Lancôme. The latter drew a panorama of French perfumery for his colleague and at the same time interjected some precise footnotes toward his interlocutor's understanding of certain perfumes. The conversation is condensed into a 2-page summary in Marcus's well-written account of his single-minded obsession for the search of quality goods entitled Quest for the Best.
What immediately caught my attention was the mention of a link that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere between a Guerlain perfume called Vague Souvenir (1912) and the much more enduring one Femme de Rochas (1944), still in production today under its officially reformulated form by Olivier Cresp in 1989. What is even more interesting is that both accounts put central emphasis on the fruity aspect of Femme and Vague Souvenir, based on a plummy molecule and peachy aldehyde C-14 for Femme. The first one is showcased in the story told by Edmond Roudnistka to Michael Edwards. In Perfume Legends, this reportedly "unusual methyl-ionone" was found by Roudnitska in the factory in which he worked at the time. He wanted to compose a perfume for himself, it was the war and the perfumer was in the habit at that time of exploring whatever left-over materials he could find within the premises. He happened in this manner on a drum that contained a product with a very peculiar aroma reminiscent to him of candied plum...
Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian is well-known to fragrance aficionados worldwide for his work that encompasses both mainstream and niche perfumery. He is the author, among other things, of Jean Paul Gaultier Classique, Fragile, Le Mâle, Narciso Rodriguez for Her, Narciso Rodriguez for Him, Fleur du Mâle, Guerlain Rose Barbare, Ferragamo F, Ungaro U, Indult perfumes, M.A. Sillage de la Reine and more. He won the prestigious François Coty prize in 2001. He also owns a private company of bespoke perfumes about which you can find more details on www.franciskurkdjian.com
We are pleased to bring you some information, a glimpse into the perfumer's world, by showing the custom-made briefcase Kurkdjian carries along with him when he visits his customers to create a unique perfume for them.......
Actresses and actors not unfrequently wear perfume to get into character. In the highly popular TV series Downton Abbey, The vanity table of Lady Mary - the most seductive of the three Crawley sisters - displays a constant array of fragrance bottles in which she would have decanted her favorite perfumes as was the custom of the day. In the last episode of Season 2, in the Christmas special, a packaged perfume by Guerlain is offered to Isobel as a discreet dramatic prop to help us relive the era. Given the fact that quite a bit of historical research goes into the series, we will assume it's more of a prop than a plain product placement. Your first thought when seeing it is "Aha, Mitsouko ca. 1919!"...
Digg This
Stumble
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Are you giving in to the media pressure surrounding "the Royal Wedding of the century" (I hope not, meaning let's hope for more extravaganza)? I have, and have been watching a series in two episodes just released by the BBC on April 17 to help whip up the frenzy around the preparation for the wedding of Catherine Middleton and Prince William. So, while I was reviewing my wedding history, set in Albion, I retained a couple of historical facts that have to do with scent in the series entitled Britain's Royal Weddings. These facts are discreet, but they were mentioned....
The opening of a new Creed boutique on Madison Avenue received the attention of Mayor Bloomberg who sent a letter of welcome to the perfume house on the occasion of its inauguration.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=fbbae9be-b957-4832-8820-0e357679e7ca)
