Juliette Has a Gun’s new Not a Perfume is not an idea. It’s a blatant rip-off of Geza Schoen’s Molecule 02, using the very same molecule, Ambroxan. Not to mention a rip-off of the hapless customers who’ll fall for the fancy packaging and faux-arty message. The concept of the ready-made is that it works the first time. Not the second.
Romano Ricci invited French beauty bloggers to the launch, batted his eyelashes at them and now the clueless girlies are all aflutter.
Check out Octavian Coifan’s eloquent post on this if you haven’t already, as well as the discussion. It’s all there.
If you’re in a shop that carries both Escentric Molecules and JHAG, as Colette does in Paris, I suggest going with a friend and loudly, intelligibly expose the fraud in front of as many customers as possible – provided, of course, you don’t intend to return…
This product has quite faithful name. I wish all manufacturers would be so honest. :)
RépondreSupprimerTatyana, you could say that even that concept was "borrowed" from Serge Lutens, who launched L'Eau Serge Lutens as an "anti-perfume".
RépondreSupprimerSadly, the "not a perfume" bit will attract customers who don't like perfume...
I wasn't enamored with the one-chemical concept the first time around ( even a fragrance dilettante like myself knows it's not exactly hard to get some ambroxan and perfumers alcohol for far cheaper than niche perfumery prices ). Now that's being done again with the same chemical, no less, it's officially killed my interest in this line.
RépondreSupprimerThat being said, "Not A Perfume" is extremely accurate in my case. Having smelled ambroxan on its own before, I've discovered its an aromachemical I'm entirely anosmic to. Not only is it "not a perfume", it's no smell at all to my nose!
These single aromachemicals can now be bought in small quantities in most countries, so anyone with a bottle a' vodka, a few ml/gm of Ambroxan or Cetalox or Auratouch or whatever, and a 10ml bottle can make their own and, if they like it, they can wear it! Should cost about 3 euro. To do this, charge some ungodly amount, and call it exclusive high fashion is a little tacky, to put it mildly. I mean, when I pay for a bottle of perfume, I'm paying for the artistry of the perfumer, primarily....
RépondreSupprimer-Marla
Ford was the first American car, should Chevrolet have been decried as a fraud? My mom's reaction to such things--a shrug and "chaque pays, chaque mode" seems to fit here. It wasn't brilliant when Escentric Molecules did it, although it was clever. When JHAG does it, it's another choice. There are many soliflores done by different brands, this is really no different. It's supply and demand. If consumers stay away in droves, it will vanish. Personally, I expect more from a fragrance, so I won't buy. Ahhh, the joy of free will and a limited checkbook.
RépondreSupprimerSugandaraja, you could also go and buy a urinal, put it upside down, call it "Fontaine" and sign it R. Mutt, and it wouldn't be a Duchamp.
RépondreSupprimerNot comparing Geza Schoen to Duchamp, but presenting a bare molecule for its intrinsic olfactory qualities was a real minimalist statement -- otherwise, would you ever have thought of buying Ambroxan by itself and wearing it?
Copying the concept, however, is a fraud.
Marla, as Octavian was saying in his post, cutting out the perfumer from the process seems to defeat the whole purpose, doesn't it? Except that of lining Mr. Ricci's pockets.
RépondreSupprimerQuinn, that would be assuming perfume is a consumer product just like a car, and I don't suppose that's what you believe.
RépondreSupprimerI don't think you can compare this with a soliflore either: there are as many roses, muguets or irises as there are perfumers. Unless, say, Annick Goutal and The Different Company start buying the same rose oil at Robertet and serving it up as is, their roses will be different perfumes altogether.
We're talking about a single synthetic molecule here.
But you're entirely right, the best thing is voting with one's wallet. Though judging from the gushing comments of the Parisian beauty bloggers who attended the launch and of their readers, a few people will certainly be taken in.
Eh, I've never been too big a fan of conceptual art. A urinal is still a urinal and ambroxan is still just ambroxan, whether they're used as intended or sold for millions. If it's taken up and adopted as art then it's a feat of promotional genius rather than the artistic kind, and by that reasoning it's only more brilliant to rip off the same idea ( and openly, at that ), and charge even more. If lines like Xerjoff come out with 30ml flacons of dilute ambroxan and charge 8000$ for it, and it's successful as this launch seems set to be, they'll be laughing all the way to the bank. As long as I've not been scammed this way, I'll be laughing too.
RépondreSupprimerIn my view, if there's anything close to an artist here, it's whoever researched/discovered ambroxan in the first place. I'm afraid novelty leaves me unmoved if it's devoid of craft.
Just my two cents, mind!
what is the point? This is a big rip-off.
RépondreSupprimerThat such a low level of deceit and fraud should be performed at such high levels of branding and marketing (JHAG, Colette) equals decadence: no loyalty to anything.
RépondreSupprimerSad that Colette holds it. Thank you and Octavian's blog for representing the other pole of aesthetics, and ethic.
Hey, is that all it takes to launch a perfume line? Eyelashes?? Well, mine are pretty long too, so I guess I can put away the paper strips and essential oils, arm myself with a bottle of... ooh, what shall I pick... galaxolide, find some bloggers and get fluttering.
RépondreSupprimerNow why didn't I think of that before?
Sugandaraja, it would be too long to get involved in the "is conceptual art just marketing" discussion: this isn't the venue. Go along the road to "craft", and you end up getting people looking at a Picasso or a Basquiat saying "my 5-year-old could do that" (I'm not implying that's your standpoint, mind you).
RépondreSupprimerA perfumer had an idea, and launched a brand to express it: I think, as I said, that Geza Schoen's move was quite inspired, and it was a *perfumer's* idea.
A brand copies it? It's plagiarism. That is all.
EEM, as far as Colette is concerned, they already carry the brand, so they wouldn't even have to ask themselves about the product. What counts is the packaging, right?
RépondreSupprimerPersolaise, it's interesting to note that at most perfume launches in Paris, when bloggers are invited at all, they're almost always beauty and fashion bloggers. It makes sense in that they've typically got a larger readership (makeup and fashion can be demonstrated and understood visually, and are thus more accessible); and also because they don't have the means to judge a perfume.
RépondreSupprimerOh, and I think the all-Galoxide thing has *practically* already been done!
P.S. The last sentence calling for a jokey emoticon, of course...
RépondreSupprimeri read and read the comments and your answers, and am reminded that "interesting" is what one can make of something, not what the "thing" is. Of course, I add to my inner musings, which connect with what I'm editing at the moment, of course, that is the reason to that eerie distance, that disconcerting gap between the most lamentable pieces of art, writing, perfuming or music and the warm critique they demand...and even get. But then, with so much wonderful and believable perfume art happening in earnest, let this little fraud waft away.
RépondreSupprimerEEM, I see what you mean.
RépondreSupprimerMy stance, as far as the art of perfumery goes, is that unlike in the contemporary art world, where artists pretty much have to come up with a discourse to situate their process, perfumers have seldom been in a position to shed light on their work and aesthetic choices. Edmond Roudnitska tried to take a bird's eye, philosophical view, and a result never fully explained his own, fascinating process, and never really spoke out about other perfumers' work.
On the other hand, Jean-Claude Ellena speaks quite brilliantly about his own process, but not necessarily about the art of perfumery per se.
I think it is up to critics -- as opposed to reviewers -- to give form to the discourse, when such a discourse exists (it's usually completely blurred in mainstream launches because too many people intervene).
As my former teacher, the philosopher Michel Serres, used to tell us: artists build the black boxes. Philosophers and critics open it.
oh lucky you for having had such a teacher. lucky us for having come across your writing. Anybody trying to write on fragrance should hold Theophrastus in mind, and it seems to be the case that you do. If, for some reason, such as resentment, JHAG would have made a point of skipping the perfumer as lnk, that should have been his manifesto, and it should have been made clear.
RépondreSupprimerMm...what should we, laymen, know about Firmenich?
EEM, about Firmenich... well, they employ perfumers such as Alberto Morillas, Jacques Cavallier and my beloved Annick Menardo, and develop a lot of fascinating materials, some of which they present at professional events within compositions that will never be launched, designed to highlight their potential...
RépondreSupprimerOften, within a lab, because perfumers work together, you'll have "house tricks", specific accords, that will pop up again and again in products -- for instance, a perfumer called Jean-Pierre Béthouart, who composed Parfum Sacré for Caron, apparently came up with a combination of musks that have been used ever since to great effect.
This is fairly technical stuff and I'm not yet knowledgeable enough to detect it most of the time -- Octavian can, though. But that's a way in which a lab can inflect the course of perfume composition.
blast! this is more and more fascinating...and, by the way...are we talking about Serres from the Academie Francaise?b
RépondreSupprimerEEM, yes, it's that Michel Serres but he wasn't an Académicien at the time, and I only attended one seminar -- I was quite the philosophy buff at the time and I saw Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze... Foucault, Barthes and Lacan, sadly, were no longer with us by that time. But it was quite a glorious period -- it seems we've strayed quite far from the subject of JHAG!
RépondreSupprimerisn't this amazing? this is what happens when dialogue is established, it leads to the core. and yet, sorry to have walked astray, but that is what your blog does to this lay(wo)man:i it melds the stupid gap I used to avoid between la femme de tete et l'autre. :-) Waiting for more.
RépondreSupprimerI can, in some cynical way, understand a brand/company coming up with a dumb idea and releasing a lazy product like this purely designed to increase profit margins, but a perfumer? In some ways I feel it's even worse. I think perhaps Geza Shoen has got off pretty lightly. Aren't we always banging on about perfumers not being able to 'flex their creative muscles' and creating scents for big business devoid of soul and artistic innovation? Well here's this Geza, who had the opportunity to create a couple of perfumes to sell, and decided to bottle single molecules and now apparently it's ok because she was the first to think of it and it's potentially classified as art?
RépondreSupprimerI remember going into a store and sampling some on my arm when the SA approached me to say that the promotional material for that scent (Escentric Molecules) advised that the perfume was designed to attract men! Embarrased, I washed it off after, but after reading about all this JHAG bashing, I'm wondering who else was after a quick buck off this whole concept?
EEM, the gap between la femme de tête et la femme futile is where I live!
RépondreSupprimerRM, Geza Schoen started Escentric Molecules himself; he is also the man who composed Wode for Boudicca (a perfume that was blue on spraying: the colour disappeared after a few seconds). He also composes for Ormonde Jayne, by the way. He is clearly someone who is trying to push the envelope -- what could be more scandalous than a single-molecule perfume? His is one of the few gestures in contemporary perfumery I find equivalent to gestures in contemporary art, along with Isabelle Doyen's L'Antimatière.
RépondreSupprimerHowever, it's not him complaining about the rip-off: Octavian wrote about it, I'm echoing his piece.
And, yes, in art, the value of an idea is in being to one to put it forward. Once it's copied it becomes worthless. So that he would have the grounds to complain.
D, I'm curious: if they'd called it "Blatant Ripoff" would it be as problematic? How about "This Cost 3 Euros To Make"? I'm asking this question seriously. I remember people mocking the Escentric at the time as essentially non-composition, but that would be only obvious to people who understand the chemistry, or read about it. I hear your argument and understand it. At the same time I feel like perfume (the ingredients) are such a folderol-cloaked bit of marketing, particularly of the laundry musks, I can't say I'm shocked. Is it that you expected more of the house? NOT trying to pick an argument (on the other hand, you're French! You can take it! ;-)
RépondreSupprimerMarch, there's probably a lot of mainstream stuff out there that doesn't contain more than 3 euros' worth of concentrate. It's not the cost price that's bothering me. Or the fact that this is a synthetic perfume claiming to be a synthetic: that may send shivers down the spine of someone who's bought into the "only the finest natural ingredients" folderol, and feel deliciously subversive. But it's not, for the simple reason that it's been done before: at that point it becomes a ripped-off idea dressed up in marketing, and therefore loses any validity.
RépondreSupprimerComing out as saying you've put just the one synthetic material is just what Geza Schoen did. Helmut Lang did it before with Velviona but I'm not 100% sure in that case this was claimed by the brand (maybe someone remembers?). It's all right by me: taking minimalism to its extreme, exhibiting a material that's usually tucked away, unclaimed, in a formula, for its specific qualities and effects... Perhaps pushing the synthetic nature of modern perfumery to its logical extreme: all of these seem to me to be legitimate stances, especially since there was another perfume, a composition into which the molecule was set, to compare it with. I'd say it was a demonstration on perfumery. Conceptual? Yes. You can always vote with your wallet if you don't think it's worth your money.
It's not a matter of expecting anything from JHAG. It's a matter of being shocked at the cynicism.
The non-allergenic claim makes it even more distasteful: if you wanted to kill off perfumery, you wouldn't do it otherwise. This from the grandson of a woman who put out L'Air du Temps.