Eau Claire des Merveilles is an oddly compelling, quiet little thing that’s been keeping me guessing for the three days I’ve been wearing it. That trace of orange ice cream on a silver spoon (aldehydes, citrus and iris) melting into a condensed milk note… Is this the world’s stealthiest gourmand? But then, that tiny hint of a yeast and cheese that could have been laser-shaven off a gardenia petal… And that palpably saline note… This water is cloudier than clear and oddly, the word that comes to mind is the French laitance, which means “soft roe” but comes from lait, the word for milk. Nothing fishy about the smell (this isn’t Womanity), but “why ask if shads do it? Waiter bring me shad roe”… There’s something faintly “let’s do it” about this Eau Claire des Merveilles. Between the milk, the faint mossy-woodiness – lactones, aldehydes and iris can all have skin and scalp effects -- and the marine reminiscence of ambergris, something distinctly human has seeped into the bottle. Calling a fragrance a “skin scent” is usually an excuse for a poor diffusive power – in other words, a technical flaw. But Eau Claire des Merveilles really does smell like an emanation of skin.
Still, I can’t decide whether this is a non-erotic animalic – a baby head smell -- or au contraire, if it is a discrete allusion to the place babies come from. After all, Aphrodite was born of the sea foam: follow the milky skin of thighs and you’ll find a bit of the sea there too… This may actually be the world’s stealthiest erotic scent: Jean-Claude Ellena’s intensely civilised stylisation of the yin to Sécrétions Magnifiques’ yang. But then again, my mind may just be playing tricks on me because I’m in a… playful mood. Go figure.
Illustration: Bronzino, Allegory of Venus and Cupid
La nouvelle Eau Claire des Merveilles d’Hermès est un parfum curieusement fascinant malgré son développement en sourdine, et qui m’intrigue depuis trois jours que je le porte. Cette trace de glace à l’orange sur cuiller d’argent (aldehydes, citrus et iris) qui se fond dans une note de lait condensé sucré… Serait-ce le plus furtif des parfums gourmands ? Mais alors, ce soupcon infime de levure et de fromage prélevé au laser sur un pétale de gardenia… et cette note saline-métallique que l’on goûte presque sur la langue… Décidément, cette eau est plus trouble que claire et curieusement, le mot qu’elle évoque est celui de “laitance”. Non que l’Eau Claire des Merveilles ait des relents de marée (on n’est pas dans le caviar de Womanity) mais entre le lait, le moussu-boisé – les lactones, l’iris et les aldéhydes peut avoir des effets de peau, de cuir chevelu surtout -- et la réminiscence iodée de l’ambre gris, quelque chose de nettement humain s’est infiltré dans le flacon. En général, lorsqu’on dit qu’un parfum est « de peau », c’est pour l’excuser de ne pas être assez diffusif, ce qui est, en somme, un défaut technique. Mais l’Eau Claire des Merveilles pourrait vraiment être l’émanation d’un corps.
Cependant, je n’arrive pas à décider s’il s’agit là d’une odeur animale non-érotique, une odeur de tête de bébé, ou au contraire, d’une allusion discrète à leur origine. Après tout, Aphrodite est bien née de l’écume ; suivez la peau laiteuse d’une cuisse et vous échouerez sur les berges d’une mer intérieure… Serait-ce donc là, plutôt qu’un gourmand, du plus furtif des parfums érotiques, la réponse intensément civilisée de Jean-Claude Ellena sous forme de yin stylisé au yang de Sécrétions Magnifiques ? Ou alors, c’est tout dans ma tête parce que je suis d’humeur… badine.
Illustration: Le Corrège, Vénus, Mercure et l'Amour
Yves Saint Laurent's new Belle d’Opium tries so hard to be the polar opposite of its flamboyant ancestor that it winds up looking like those computer-generated composite portraits of several faces: a bland-featured blur. Vaguely orange-y like Elixir des Merveilles. Vaguely patchouli-ish like a 10th-generation photocopy of Angel. Vaguely lily like… nothing much. It disappeared altogether within a couple of hours, leaving a wan trace of something woody and musky.
Belle d’Opium is a case study of everything that’s wrong with the mainstream. Flashy launch, fancy face, the talent of an excellent perfumer wasted -- Alberto Morillas made Flower by Kenzo and the Mugler Cologne, proof enough that the man can turn out classics, though I’m not familiar with the work of Honorine Blanc, who co-signs with him. A product that has neither character, nor diffusive power, nor tenacity, capitalizing on the renown of a fashion legend – Yves Saint Laurent, the operative word here in France being “Saint” – and of a legendary perfume. To sum up: a fragrance for an age where brands trump products, and where any kind of sillage is a social crime. Opium was scandalous in its day. So is Belle d’Opium. But not for the same reasons, unfortunately. I guess we have the scandals we deserve.
Chanel’s new Bleu doesn’t fare much better. This is what you’d expect to smell on the guy who comes to fix your alarm system and tries to hit on you in a fairly polite way. You know the type? Decent-looking, friendly, but a non-starter, because, you know, his cologne… Just so generically sporty-male that even a shower couldn’t fix it. Because you know the type who chooses that – just like the guy who names blue as his favourite colour – is, let’s say, a little lacking in imagination. So: been there, done that.
I think I’ll fix him up with Belle. Because she’s worth it.
Belle d’Opium d'Yves Saint Laurent s’efforce à tel point d’être l’antithèse de sa flamboyante ancêtre qu’elle finit par ressembler à ces portraits composites de plusieurs visages générés par ordinateur : flous et fades. Vaguement orange comme Elixir des Merveilles. Vaguement patchouli comme une photocopie d’Angel de 10ème génération. Vaguement lys comme… n’importe quoi. À peine décelable sur peau après les premières minutes il a disparu en environ deux heures, ne laissant qu’une trace délavée de musqué-boisé.
Belle d’Opium est l’exemple même de tout ce qui cloche dans le mainstream. Lancement tapageur, « égérie » largement médiatisée, et le talent d’un excellent parfumeur gaspillé –Flower by Kenzo et la Cologne de Mugler suffisent à démontrer qu’Alberto Morillas peut signer des classiques ; quant à Honorine Blanc qui cosigne, je ne connais pas assez son travail pour me prononcer. Un produit sans caractère, sans pouvoir diffusif, sans ténacité, exploitant la légende de Saint Laurent (en mettant l’accent sur le « Saint ») et de son parfum-phare. Bref, le parfum d’une époque où la marque prime sur le produit, et où le sillage devient un crime contre la société. Opium était scandaleux ; Belle d’Opium l’est aussi, pour d’autres raisons. On a les scandales qu’on mérite.
Quant au Bleu de Chanel, c’est le genre d’eau de toilette que vous sentez sur le type qui vient réparer votre système d’alarme et qui vous drague, plutôt poliment. Vous voyez le genre ? Plutôt pas mal, sympa, mais il part perdant d’avance parce que tout de même, cette eau de toilette… Un tel cliché sport-au-masculin qu’on se dit que même après une douche, ça ne s’arrangera pas. Parce que le genre de gars qui choisit ça, comme le genre de mec qui dit que le bleu est sa couleur préférée, ne déploiera pas forcément des prodiges d’imagination. De ce côté-là, vous avez déjà assez donné.
Mais vous pourriez lui filer le numéro de Belle. Parce qu’elle le vaut bien.
Illustration: Second Beauty Composite, Nancy Burson, 1982, portrait composite d'actrices américaines des années 80 (Jane Fonda, Jacqueline Bisset, Diane Keaton, Brooke Shields et Meryl Streep).
A Chinese magazine – of all things – has asked me to compile a list of the top ten classics of the past two decades.Which led me to ask myself what criteria a contemporary fragrance should fulfill to achieve such a status. These are the three I came up with:
1)Originality: To create new forms or to renew a classic form in such a way that it finds a second life.
2)Fertility: To inspire a perfume family and/or enough imitations for this new form to cross over into our olfactory vocabulary.
3)Popularity: To be bought by enough people for the product to produce durable identification with it. In other words: it needs to sell enough to cross over into our social vocabulary.
This means that no niche perfume can make the cut. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two niche fragrances that are iconic, at least on the French market: L’Artisan Parfumeur Mûre et Musc and Annick Goutal L’Eau d’Hadrien. But both pre-date 1990 so couldn’t make it to the list, and besides, I’m not quite sure they are as popular abroad as they are in France. Big brands are the only ones with enough clout and lasting power to ensure that their products reach enough of the population to become as iconic as the classics of past eras.
So that in establishing my list of post-1990 classics to present to the Chinese market, the popularity (and widespread availability) criterion effectively eliminated all of my personal favourites, except Féminité du Bois and N°5 Eau Première. It’s also forced me to list two scents I can’t stand, perhaps because their popularity means I’ve overdosed on them, Angel and L’Eau d’Issey. I struggled to include a Guerlain, and if Guet-Apens/Attrape-coeur had been more widely distributed (not to mention if it hadn’t been discontinued) it would have made the list in a flash. But the rest? You can’t say the house has been launched influential perfumes in the past 20 years. I also considered the overwhelmingly popular Dior J’Adore: it’s excellent, but original? Not so much.
The list is also fairly Franco-centric. That, of course, reflects my own bias: Estée Lauder Pleasures and Calvin Klein CKOne should have made the cut, the first because its pink pepper-peony-musk notes have been widely imitated, the second because it became a cultural phenomenon and pioneered the unisex trend. But since I was asked for ten selections… And for China, no less. Here they are, in chronological order:
Thierry Mugler Angel by Olivier Cresp (1992): The first gourmand, one of the most widely-imitated products in the industry, and one that still tops best-seller lists, at least in France, after nearly two decades.
Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey by Jacques Cavallier (1992): Not technically the first aquatic since Davidoff Cool Water (1988), Aramis New West For Him (1988) and For Her (1990) and Calvin Klein Escape (1991) pre-date it, but possibly the most iconic and, with Cool Water in the masculine side of the aisle, still going as strong as ever.
Serge Lutens, formerly Shiseido Féminité du Bois by Pierre Bourdon and Christopher Sheldrake (1992): Reintroduced the wood family for women, 70 years after Chanel’s Bois des Iles. Now that it’s been repatriated into the Serge Lutens brand, it’s moved out of the mainstream, but as the matrix of the Lutens style, which has had a strong influence on the industry, it makes the cut.
Bulgari Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert by Jean-Claude Ellena (1992): This groundbreaking composition reintroduced a genre that had lingered in the margins since Après l’Ondée: fragrances capturing an atmosphere rather than being an extension of a male or female persona. It was also one of the first expressions of a clear, limpid styleat a time when perfumes were busy, heady, scenery-chewing things.
Lolita Lempicka by Annick Menardo (1997): As Luca Turin observed in The Guide, this may be the only one of Angel’s offspring to present enough originality not to be considered derivative. I would have rather included Menardo’s amazing Bulgari Black but much as I love it, it seems to be lingering on bottom shelves and possibly being phased out. So that it was a toss-up between Lolita Lempicka and another Menardo gem, Dior Hypnotic Poison, a flanker that defied expectations by actually gaining sales over the years even though it was no longer supported by advertising campaigns until recently.
Cartier Déclaration by Jean-Claude Ellena (1998): The template for a significant portion of the masculines that came after it. It vies with JCE’s Terre d’Hermès as the default choice of Frenchmen who find Guerlain Vétiver and Habit Rouge, Caron Pour un Homme and Dior Eau Sauvage a little too reminiscent of daddy.
Flower by Kenzo by Alberto Morillas (2000):The epitome of contemporary perfumery: a static, radiant, powdery haze that manages to convey both sensuality and innocence.
Narciso Rodriguez for Her by Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian (2004): “Make it clean and sexy” must be the brief for 99 per cent of the feminine fragrances on the planet, and For Her scores high marks on both counts. Perhaps the best example of the “what you sniff when you spritz is what you get all day” contemporary school of perfumery, and of consistency between a brand and a fragrance product.
Dior Homme by Olivier Polge (2005): Olivier Polge dared to go where no masculine fragrance had gone before, by designing Dior Homme as a setting for the soft, powdery note of iris. One of those fragrances other perfumers regret they didn’t come up with. And, surefire sign of a classic: it’s filched by women.
Chanel N°5 Eau Première by Jacques Polge and Christopher Sheldrake(2008): I hesitated before including it since it’s still too recent to be a modern classic, but I couldn’t not put a Chanel in the list. I’m pretty sure Coco Mademoiselle is more popular, but I find it less distinctive and as one of the best examples of the reinterpretation of a classic done right, N°5 Eau Première rates high.
Now berate me, abuse me, say I’ve overlooked obvious choices…
What would be your list of the classics of the past 20 years?
Illustration: Brandt on Haffner by Bertrand Lavier, 1984.
