vendredi 25 septembre 2009

Van Cleef & Arpels' Collection Extraordinaire, Starting with Gardénia Pétale



Kudos to whoever art-directed Van Cleef and Arpels’ new Collection Extraordinaire. The whole concept is pitch-perfect: graceful, effortlessly elegant florals, plus a cologne, that tie in naturally with the Paris jeweler’s whimsical garden-themed collections. And while the “soliflore” road may be one well travelled by perfume connoisseurs – it’s an “exclusives” line trope to focus on a specific material or note – the Collection Extraordinaire has been exceedingly well received by the major (and potentially jaded) bloggers.*

Nothing groundbreaking (just as there’s nothing avant-garde about VC & A’s precious baubles), just impeccable quality for beautiful, perfectly balanced renditions of classic themes that somehow refresh their vocabulary: none feels trite or déjà-vu. The VC &A perfume demonstrator at the Galeries Lafayette, who was discovering the samples the day I popped in, remarked that the move to give these straight-up floral names was a smart one: “People like to recognize what they smell”. And it may be this lack of pretention, of ostentatious perfumer’s prowess, that makes the Collection Extraordinaire feel so fresh, so essentially likeable in its loveliness: it feels like a deliberate aesthetic choice. In other words: art direction (the six perfumers come from two labs, Givaudan and Symrise, so this is quite likely a third party’s vision). I’m also wondering whether the choice of themes – apart from the iris and the cologne – deliberately focused on flowers whose essence can’t be extracted. Lily, lily-of-the-valley, orchid, gardenia: all of these are necessarily perfumer’s interpretations –materials deftly assembled like precious stones in a weightless gold setting. Again, there is an obvious consistency between the collection and its mother house.

I’ve been wearing Nathalie Feisthauer’s Gardénia Pétale for a week now on various occasions – at work, at a church wedding, for champagne at the Plaza with Monsieur – and no scent I’ve ever worn has gathered so many spontaneous compliments, possibly because there is something about it that’s familiar enough to be identified as the smell of a gorgeous flower, but also because of its sheer volume.

While it sits on skin as lightly as silk and I may forget at times I’m wearing it, the scent clearly develops a huge, delicate sillage – Patty from the Perfume Posse called it a “wafter”, as opposed to a “sillage monster”. It’s immensely more wearable than my other gardenia, Tom Ford’s decadent, genetically-modified, silicone-enhanced man-eater; there isn’t a hint of the femme fatale hiding behind the bush. But though it is a botanically correct gardenia all the way from the green, dewy freshness of the bud to the faint hint of mushroom the blossom throws as it fades, Gardénia Pétale is also a hybrid. The light, green, slightly spicy part of the smell of lily has been grafted onto those creamy petals; the lily ties into its sister tropical flowers (frangipani, ylang-ylang) and vanilla through their solar, salicylic notes, which act as a setting to the starring gardenia. In his review, Octavian of 1000fragrances likens Gardénia Pétale to “the richness of Songes (Goutal)... hiding behind Un Matin d'Orage (Goutal)”. But the scent has neither the jarring ozonic-electric opening of the latter nor the lushly erotic abandon of the former. With its discretely assertive sillage, Gardénia Pétale has the confident sensuousness of a woman who never has to raise her voice to be heard. You just, somehow, find yourself trailing in her wake.

I’ll be reviewing more of the Collection Extraordinaire over next week.

Click here for reviews on 1000fragrances, here for Now Smell This and here for The Perfume Posse.


Image: Dorothy Jordan by George Hurell (1930).


24 commentaires:

  1. Oh my! A must try...
    I praise any fragrance providing "impeccable quality for beautiful, perfectly balanced renditions" of beautiful raw materials. Especially white flowers. Especially those innocently perverse white flowers (gardenia and tuberose).
    I've found THE Holy Grail in Beyond Love (I wear it on every occasion - when I don't, I miss it terribly), and this one sounds right up that alley.
    Just a problem: where to find it?
    Do you think the VC&A boutiques carry it? Even if not in Paris?
    Oh, I would love to try it soon... (crossing fingers...)

    RépondreSupprimer
  2. Zazie, I'm a Beyond Love girl myself and this might be in your tastes as well. I found mine in the Galeries Lafayette and obviously it should be in the VC & A boutiques. I know the line came out even earlier in the USA (someone will certainly chime in here). But elsewhere in Europe, I really don't know.

    RépondreSupprimer
  3. Good morning D

    A wonderful description of the collection, which captivated me from the first sniff of the first one that I tried. Which just happened to be Gardénia Pétale. This is one of two, along with Muguet, that I have tried on skin so far.

    Gardénia Pétale wore so beautifully on me. Light but substantial at the same time, a small test spritz on my arm persisted for hours. Love! I was equally entranced by Muguet Blanc, an lotv that I could wear without blinking from some industrial nose-clearing effect that many lotv's have. I look forward to that review too!

    RépondreSupprimer
  4. Melissa, it's such a good, unexpected surprise, isn't it? And it seems that the Gardénia is coming up a winner so far. I only wore the muguet for a day, but I agree, it definitely manages to steer clear of the dreaded bathroom spray note. The Bois d'Iris also impressed me very much...

    RépondreSupprimer
  5. Thank you Denyse.
    I know I usually end up loving the fragrances you praise (with very few exceptions): I will see if the flagship store in Milan carries the line.

    RépondreSupprimer
  6. Now, see, dangit! Now I feel like I didn't give tem enough of a chance. But they just really didn't come to life on me, it seemed like. Maybe I'll go get some more samples & try again.

    RépondreSupprimer
  7. Zazie, bear in mind that I sometimes praise fragrances for their quality rather than my own personal taste, which seems similar to yours!

    RépondreSupprimer
  8. Amy, the key is, I believe, spraying. Fragrances are often much more "closed" and flat when they're dabbed from sample vials, I find. Which is why I went and ordered tiny spray vials to which I transfer the more interesting ones. A bit expensive and time-consuming, but worth it.

    RépondreSupprimer
  9. Oh, the lemming...will try Harrods after work if I can get out early enough, they sound truly fabulous.
    Great review, thanks !
    May be the art director will de-lurk and reveal his/her identity.

    RépondreSupprimer
  10. Silvia, the PR office actually just got back to me and apparently it's a (very competent) team. But they'll be forwarding my compliments to Nathalie Feisthauer.

    RépondreSupprimer
  11. The PR office was not so kind to me when I asked first where I can find the perfumes in Paris. I got the same boring generic answer and it took me a week to investigate the place where they were available in Paris.

    RépondreSupprimer
  12. Octavian, the answer I got when I asked about distribution and launch dates was equally vague -- it seems the press office is not really connected to the sales department, doesn't it?

    RépondreSupprimer
  13. I think the line is available at Bergdorf & Goodman in New York. I'm very curious about this gardenia rendition. I like Estee Lauder gardenia tuberose but sometimes I get a plasticky off note that puts me off when it's humid. I hope the Petale exceeds the Lauder in beauty.

    RépondreSupprimer
  14. 40/20: I don't own the Lauder, but I've sampled it a few times. The vibe is very different, if only because there's practically no tuberose in the VC &A, and quite a lot of salicylic flowers (lily, ylang, frangipani). It's been composed with a very different sensibility. Tell me when you've tried it!

    RépondreSupprimer
  15. Gorgeous review! And it's unusual to find so many bloggers in agreement about a collection. These are a definite must try. Thank you!

    RépondreSupprimer
  16. Rappleyea: thank you! I was particularly impressed that Robin felt compelled to pay full retail price on the spot for the iris. I caved in for the gardenia, but that iris may be next on the list -- and I'm not even an iris lover.

    RépondreSupprimer
  17. These are at Neiman Marcus here - will be going back to try them again this weekend. They were rather flat on me the last time I tried, and I sprayed them from the tester bottles not sample vials. It could be that these are just not to my taste - I'm not much into florals, especially soliflores (although I gather these are not really soliflores).

    RépondreSupprimer
  18. Tara, I'd say these wouldn't be to your taste: they're very delicate, which could translate as bland if you've been wearing Wazamba or Filles en Aiguilles.

    RépondreSupprimer
  19. Ah, lovely review. I particularly enjoyed your thoughts about the importance of art direction, since I've been thinking about that role for awhile now. I'm going to seek these out on my upcoming trip to NYC.

    You know, for awhile there I didn't think I was interested in new releases--too far down the vintage rabbit hole--but between these, Back to Black, the new L'Artisans and Epic I'm feeling like a fluttery newbie again. Hooray!

    RépondreSupprimer
  20. Alyssa, I find I'm veering off vintage. For one thing, I can't access the perfumes auctions on any other eBay than the French thanks to an overzealous filter on eBay. But even what I own isn't what I reach for nowadays. Which is silly: it's just sitting there in the refrigerator! But it doesn't seem to fit with my moods anymore. I guess it's just phases.

    RépondreSupprimer
  21. friday evening I managed to get a couple of sample sets, and GP was the first vial I opened....very pretty, but so much so (and with a whiff of acquatic notes that reminded me of that matin d'orage - euk!) that I postponed the skin test.
    The last I smelled was BdI, because I'm not a fan of iris. But this one is a stunner! I was happy to give it skin space for three days in a row. I have problems dealing with the first sweet and powdery iris-focused stage, but the woody and resinous dry-down really impressed me very much - amazing and very resinous. I loved it.

    RépondreSupprimer
  22. Zazie, the "aquatic" you're getting from GP must be the lily note. It didn't strike me as being as nose-tingling as Matin d'Orage, which I can't wear.
    I'm like you on Bois d'Iris: not an iris fan, but this one may tip me over into a full bottle purchase.

    RépondreSupprimer
  23. I agree, these are simply lovely, what a pleasant surprise! White Floral Queen over here is very happy indeed! :-)

    I was really, really hoping this would be better than the Lauder Tuberose Gardenia, and for me it is - that one morphs very quickly to the dreaded "Lauder accord" on my skin after a few minutes, while the Gardenia Petale remained true and fresh for hours. I enjoyed all six of these very much.

    RépondreSupprimer
  24. Flora, it's my turn to agree, from one white floral queen to another: these are a lovely surprise!

    RépondreSupprimer