"Amor vacui" By Luca Turin
Fashion, Coco Chanel once said, is what goes out of fashion. This raises a question: could it be that the puzzle of fashion’s abrupt scenery changes has more to do with repulsion than with attraction, and that new loves rise in our minds like the mercury in a barometer tube, by way of sudden inner vacuum and steady outer pressure? Evacuation itself is a mysterious thing: who could have predicted what recently happened to smoking and planned economies, both long known to be health hazards? Those poor (but well-paid) people whose job it is to spot trends rather than create them must wish for face time with the angels who, no doubt, make the real decisions. Let me join the seers just this once with a prediction: spicy fragrances will soon come back and take over the world. Their eclipse dates back to the Opium wars. Opium (Saint Laurent, 1977) has become a case study in coherent design: name, smell, look, color (a shade of red borrowed from cinnabar, a mineral found in China). It came out at the same time as a w0nderful Estée Lauder fragrance called… Cinnabar (angels again), which was a textbook flop. Smelling them today, it is easy to understand why. Cinnabar was beautiful but it was not strange. Spice is to perfumery what a tan is to beauty: it improves faces, but it also blurs them. Mixed together, spices are the Baywatch of fragrance, suggesting wholesome profusion at the irreparable expense of individuality. If everything is beautiful, nothing is. The trick then is to do one of the hardest things in Art: deliberate damage. What made, and later undid, Opium was a minty bubblegum note as unexpected as a plastic duck in a bag of brown sugar. Later spicy fragrances also relied on dissonant harmonies to make their tune interesting: Coco (1984) with balsamic notes borrowed from Cabochard, Teatro alla Scala (Krizia 1986) by morphing smoothly from cloves to carnations in the manner of Caron’s Poivre. Dolce Vita (1995) with its floral bouquet borrowed from Féminité du Bois. But all these still suffered to some extent from the tiresome affability of spices. The reason for my new-found optimism lies in the work of Christine Nagel. Her Teorema (Fendi 1998) was already a remarkable thing: a sober hippy fragrance. But her somber masterpiece, Mauboussin’s Histoire d’Eau Topaze (2002), does for spices what Kind of Blue did for jazz: no more smiles, no more warmth, just a menacing, dusky miracle: the tropics in winter.
December 1, 2004
November 1, 2004
"The end of civilisation as we know it" By Luca Turin
"The end of civilisation as we know it" By Luca Turin
A terrible rumour had been circulating among perfumers for the last six months or so. Apparently, Guerlain had decided to modify all its classic fragrances (14 of them) from to bring them into conformity with IFRA guidelines. IFRA is an industry body that keeps track of any health problems arising from fragrance use, i.e. allergies, etc. Its decisions are not law, merely recommendations. When IFRA says some raw material has been found to cause allergies in a small number of people, you can either remove it or put a small label that says what it does. The accepted practice in the industry is that only new fragrances need to be totally IFRA compliant. The old ones can stay as they are, much in the way that you can still drive your 1949 Armstrong Siddeley on public roads though it has no airbags. Given that a) Guerlain’s greats have been around a long time, and b) you seldom hear, at a funeral, a friend of the deceased saying "what do you expect, she wore L’Heure Bleue", no one is asking Guerlain to do this. Well ahead of any actual regulation that would force them to do so, they are now pressing ahead with this act of vandalism rather than simply putting the little label on the bottle
Three raw materials in particular are going to be removed altogether: coumarin, oak moss and birch tar. That alone means the end of Mitsouko and Shalimar, which will henceforth smell of Eau du Soir and Vanilla Fields respectively. Finding replacements for these materials is non-trivial. There is no good coumarin substitute. Putting together a decent synthetic oakmoss has been the perfumery equivalent of proving the Riemann Conjecture in mathematics. The greatest minds have tried. One master perfumer, Arcadi Boix Camps, claims to have succeeded. You would think that Guerlain would enlist talent of that caliber to tackle this awesome task. Not a bit: they have just published an ad on the web looking for a "technical perfumer" between 25 and 28 years of age to do the job. Touchingly, they want the candidate to be good at computers and fluent in English, as if that was going to help. This is like asking the guy who tiled your bathroom to restore the Ravenna mosaics. Guerlain cannot even claim to be consistent: while plotting to destroy the fragrances everyone can buy, they are bringing back a dozen great classics (original formulae, allergies and all) to be sold only on the first floor of their store at no. 68, Champs Elysées. If you feel about this the way I do, e-mail Guerlain’s customer relations officer, isabelle Rousseau, irousseau@guerlain.fr
A terrible rumour had been circulating among perfumers for the last six months or so. Apparently, Guerlain had decided to modify all its classic fragrances (14 of them) from to bring them into conformity with IFRA guidelines. IFRA is an industry body that keeps track of any health problems arising from fragrance use, i.e. allergies, etc. Its decisions are not law, merely recommendations. When IFRA says some raw material has been found to cause allergies in a small number of people, you can either remove it or put a small label that says what it does. The accepted practice in the industry is that only new fragrances need to be totally IFRA compliant. The old ones can stay as they are, much in the way that you can still drive your 1949 Armstrong Siddeley on public roads though it has no airbags. Given that a) Guerlain’s greats have been around a long time, and b) you seldom hear, at a funeral, a friend of the deceased saying "what do you expect, she wore L’Heure Bleue", no one is asking Guerlain to do this. Well ahead of any actual regulation that would force them to do so, they are now pressing ahead with this act of vandalism rather than simply putting the little label on the bottle
Three raw materials in particular are going to be removed altogether: coumarin, oak moss and birch tar. That alone means the end of Mitsouko and Shalimar, which will henceforth smell of Eau du Soir and Vanilla Fields respectively. Finding replacements for these materials is non-trivial. There is no good coumarin substitute. Putting together a decent synthetic oakmoss has been the perfumery equivalent of proving the Riemann Conjecture in mathematics. The greatest minds have tried. One master perfumer, Arcadi Boix Camps, claims to have succeeded. You would think that Guerlain would enlist talent of that caliber to tackle this awesome task. Not a bit: they have just published an ad on the web looking for a "technical perfumer" between 25 and 28 years of age to do the job. Touchingly, they want the candidate to be good at computers and fluent in English, as if that was going to help. This is like asking the guy who tiled your bathroom to restore the Ravenna mosaics. Guerlain cannot even claim to be consistent: while plotting to destroy the fragrances everyone can buy, they are bringing back a dozen great classics (original formulae, allergies and all) to be sold only on the first floor of their store at no. 68, Champs Elysées. If you feel about this the way I do, e-mail Guerlain’s customer relations officer, isabelle Rousseau, irousseau@guerlain.fr
October 1, 2004
"Guardian Angels" By Luca Turin
"Guardian Angels" By Luca Turin
The week, like the city, the wheel and writing, is apparently a Sumerian invention. Seven days, each named after a planet-god, is just the right length: long enough to get used to work, but short enough to make it across in one piece. The fit between planets and days is uneven (Mondays aren’t very moon-like, for example, though Friday definitely belongs to Venus). Sunday, however, really is dies solis, especially when enjoyed in vacant city streets basking in morning light. For those who like waiting for nothing in particular, Sundays are an inspiration. Hopper painted their emptiness, Aaron Copland wrote down their silent music in his masterpiece, "Quiet City". But if Sunday were a perfume, which one would it be ? Which one breathes the calm that slowly fills you to your fingertips during walks with only a guardian angel for company ?
My long-time favorite was Guerlain’s Jicky, that flag-like confection (I have the Ukrainian one in mind, big earth under big sky) of lavender and vanilla. Jicky is the oldest proper perfume in existence (1889, Eau de Cologne doesn’t count) and has undergone some restoration in recent years. For once, no damage was done. It is now as good as it gets, cool on top, warm below and mercifully quiet. Gone is the layer of French sexiness that used to cloud its simple beauty. Until recently, I could see no serious contenders. Now, unexpectedly in this world geared to Monday mornings and Saturday nights, comes another great Sunday fragrance: Osmanthus, by the Different Company. Its composer is one of the founders of the outfit: Jean-Claude Ellena, who has recently become the Hermès in-house perfumer. This is Hermès’ gain and, so far, our loss, because the first fragrance in his new job (Un Jardin en Méditerrannée) has turned out nicely crafted but not particularly interesting.
Osmanthus is a different matter. The plant itself, O. fragrans has, like hyacinth and tuberose, one of those smells that God must have composed while studying organic chemistry. Soapy, powdery, definitely inedible, it is Wedgwood blue for the nose. Ellena has set it in a structure reminiscent of the soft glow of ancient perfumes like Worth’s Je Reviens. The sum total shimmers like an opal: Osmanthus feels different every time you wear it, but always intimate and reassuring. The Different Company has had the brilliant idea of offering its fragrances in small, sealed 10 ml sprays they call "48 hour refills". Their discovery pack of three promises a sensational week, though anyone who gets through that much perfume so quickly probably needs expert help.
The week, like the city, the wheel and writing, is apparently a Sumerian invention. Seven days, each named after a planet-god, is just the right length: long enough to get used to work, but short enough to make it across in one piece. The fit between planets and days is uneven (Mondays aren’t very moon-like, for example, though Friday definitely belongs to Venus). Sunday, however, really is dies solis, especially when enjoyed in vacant city streets basking in morning light. For those who like waiting for nothing in particular, Sundays are an inspiration. Hopper painted their emptiness, Aaron Copland wrote down their silent music in his masterpiece, "Quiet City". But if Sunday were a perfume, which one would it be ? Which one breathes the calm that slowly fills you to your fingertips during walks with only a guardian angel for company ?
My long-time favorite was Guerlain’s Jicky, that flag-like confection (I have the Ukrainian one in mind, big earth under big sky) of lavender and vanilla. Jicky is the oldest proper perfume in existence (1889, Eau de Cologne doesn’t count) and has undergone some restoration in recent years. For once, no damage was done. It is now as good as it gets, cool on top, warm below and mercifully quiet. Gone is the layer of French sexiness that used to cloud its simple beauty. Until recently, I could see no serious contenders. Now, unexpectedly in this world geared to Monday mornings and Saturday nights, comes another great Sunday fragrance: Osmanthus, by the Different Company. Its composer is one of the founders of the outfit: Jean-Claude Ellena, who has recently become the Hermès in-house perfumer. This is Hermès’ gain and, so far, our loss, because the first fragrance in his new job (Un Jardin en Méditerrannée) has turned out nicely crafted but not particularly interesting.
Osmanthus is a different matter. The plant itself, O. fragrans has, like hyacinth and tuberose, one of those smells that God must have composed while studying organic chemistry. Soapy, powdery, definitely inedible, it is Wedgwood blue for the nose. Ellena has set it in a structure reminiscent of the soft glow of ancient perfumes like Worth’s Je Reviens. The sum total shimmers like an opal: Osmanthus feels different every time you wear it, but always intimate and reassuring. The Different Company has had the brilliant idea of offering its fragrances in small, sealed 10 ml sprays they call "48 hour refills". Their discovery pack of three promises a sensational week, though anyone who gets through that much perfume so quickly probably needs expert help.
September 1, 2004
"Diminishing returns" By Luca Turin
"Diminishing returns" By Luca Turin
It is hard to escape the impression that each Art mines a finite seam of beauty. In that sense calling an artist inventor, i.e. finder, is probably more accurate than creator. Being first to dig is a great good fortune. Early photographers, no matter how trivial their subject, scooped up big chunks of the precious stuff at every click of the shutter. The first passenger jets, the first windsurfer have the unmistakable grace that only ample elbow room can give. In perfumery this once-only privilege belongs to François Coty. Self-taught, he started by helping a pharmacist friend put together harmless eaux de cologne, he sufficiently impressed the great Antoine Chiris, pioneer of steam distillation, to get a job with his firm before branching out on his own.
Most successful firms are built on the talents of two people, one for ideas and one for business, the latter often hidden from view. Coty was both, and built a huge empire with factories all over the world. His early creations stake out vast territories: L’Origan, Emeraude, Ambre Antique, La Rose Jacqueminot, L’Aimant spawned a dynasty each. But his greatest invention, the perfumery equivalent of the three-movement concerto, was Chypre (1917). He discovered that bergamot, oakmoss and labdanum, though interestingly different, had a common resinous side that made them stick together as an abstract idea, at once straightforward and unfathomable.
The Chypre concept tuned out to be a great structure on which to hang hundreds of variations. The fruity (Mitsouko) and floral (Miss Dior) Chypres are still with us. Though wonderful, they are in a sense compromises, like asking Athena to take off her helmet, put on a little cheek blush and smile for the family portrait. The true heirs of Chypre, in my opinion, are the somber variations: the smoky, carnation and leather Chypres like Bandit (Piguet) and Jolie Madame (Balmain) , the bitter green ones like Futur (Piguet) and the soon-to-be reissued Sous le Vent (Guerlain), the animalic Chypres like the first Boucheron and the reckless La Nuit (Rabanne). We seem to prefer women tame and affable: most of these fragrances are extinct, and were never big sellers anyway. Coty would have loved them. Like many rich men, he overreached. He got into politics, bought newspapers and ended his life a fanatical right-wing recluse. The Coty name changed hands several times and is now owned by the German firm Benckiser. Coty perfumes today ? Stetson, Céline Dion and Adidas.
It is hard to escape the impression that each Art mines a finite seam of beauty. In that sense calling an artist inventor, i.e. finder, is probably more accurate than creator. Being first to dig is a great good fortune. Early photographers, no matter how trivial their subject, scooped up big chunks of the precious stuff at every click of the shutter. The first passenger jets, the first windsurfer have the unmistakable grace that only ample elbow room can give. In perfumery this once-only privilege belongs to François Coty. Self-taught, he started by helping a pharmacist friend put together harmless eaux de cologne, he sufficiently impressed the great Antoine Chiris, pioneer of steam distillation, to get a job with his firm before branching out on his own.
Most successful firms are built on the talents of two people, one for ideas and one for business, the latter often hidden from view. Coty was both, and built a huge empire with factories all over the world. His early creations stake out vast territories: L’Origan, Emeraude, Ambre Antique, La Rose Jacqueminot, L’Aimant spawned a dynasty each. But his greatest invention, the perfumery equivalent of the three-movement concerto, was Chypre (1917). He discovered that bergamot, oakmoss and labdanum, though interestingly different, had a common resinous side that made them stick together as an abstract idea, at once straightforward and unfathomable.
The Chypre concept tuned out to be a great structure on which to hang hundreds of variations. The fruity (Mitsouko) and floral (Miss Dior) Chypres are still with us. Though wonderful, they are in a sense compromises, like asking Athena to take off her helmet, put on a little cheek blush and smile for the family portrait. The true heirs of Chypre, in my opinion, are the somber variations: the smoky, carnation and leather Chypres like Bandit (Piguet) and Jolie Madame (Balmain) , the bitter green ones like Futur (Piguet) and the soon-to-be reissued Sous le Vent (Guerlain), the animalic Chypres like the first Boucheron and the reckless La Nuit (Rabanne). We seem to prefer women tame and affable: most of these fragrances are extinct, and were never big sellers anyway. Coty would have loved them. Like many rich men, he overreached. He got into politics, bought newspapers and ended his life a fanatical right-wing recluse. The Coty name changed hands several times and is now owned by the German firm Benckiser. Coty perfumes today ? Stetson, Céline Dion and Adidas.
August 1, 2004
"JAR" By Luca Turin
"JAR" By Luca Turin
My disparaging comments on niche fragrances a few months back had the expected result: an imperious e-mail reached me two weeks later pointing out the existence of a perfume firm I’d never heard of: JAR, situated 14 rue de Castiglione, bang in the posh middle of Paris. A little research revealed that this was the perfume wing of a nearby jeweller of quasi-mythical status. Judging from an exhibition catalogue I have obtained, JAR’s jewels are fairytale stuff that makes you wish you owned Brazil. When jewellers make perfume (Boucheron, Van Cleef et Arpels, Bulgari), it is usually because they have a big name and want to generate some cash flow. But that can’t be JAR’s reason since his entire customer base can (and probably does) fit in the Ritz, and the perfumes are if anything even more confidential than the jewels.
I called up for samples, and eventually got hold of the complete collection, beautiful engraved flasks inside purple suede pouches. Gossip led me to expect something weird, and weird is what I got. JAR fragrances are uniquely shocking, and I have delayed writing this article until I could begin to understand why. Most normal Perfumes are symphonic: the idea is to blend materials the way a composer blends sounds to achieve something which is more than the sum of its parts, with the parts no longer perceptible. But JAR’s perfumes aren’t normal. They were clearly composed by a guy who spends his days picking out rubies from a box and laying them one by one next to a huge pearl. Gemstones don’t mix, God forbid, they just glow like mad.
Same with his fragrances. Instead of the usual expert blend we get sensational raw materials juxtaposed and set, all in full view under the bright lights, for maximum effect. They range from the merely grand to what Wodehouse’s Jeeves, straining for understatement, would have described as "a bit sudden". If you visit the store, a good starting point might be Golconde , a huge oriental with the cheekbones of Joan Crawford and the shoulders of Esther Williams. Once you have got used to the idea, graduate to Jarling, the sweetest, most poisonous heliotrope note ever devised. Give that one a few weeks to sink in properly, then go back and ask to smell the fragrance with no name, the one with forked lightning engraved on the bottle. Clue: tuberose and pear. If you’ve hankered all your life for André Breton’s beauté convulsive, your search is over.
My disparaging comments on niche fragrances a few months back had the expected result: an imperious e-mail reached me two weeks later pointing out the existence of a perfume firm I’d never heard of: JAR, situated 14 rue de Castiglione, bang in the posh middle of Paris. A little research revealed that this was the perfume wing of a nearby jeweller of quasi-mythical status. Judging from an exhibition catalogue I have obtained, JAR’s jewels are fairytale stuff that makes you wish you owned Brazil. When jewellers make perfume (Boucheron, Van Cleef et Arpels, Bulgari), it is usually because they have a big name and want to generate some cash flow. But that can’t be JAR’s reason since his entire customer base can (and probably does) fit in the Ritz, and the perfumes are if anything even more confidential than the jewels.
I called up for samples, and eventually got hold of the complete collection, beautiful engraved flasks inside purple suede pouches. Gossip led me to expect something weird, and weird is what I got. JAR fragrances are uniquely shocking, and I have delayed writing this article until I could begin to understand why. Most normal Perfumes are symphonic: the idea is to blend materials the way a composer blends sounds to achieve something which is more than the sum of its parts, with the parts no longer perceptible. But JAR’s perfumes aren’t normal. They were clearly composed by a guy who spends his days picking out rubies from a box and laying them one by one next to a huge pearl. Gemstones don’t mix, God forbid, they just glow like mad.
Same with his fragrances. Instead of the usual expert blend we get sensational raw materials juxtaposed and set, all in full view under the bright lights, for maximum effect. They range from the merely grand to what Wodehouse’s Jeeves, straining for understatement, would have described as "a bit sudden". If you visit the store, a good starting point might be Golconde , a huge oriental with the cheekbones of Joan Crawford and the shoulders of Esther Williams. Once you have got used to the idea, graduate to Jarling, the sweetest, most poisonous heliotrope note ever devised. Give that one a few weeks to sink in properly, then go back and ask to smell the fragrance with no name, the one with forked lightning engraved on the bottle. Clue: tuberose and pear. If you’ve hankered all your life for André Breton’s beauté convulsive, your search is over.
July 1, 2004
"Black is the new black" By Luca Turin
"Black is the new black" By Luca Turin
When I find myself a captive audience to a busking musician, say in a metro corridor, I apply a simple test to the question of whether to part with money. Get goosebumps ? Give generously. Hairs unmoved ? Walk on blameless. For some reason this shiver test only works with music, but an analogous one exists for fragrance: does a perfume make you smile the first time you smell it ? I was trying to remember when that last happened. There was, of course, the belly laugh of Angel (Mugler), but that was long ago (1992). Then the beatific smile of Beyond Paradise last year. But in between ? Only one, I’m afraid, and that was Bulgari’s Black in 1998. I’ve mentioned this masterpiece before, but a bit more explaining is required.
Years ago I met a Ferrari collector who owned a beautifully cut raincoat made of black inner-tube rubber with flat taped seams like those on an inflatable dinghy. It looked sensational, and smelled even better, of virgin tires and baby powder. I trespassed and asked him where he had bought it: "a London tailor" he said haughtily, but he was tight-lipped about details. Years later, I understood why: this thing came not from Savile Row, but from a more specialized sort of shop found in Soho. For years I would occasionally nip into the largest one, on Old Compton Street, to smell the rubber underwear hanging on the racks, under the indifferent eye of the staff for whom this ranked as a minor affliction.
Since Black you can take that smell home with you without having to hide it from your mom under a pile of cardigans. I have no idea how the idea came about, but at about the same time Bulgari had started selling watches with black rubber straps, and the bottle is circled in black rubber, so Black may have started out as a naughty joke in the marketing department. It could have stayed that way had it not fallen upon the ears of one of the greatest perfumers at work today, Annick Ménardeau of Firmenich. She took the rubbery idea, added a cloud of talcum powder and blended the two with a luscious fur-coat structure from the fifties, something like the original Je Reviens. The result is more akin to the black mink mitt James Bond uses to induce beautiful spies to talk in From Russia With Love: a torture instrument, only nobody gets hurt.
When I find myself a captive audience to a busking musician, say in a metro corridor, I apply a simple test to the question of whether to part with money. Get goosebumps ? Give generously. Hairs unmoved ? Walk on blameless. For some reason this shiver test only works with music, but an analogous one exists for fragrance: does a perfume make you smile the first time you smell it ? I was trying to remember when that last happened. There was, of course, the belly laugh of Angel (Mugler), but that was long ago (1992). Then the beatific smile of Beyond Paradise last year. But in between ? Only one, I’m afraid, and that was Bulgari’s Black in 1998. I’ve mentioned this masterpiece before, but a bit more explaining is required.
Years ago I met a Ferrari collector who owned a beautifully cut raincoat made of black inner-tube rubber with flat taped seams like those on an inflatable dinghy. It looked sensational, and smelled even better, of virgin tires and baby powder. I trespassed and asked him where he had bought it: "a London tailor" he said haughtily, but he was tight-lipped about details. Years later, I understood why: this thing came not from Savile Row, but from a more specialized sort of shop found in Soho. For years I would occasionally nip into the largest one, on Old Compton Street, to smell the rubber underwear hanging on the racks, under the indifferent eye of the staff for whom this ranked as a minor affliction.
Since Black you can take that smell home with you without having to hide it from your mom under a pile of cardigans. I have no idea how the idea came about, but at about the same time Bulgari had started selling watches with black rubber straps, and the bottle is circled in black rubber, so Black may have started out as a naughty joke in the marketing department. It could have stayed that way had it not fallen upon the ears of one of the greatest perfumers at work today, Annick Ménardeau of Firmenich. She took the rubbery idea, added a cloud of talcum powder and blended the two with a luscious fur-coat structure from the fifties, something like the original Je Reviens. The result is more akin to the black mink mitt James Bond uses to induce beautiful spies to talk in From Russia With Love: a torture instrument, only nobody gets hurt.
June 1, 2004
"An old flame" By Luca Turin
"An old flame" By Luca Turin
One day in 1982 there appeared out of nowhere, on the perfume floor of my local Galeries Lafayette, a shining black monolith displaying a new perfume called Nombre Noir, made by Shiseido and signed SL, the initials of its mysterious creator Serge Lutens. I asked to smell it and my life was altered forever. Had this perfume spoken, as objects do all the time in Alice in Wonderland and less frequently in reality, it would not have said: "Give me to your girlfriend" but" Ditch her now and run off with me". In the event, I started a discreet ménage à trois. When a few years later we split up, the perfume stayed with her. By then Nombre Noir had vanished, having earned the then-rare distinction of being found allergenic and subsequently banned.
I spent the next decade looking for it in widening circles, first scouring old perfumeries, then asking other collectors, then trying specialist stores (the biggest one is at the intersection of I-95 and 270 in Eastern North Carolina), finally the Web, all to no avail. Last year, during a drunken dinner with a fellow perfume journalist, it emerged that she had on her shelf a full atomizer of the eau de toilette and did not think much of it. She offered to trade it against something in my possession which she had always wanted, a pristine ounce of Coty’s Chypre, not the 1917 marvel but a passable 1960’s version. We swapped obsessions, and I was at last able to gaze again upon that wonderful face.
Nostalgic encounters are fraught with danger. Nombre Noir was still beautiful, God knows, and I could see what I had loved, a sort of playful fierceness unequalled in fragrance before or since, but I was no longer in thrall. Egged on by the cruelty that makes us dismember what we cannot truly love, I sent it off for analysis. When I read the list of ingredients with their proportions, I felt as Röntgen must have done when he first saw the bones in his wife’s hand: no longer the beautiful, but the sublime. At Nombre Noir’s core, a quartet of resplendent woody-rosy damascones, synthetics first found in rose oil forty years ago. They break down in sunlight, hence the nastiness. But the secret was a huge slug of hedione, a quiet, unassuming chemical that no-one noticed until Edmond Roudnitska showed with Eau Sauvage (1966) that its magic kiss could put back the dew on dry flowers. Knowledge may be power, but power is not love.
One day in 1982 there appeared out of nowhere, on the perfume floor of my local Galeries Lafayette, a shining black monolith displaying a new perfume called Nombre Noir, made by Shiseido and signed SL, the initials of its mysterious creator Serge Lutens. I asked to smell it and my life was altered forever. Had this perfume spoken, as objects do all the time in Alice in Wonderland and less frequently in reality, it would not have said: "Give me to your girlfriend" but" Ditch her now and run off with me". In the event, I started a discreet ménage à trois. When a few years later we split up, the perfume stayed with her. By then Nombre Noir had vanished, having earned the then-rare distinction of being found allergenic and subsequently banned.
I spent the next decade looking for it in widening circles, first scouring old perfumeries, then asking other collectors, then trying specialist stores (the biggest one is at the intersection of I-95 and 270 in Eastern North Carolina), finally the Web, all to no avail. Last year, during a drunken dinner with a fellow perfume journalist, it emerged that she had on her shelf a full atomizer of the eau de toilette and did not think much of it. She offered to trade it against something in my possession which she had always wanted, a pristine ounce of Coty’s Chypre, not the 1917 marvel but a passable 1960’s version. We swapped obsessions, and I was at last able to gaze again upon that wonderful face.
Nostalgic encounters are fraught with danger. Nombre Noir was still beautiful, God knows, and I could see what I had loved, a sort of playful fierceness unequalled in fragrance before or since, but I was no longer in thrall. Egged on by the cruelty that makes us dismember what we cannot truly love, I sent it off for analysis. When I read the list of ingredients with their proportions, I felt as Röntgen must have done when he first saw the bones in his wife’s hand: no longer the beautiful, but the sublime. At Nombre Noir’s core, a quartet of resplendent woody-rosy damascones, synthetics first found in rose oil forty years ago. They break down in sunlight, hence the nastiness. But the secret was a huge slug of hedione, a quiet, unassuming chemical that no-one noticed until Edmond Roudnitska showed with Eau Sauvage (1966) that its magic kiss could put back the dew on dry flowers. Knowledge may be power, but power is not love.
May 1, 2004
"The Fall of Guerlain Part II" By Luca Turin
"The Fall of Guerlain Part II" By Luca Turin
A few months ago I had some sharp words to say about the latest Guerlain perfume and about the way this venerable firm was being handled by its new owners LVMH. I really must try to be nasty more often: I since receive one or two lavish packages a month from their PR department. I open them gingerly, but they turn out to contain some harmless bath oil or face powder that I pass on to my kids. The latest one was different: a press pack and samples for the launch of Shalimar Light. For a moment I thought I was stuck on Groundhog Day, since I had already given glowing reviews to this fragrance when it came out same time last year. Launches aren’t cheap, so why have two ? I was so curious I opened the press pack and actually read it.
It explains that "Last year Mathilde Laurent caused real excitement with her vibrant and delicious variation on the original scent" (Shalimar, that is). True: Laurent, the young Guerlain in-house perfumer, has a devoted following, having composed among other things the irresistible Pamplelune and the drop-dead, confidential Guet-Apens (Christmas 1999) a perfume I’d walk barefoot on hot coals for. So what’s new with the new one ? The press release explains that "in 2004 it is Jean-Paul Guerlain who will delight us with his radiant and cheerful rendition". This made my heart sink, because this meant that the original was discontinued. Then I smelled it, and all my worries evaporated with the alcohol on the smelling strip. Jean-Paul Guerlain has paid his junior colleague the ultimate compliment of not messing with her work. The new fragrance is a little brighter up top, a little thinner in the middle, but basically the same perfume, only slightly less good. Even the trusty gas chromatograph that hums away next to my desk gave the same answer when fed both fragrances: close.
Clearly no one is fooled here, least of all the poor souls who had to write the press release: they even prefaced it with a quotation from a Verlaine poem, "The same, and yet somehow different". What’s going on ? I called Guerlain PR and asked why Laurent (currently on maternity leave) was being airbrushed out of the picture. The answer was that the perfume had been "optimized" by Jean-Paul Guerlain. Please optimize it back.
A few months ago I had some sharp words to say about the latest Guerlain perfume and about the way this venerable firm was being handled by its new owners LVMH. I really must try to be nasty more often: I since receive one or two lavish packages a month from their PR department. I open them gingerly, but they turn out to contain some harmless bath oil or face powder that I pass on to my kids. The latest one was different: a press pack and samples for the launch of Shalimar Light. For a moment I thought I was stuck on Groundhog Day, since I had already given glowing reviews to this fragrance when it came out same time last year. Launches aren’t cheap, so why have two ? I was so curious I opened the press pack and actually read it.
It explains that "Last year Mathilde Laurent caused real excitement with her vibrant and delicious variation on the original scent" (Shalimar, that is). True: Laurent, the young Guerlain in-house perfumer, has a devoted following, having composed among other things the irresistible Pamplelune and the drop-dead, confidential Guet-Apens (Christmas 1999) a perfume I’d walk barefoot on hot coals for. So what’s new with the new one ? The press release explains that "in 2004 it is Jean-Paul Guerlain who will delight us with his radiant and cheerful rendition". This made my heart sink, because this meant that the original was discontinued. Then I smelled it, and all my worries evaporated with the alcohol on the smelling strip. Jean-Paul Guerlain has paid his junior colleague the ultimate compliment of not messing with her work. The new fragrance is a little brighter up top, a little thinner in the middle, but basically the same perfume, only slightly less good. Even the trusty gas chromatograph that hums away next to my desk gave the same answer when fed both fragrances: close.
Clearly no one is fooled here, least of all the poor souls who had to write the press release: they even prefaced it with a quotation from a Verlaine poem, "The same, and yet somehow different". What’s going on ? I called Guerlain PR and asked why Laurent (currently on maternity leave) was being airbrushed out of the picture. The answer was that the perfume had been "optimized" by Jean-Paul Guerlain. Please optimize it back.
April 1, 2004
"Message in a Bottle" By Luca Turin
"Message in a Bottle" By Luca Turin
Tiny shards of your past, long gone from view, are spread all over the world. Just like a hologram, each piece contains the whole picture, only grainier. In order to work, it has to be a piece of the real thing: a child’s book distressed by other hands is merely dirty. An old record has the scratches at all the wrong places in the score. But a perfume’s moving parts are shielded from harm inside crystal. Every bottle is the bottle. This cloud of silent music was once the answer a perfumer found to a long-forgotten question, but you took it to be an emanation of your mother’s soul.
Mine was Diorama, Dior’s first fragrance. My mother wore the eau de toilette, because she thought perfume was a vulgar evening-in-furs thing. Diorama was a fruity version of Coty’s austere Chypre, and a solar counterpart to Guerlain’s saturnine Mitsouko. Dior still pretends to sell it at its boutique In Paris, but the fragrance bears no relation to Roudnitska’s masterpiece. I looked for it everywhere in the unimaginable years before the world developed a nervous system.
If what they say is true, and the Devil grants your wishes, then the Web is His finest work. A desire zips down your arm to your typing fingers. 260 milliseconds later, if the Thing exists at all, you’re looking at it. Someone in Texas has just cleared his attic, Auntie Hattie wore Diorama. Bidding at auction takes a further few minutes. It’s as much fun as haggling, and a lot easier on the shy (machines do it for you at the last second). Some days later a small package turns up in the morning post., covered in nice joined-up American handwriting By then the price you paid has stopped hurting, and it feels like a present.
All you need to know is that perfumes, like all mysteries, hate sunlight and fresh air. Buy the ones that come with a box, and nearly full. Stoppered and kept in darkness, they last for decades. When they age, their molecules break down into smaller pieces which quickly fly off your skin. An aged perfume, like a friend you haven’t seen for years, can scare you at first but its younger face soon shines through. Don’t bid against bottle collectors, or you’ll be paying a fortune for things you don’t need. And don’t ever give it to your mother: everyone wants to remember their childhood, but youth is another matter.
Tiny shards of your past, long gone from view, are spread all over the world. Just like a hologram, each piece contains the whole picture, only grainier. In order to work, it has to be a piece of the real thing: a child’s book distressed by other hands is merely dirty. An old record has the scratches at all the wrong places in the score. But a perfume’s moving parts are shielded from harm inside crystal. Every bottle is the bottle. This cloud of silent music was once the answer a perfumer found to a long-forgotten question, but you took it to be an emanation of your mother’s soul.
Mine was Diorama, Dior’s first fragrance. My mother wore the eau de toilette, because she thought perfume was a vulgar evening-in-furs thing. Diorama was a fruity version of Coty’s austere Chypre, and a solar counterpart to Guerlain’s saturnine Mitsouko. Dior still pretends to sell it at its boutique In Paris, but the fragrance bears no relation to Roudnitska’s masterpiece. I looked for it everywhere in the unimaginable years before the world developed a nervous system.
If what they say is true, and the Devil grants your wishes, then the Web is His finest work. A desire zips down your arm to your typing fingers. 260 milliseconds later, if the Thing exists at all, you’re looking at it. Someone in Texas has just cleared his attic, Auntie Hattie wore Diorama. Bidding at auction takes a further few minutes. It’s as much fun as haggling, and a lot easier on the shy (machines do it for you at the last second). Some days later a small package turns up in the morning post., covered in nice joined-up American handwriting By then the price you paid has stopped hurting, and it feels like a present.
All you need to know is that perfumes, like all mysteries, hate sunlight and fresh air. Buy the ones that come with a box, and nearly full. Stoppered and kept in darkness, they last for decades. When they age, their molecules break down into smaller pieces which quickly fly off your skin. An aged perfume, like a friend you haven’t seen for years, can scare you at first but its younger face soon shines through. Don’t bid against bottle collectors, or you’ll be paying a fortune for things you don’t need. And don’t ever give it to your mother: everyone wants to remember their childhood, but youth is another matter.
March 1, 2004
"The world upside down" By Luca Turin
"The world upside down" By Luca Turin
Go to the perfume section of a large department store (I did in Paris last week) and take a look around. A revolution has happened virtually overnight: the little "niche" perfumeries now take center stage, and the great firms of the past are relegated to the outer edges. If someone had told me this a few years ago, I would have jumped with joy at the prospect. Now steal a bunch of smelling strips at the Chanel stand, spray on the little guys, take them home and smell them at leisure. What do you find ? With a very few exceptions (read on), not a single great perfume.
Instead, you’ve got the fragrance equivalent of second-rate naïf paintings: faux simple, cute names, a sort of pigeon-toed mediocrity raised to the level of artistic manifesto. Then read the press releases: a torrent of blather about natural, expensive materials, a solemn rejection of all that is crassly commercial about the big firms. You’d think these guys had chased black orchids half-way across New Guinea to bring you the bottle you’ve just paid 100 € for. Smell the perfume, though, and you know they never left Leverkusen.
How did it come to this ? Very simple: they are in it for the money. The world is full of suckers that will buy a perfume merely because it is not from a big firm, naively thinking no-0ne else will be wearing it. This is like preferring Hummel to Mozart because nobody hums Hummel. Second, the competition between niche products is slack, so they get sloppy. Say what you will about Big Names but when they award a brief to a fragrance house, the thing has been fought over by every good perfumer in the world, and the winner has gone through several hundred variations. This does not mean it will be good, but it virtually guarantees that you’re not smelling a first draft.
The exceptions ? A few small firms that consistently produce great perfumes, such as Patricia de Nicolai and Serge Lutens. But there is one firm that looks like the beginning of a story in the Grand Manner, like Coty, Guerlain, Caron and Piguet: Frédéric Malle. Malle is the Diaghilev of fragrance: he’s got the greatest perfumers falling over each other to compose for him, and he does their work justice by using the best raw materials. Order his "coffret à essais" on http://www.editionsdeparfums.com: 12 perfumes for 75€, at least seven of which deserve to still be there in 2024.
Go to the perfume section of a large department store (I did in Paris last week) and take a look around. A revolution has happened virtually overnight: the little "niche" perfumeries now take center stage, and the great firms of the past are relegated to the outer edges. If someone had told me this a few years ago, I would have jumped with joy at the prospect. Now steal a bunch of smelling strips at the Chanel stand, spray on the little guys, take them home and smell them at leisure. What do you find ? With a very few exceptions (read on), not a single great perfume.
Instead, you’ve got the fragrance equivalent of second-rate naïf paintings: faux simple, cute names, a sort of pigeon-toed mediocrity raised to the level of artistic manifesto. Then read the press releases: a torrent of blather about natural, expensive materials, a solemn rejection of all that is crassly commercial about the big firms. You’d think these guys had chased black orchids half-way across New Guinea to bring you the bottle you’ve just paid 100 € for. Smell the perfume, though, and you know they never left Leverkusen.
How did it come to this ? Very simple: they are in it for the money. The world is full of suckers that will buy a perfume merely because it is not from a big firm, naively thinking no-0ne else will be wearing it. This is like preferring Hummel to Mozart because nobody hums Hummel. Second, the competition between niche products is slack, so they get sloppy. Say what you will about Big Names but when they award a brief to a fragrance house, the thing has been fought over by every good perfumer in the world, and the winner has gone through several hundred variations. This does not mean it will be good, but it virtually guarantees that you’re not smelling a first draft.
The exceptions ? A few small firms that consistently produce great perfumes, such as Patricia de Nicolai and Serge Lutens. But there is one firm that looks like the beginning of a story in the Grand Manner, like Coty, Guerlain, Caron and Piguet: Frédéric Malle. Malle is the Diaghilev of fragrance: he’s got the greatest perfumers falling over each other to compose for him, and he does their work justice by using the best raw materials. Order his "coffret à essais" on http://www.editionsdeparfums.com: 12 perfumes for 75€, at least seven of which deserve to still be there in 2024.
February 1, 2004
"Evolution" By Luca Turin
"Evolution" By Luca Turin
A few years ago a committee was set up in France to look into the problem of plagiarism in fragrance. A jury composed of professionals and perfume lovers was to decide whether a given fragrance was a blatant copy of an existing one, and act as an expert witness in several juicy lawsuits. The idea foundered when it became clear that such a committee would probably reject some of the greatest fragrances ever made: Rive Gauche was an unsweetened Calandre , Dolce Vita the dusky sister of Féminité du Bois, Lolita Lempicka an ornate variation (the first of many) on Angel. In each case, however, the copy was arguably better than the original. Perfumery is still a classical art in which, as Charles Colton once put it, imitation is the sincerest flattery.
The fact is that perfumes, like species, usually evolve in incremental steps. When closely related, they can even interbreed to produce rare and splendid hybrids. Estée Lauder’s latest, Beyond Paradise, is one such marvel. If it had a coat of arms, it would be a four-generation mosaic of fleur-de-lys. This is the matchmaker’s dream come true, a perfect heir to several princely houses of fragrance. Its lineage is second to none: in the beginning there was Diorella, the first fragrance to break free from the notion that flowers were wholesome, with an overripe note that urged one not to delay tasting the forbidden. Then it’s creator Edmond Roudnitska apparently took a contrary tack and worked with Jacques Polge on the pallid and haughty Cristalle, a floral form bathed in the cold light of a sculptor’s studio.
A few years later, Calice Becker’s Tommy Girl proved that a tea base could make a floral shine as brightly as the inside of an alien spaceship. She went on to compose the wonderfully seamless J’Adore, where this brightness is dimmed to the glow of a sunset on snow. At this point it would have been legitimate to suppose that the idea was exhausted. Wrong ! Beyond Paradise begins with the most breathtaking floral chord ever, a hundred close-miked voices singing in unison. That alone would suffice, but what happens next is even more remarkable. A great artist at the peak of her powers, Becker has taken the bone structure from Cristalle, the tempting flesh from Diorella, the flattering hue of J’Adore and the radiance of Tommy Girl, and fused them all into a seraphic being we foolishly thought would never come: the Perfect Floral.
A few years ago a committee was set up in France to look into the problem of plagiarism in fragrance. A jury composed of professionals and perfume lovers was to decide whether a given fragrance was a blatant copy of an existing one, and act as an expert witness in several juicy lawsuits. The idea foundered when it became clear that such a committee would probably reject some of the greatest fragrances ever made: Rive Gauche was an unsweetened Calandre , Dolce Vita the dusky sister of Féminité du Bois, Lolita Lempicka an ornate variation (the first of many) on Angel. In each case, however, the copy was arguably better than the original. Perfumery is still a classical art in which, as Charles Colton once put it, imitation is the sincerest flattery.
The fact is that perfumes, like species, usually evolve in incremental steps. When closely related, they can even interbreed to produce rare and splendid hybrids. Estée Lauder’s latest, Beyond Paradise, is one such marvel. If it had a coat of arms, it would be a four-generation mosaic of fleur-de-lys. This is the matchmaker’s dream come true, a perfect heir to several princely houses of fragrance. Its lineage is second to none: in the beginning there was Diorella, the first fragrance to break free from the notion that flowers were wholesome, with an overripe note that urged one not to delay tasting the forbidden. Then it’s creator Edmond Roudnitska apparently took a contrary tack and worked with Jacques Polge on the pallid and haughty Cristalle, a floral form bathed in the cold light of a sculptor’s studio.
A few years later, Calice Becker’s Tommy Girl proved that a tea base could make a floral shine as brightly as the inside of an alien spaceship. She went on to compose the wonderfully seamless J’Adore, where this brightness is dimmed to the glow of a sunset on snow. At this point it would have been legitimate to suppose that the idea was exhausted. Wrong ! Beyond Paradise begins with the most breathtaking floral chord ever, a hundred close-miked voices singing in unison. That alone would suffice, but what happens next is even more remarkable. A great artist at the peak of her powers, Becker has taken the bone structure from Cristalle, the tempting flesh from Diorella, the flattering hue of J’Adore and the radiance of Tommy Girl, and fused them all into a seraphic being we foolishly thought would never come: the Perfect Floral.
January 1, 2004
"Elle Pour Lui" By Luca Turin
"Elle Pour Lui" By Luca Turin
Symmetry (see last month’s column) demands that men be allowed, at long last, to wear feminine fragrances. This does not mean doing anything sudden, like showing up at the office party in fairy princess costume, or wearing La Perla silk knickers under your cords. Rather, think of perfume as music that plays when you appear, and try a change of leitmotiv from Mission Impossible to, say, Doctor Zhivago. Remember that you now have at your disposal the vast range of feminine raw materials, from violets (viola d’amore) to tuberose (Wagner tuba). You must choose your own tune , keeping in mind an overall dynamic marking: nothing above mezzo forte.
A few programme notes to get everyone started. If you want your melody spare and poignant, like Satie’s Gymnopédies, go for Guerlain’s 1916 Après l’Ondée, or Patricia de Nicolai’s magnificient Odalisque, a strange, floral-salty fragrance of faultless discretion. You prefer the solid-chocolate sound of Rubinstein playing Chopin’s Nocturnes ? Shalimar (regular or lite) or Coty’s Emeraude, if you can still find it on the Web. For less peace and a lot more heartbreak, as in Schumann’s Arabesque, Serge Lutens’ Iris Silver Mist is unsurpassed.
Ready for ensemble playing ? For those who inhabit the sensitive (eighteen-) nineties, Guerlain’s l’Heure Bleue or Caron’s Nuit de Noël will supply the Fauré soundtrack. If Janácek wrote your favourite string quartet , a Germaine Cellier perfume is needed: Bandit (Piguet) especially, though it lost some of its angular passion in the 1999 reissue. Try also the reckless brilliance of Black (Bulgari), Annick Ménardeau’s talcum-and-rubber masterpiece. Does your heart hanker instead for the breezy elegance of early Modernism ? Do you think Prokofief’s Peter tune eats the Wolf’s alive? Then wear Caron’s euphoric Royal Bain de Champagne or its modern reinterpretation Flower (Kenzo) and go fetch your monocle.
Steadied by an intermission drink and stroll, you are now ready for the main event. If you want the steely radiance of Corelli, then Tommy Girl (marked pianissimo) will follow you around playing a dozen concerti grossi. My own idea of heaven is the slow movement of a late Mozart piano concerto, and nothing translates better its velvet stillness than Jean Kerléo’s aptly named Sublime (Patou). Finally, if you take your marching orders from the final movement of Bruckner’s Eighth, brass tuttis and all, then go for the eighth-ounce of Bal à Versailles, a perfume so big and Romantic it seems odd that it can be made to fit in such a tiny bottle.
Symmetry (see last month’s column) demands that men be allowed, at long last, to wear feminine fragrances. This does not mean doing anything sudden, like showing up at the office party in fairy princess costume, or wearing La Perla silk knickers under your cords. Rather, think of perfume as music that plays when you appear, and try a change of leitmotiv from Mission Impossible to, say, Doctor Zhivago. Remember that you now have at your disposal the vast range of feminine raw materials, from violets (viola d’amore) to tuberose (Wagner tuba). You must choose your own tune , keeping in mind an overall dynamic marking: nothing above mezzo forte.
A few programme notes to get everyone started. If you want your melody spare and poignant, like Satie’s Gymnopédies, go for Guerlain’s 1916 Après l’Ondée, or Patricia de Nicolai’s magnificient Odalisque, a strange, floral-salty fragrance of faultless discretion. You prefer the solid-chocolate sound of Rubinstein playing Chopin’s Nocturnes ? Shalimar (regular or lite) or Coty’s Emeraude, if you can still find it on the Web. For less peace and a lot more heartbreak, as in Schumann’s Arabesque, Serge Lutens’ Iris Silver Mist is unsurpassed.
Ready for ensemble playing ? For those who inhabit the sensitive (eighteen-) nineties, Guerlain’s l’Heure Bleue or Caron’s Nuit de Noël will supply the Fauré soundtrack. If Janácek wrote your favourite string quartet , a Germaine Cellier perfume is needed: Bandit (Piguet) especially, though it lost some of its angular passion in the 1999 reissue. Try also the reckless brilliance of Black (Bulgari), Annick Ménardeau’s talcum-and-rubber masterpiece. Does your heart hanker instead for the breezy elegance of early Modernism ? Do you think Prokofief’s Peter tune eats the Wolf’s alive? Then wear Caron’s euphoric Royal Bain de Champagne or its modern reinterpretation Flower (Kenzo) and go fetch your monocle.
Steadied by an intermission drink and stroll, you are now ready for the main event. If you want the steely radiance of Corelli, then Tommy Girl (marked pianissimo) will follow you around playing a dozen concerti grossi. My own idea of heaven is the slow movement of a late Mozart piano concerto, and nothing translates better its velvet stillness than Jean Kerléo’s aptly named Sublime (Patou). Finally, if you take your marching orders from the final movement of Bruckner’s Eighth, brass tuttis and all, then go for the eighth-ounce of Bal à Versailles, a perfume so big and Romantic it seems odd that it can be made to fit in such a tiny bottle.
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