Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau: Breakfast of the Vanities (and a draw)

If the wily Mr. Lutens hadn’t conjured his childhood memories of being sent off to fetch the bread as the sole hint about his new Jeux de Peau, unleashing the usual level of frenzied speculations within his fandom, I wouldn’t have spent several days nose-squinting in search of the bakery note.

Of course, this teasing is part and parcel of the mind games Serge Lutens loves to play with the public. We are, after all, talking about a man whose favourite writer is Jean Genet, who turned treason into an erotic art. And Jeux de Peau, “play on skin” is itself a pun on “jeux de mots”, which mean “play on words”. 

But within the bread conundrum, there is certainly a grain of truth. In a body of work entirely predicated on the person, tastes and biography of a single man – a pioneering, and possibly still unique case in the perfume industry – the Marrakech storyline is only part of the narrative. Another strand is the world of haute couture, into which Mr. Lutens was initiated when he came to Paris to work for Vogue in the early Sixties (Fourreau Noir, Serge Noire, Bas de Soie…); yet another one is childhood, cryptically alluded to in the press material for Chypre Rouge and Louve.

Anyone who meets Mr. Lutens can see that he is an impish little boy with an old soul. His gravitation towards his pre-Marrakech past confirms the essentially literary nature of his creative process. As writers sometimes do, he is digging deeper into his past for inspiration as years go by, and as he carries out this intimate archaeology, he reshuffles the Arabian-inspired notes that make up his olfactory vocabulary and organizes them into different perspectives. Although it is entirely possible, and indeed Mr. Lutens sometimes alludes to this, that his first encounters with exotic scents do go back all the way to his childhood in Lille; that Marrakech merely revived the memory of them…

Was the work on Jeux de Peau prompted by the story of a boy who guessed that underneath the commercial smile of the baker’s wife lurked at death’s head grin? (I’ve always been struck by the unsettling screechiness of the French boulangère’s “Bonjour messieurs-dames”). Or did the peculiar toasted effect of the new perfume spring from the exploration of the caramelized/burnt effects of Boxeuses? Jeux de Peau comes off as a drier, tougher version of that somehow, minus the leather and plum...

As for the bread note, it’s not fresh-out-of-the-oven, unless the baker fell asleep while it was baking: it’s toast. In fact, though it would probably have never occurred to me without the verbal/olfactory “jeu de mots” on the bakery --, the whole breakfast table seems set chez Lutens: the toast, the butter, the apricot jam and the mingling aromas of coffee, milk and hot chocolate. A reminiscence of Flemish still life paintings? (Lille is known as the capital of Flanders).

The roasted/burnt notes (technically, pyrazines) pop out right after the very briefest anisic/celery green opening (sneeze and you miss it) misleads you into thinking Jeux de Peau will be a new take on Chypre Rouge, now withdrawn from the export line and part of the bell jar collection. The usual Lutens suspects – violet and sandalwood -- show up, the sandalwood adding its smokiness as well as a buttery quality. A touch of licorice hooks up with the anisic top notes and adds a touch of the burnt.

At this stage the scent has a liqueur-like quality – coffee? Chocolate? – that is not entirely un-reminiscent of Thierry Mugler’s A*men (the Mugler/Lutens connection could also be made through the common inspiration of Angel and Jeux de Peau, childhood memories). Immortelle lurks in the background, again a caramelized note…

The bread appears as a touch of flour and the slight sour quality of yeast, but again, you’d really have to force yourself to read it… What rises next is a vivid juicy apricot, not quite dried yet but not fresh: jam. Osmanthus, another player from an earlier scent (Nuit de Cellophane), tying in with the ionones at one end of the spectrum and with something leathery at the other, with a milky dollop in between – the apricot and lactonic notes conjuring the skin alluded to in the scent’s name. Unless the skin is what the baker’s wife removed to bare her rictus in a Flemish vanitas? (Lille is known as the capital of Flanders).

It’s in the drydown that Jeux de Peau starts playing its most devious tricks. Sometimes I get a dominant floral accord that hints at jasmine and rose; sometimes, a woody ambery base with a tingling mineral/metallic touch veering into the ozonic. The toasted note persists throughout, its incense-like effect drying out the sweetness of the violet/apricot/lactones…

Overall, despite its playful name and concept, Jeux de Peau is a scent with a certain gravitas – but then, childhood is full of gravitas, and the sloe-eyed child from Lille must have been as solemn as he was dreamy…

How do you envision Serge Lutens as a child? Tell me in your comments, and I’ll draw the winner of a 2 ml sample spray of Jeux de Peau.

The draw is now closed. I will announce the winner on Wednesday. Thank you all for participating!

Illustration: Pieter de Hooch, Boy Bringing Bread