dimanche 15 mai 2011

Byredo M/MINK: Black Humour



“Is perfume something you wear or something you contemplate?”

The question popped up during the deliberations of the jury of the Fragrance Foundation France’s Specialists’ Awards. The beauty editor who asked it seemed to be a niche newbie: earlier on, she’d wondered whether what we were judging was masculine or feminine…
But the product that triggered the question was a new one on most jurors. Who’d put Byredo M/MINK on his/her shortlist out of all the niche/exclusive launches of 2010?
Blotters were passed around the table and you could’ve chartered their progression with your eyes closed: a succession of gasps, yelps and giggles. The jurors loved it. The evaluators, who get paid to see that kind of stuff never makes it past the perfumers’ offices, must have felt a little vicarious thrill on their behalf. They usually get bopped on the nose with a folded newspaper when they drop that kind of a bomb.
M/MINK found staunch supporters and when we eliminated it, a couple of jurors suggested there could be an award next year for originality. That it managed to raise the vexing and fundamental “wearable vs. stand-alone work of art” question amongst a group of specialists who’ve pretty much smelled it all is a tribute to its splendid oddity.

Byredo's shocker is based on a visual brief by M/M, aka Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak. The achingly hip art/design duo has worked with just the kind of people or brands Byredo’s 30-something, Colette-shopping hipster clientele would be drawn to, from Björk to Balenciaga and Vogue France to Purple Magazine. 

M/M gave out “a block of solid ink purchased in Asia, a photograph showing a Japanese master practising his daily calligraphy, and a large utopian formula that Mathias drew on Korean traditional paper” to Byredo’s Ben Gorham. He handed the bundle over to Robertet’s Jérôme Épinette, who has signed most of his line-up. What came back was a juice as icy as M/M is cool, that seems to go straight from mineral to animal, bypassing the vegetal, and smells like licking honey off a frozen penny.

The brief was ink, and that’s what M/MINK smells of. That it also smells pretty beastly may be an allusion to the hair of the calligrapher’s brush, or the result of a graphic collision: “m + ink = mink”, as in the furry critter, with a wink to PETA: there's blood on that fur.

Another possible interpretation: with its bare-bones aldehyde/animal structure, M/MINK is the disembowelment of a classic perfume, for instance the original Visa by Piguet.

But M/MINK might well have had its own, olfactory agenda: you could also read it as a provocative statement on the “clean laundry” school of perfumery. 
 The perfume opens with a protracted, marine/aldehydic screech that could probably rip a hole into the ozone layer if aimed correctly. This is due to an overdose of Adoxal, the Byredo website informs us. Adoxal is a molecule that manages to conjure metal, lily of the valley, meringue and clean laundry: it is, in fact, widely used in detergents. It’s as though Jérôme Épinette had taken the idea of “clean” so prevalent in mainstream perfumery and boosted it until it reached the shrillness of ultrasound, then contrasted it viciously with its polar opposite, a honeyed ambery animalic bass note (not a typo), welding the two effects with the mineral/blood facets of incense. An olfactory oxymoron, executed with the economy of strokes of Chinese ink calligraphy.

As a result, M/MINK feels unfinished but also exhilaratingly fun – at least, a perfumer’s idea of fun when he’s allowed to let loose and experiment (Dr. Épinette coming out as Mr. Mink-hide). It demonstrates that you can let a monster shamble out of the lab and come up with a real statement on perfumery, something the hipster Byredo had failed up to then to achieve. This is the kind of perfume Maison Martin Margiela should have put out instead of an outtake on the Prada series (which I think is very good on its own, but not up to Margiela’s conceptual standards).
In the same line, I wish Francis Kurkdjian would bottle the smell of banknotes he created for Sophie Calle’s “L’Argent” exhibition in 2003 at the Fondation Cartier, which similarly played on the mineral/animal contrast.

Now, a question: which perfume would you place alongside M/MINK in a gallery?


Illustration: M/M's "utopian formula" for M/MINK

16 commentaires:

  1. I would love to smell M/MINK as I've been a fan of M/M (Paris) for quite a long time. Their creativity knows no bounds. I love how you put it, "achingly hip." To me, they are the epitome of all that is fantastic art direction, design and style. I am compelled to smell this as I am also interested in the ultra-paired back style of Byredo. A match made in heaven? I can't wait. Also, not to point out spelling mistakes (as people that does this is pet peeve of mine, but it's Ben Gorham ;))

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  2. Liam, I've corrected the spelling mistake -- chalk it down to optical fatigue...
    Never met Michaël and every time I bump into Mathias at a party I always end up talking to his wife Sylvie who is a talented writer, so I haven't had a chance to ask him about M/MINK, but I'll try to make a point of it next time...

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  3. Andy Tauer's "Une Rose Vermeille" strikes me as more of an art piece than a perfume. It references so many things- retro makeup and French perfume, different conceptions of "rose" in perfumery, other things one thinks of in tandem with the phrase "rose-red"- berries, jam, blood. It's a very strange brew- I can't wear it, but I keep dabbing it on different objects, then smelling it throughout the day....
    -Marla

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  4. Marla, this brings to mind the difference industry people make between "un parfum" and "une odeur", something that's not necessarily engineered to work on skin. I don't know Une Rose Vermeille, from your description it sounds like it has a lot of notes that could go well with skin but maybe the intent skews it more into a "conceptual" essay on rose?

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  5. For me it is definitely more conceptual, makes me think about quite a few things each time, particularly about ideas of fashion and femininity. I don't think, "Gosh, that smells good!" Though it doesn't smell bad, either....
    -Marla

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  6. Marla, I didn't follow what Andy said about it, do you think it might be a matter of your reception or do you think he maybe overthought the concept? It's always a tricky one, to make a perfume that's a comment on perfume, while still making it "appropriatable" (what a barbarism).

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  7. I know it's the result of his meditations on red roses, all the symbolism and connotations, so I think there's intention there, but there are not enough quotes out there in Blogland to say for sure, and everytime I try to access his blog, my computer freaks out and shuts down! (Warning: run-on!)
    -M

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  8. Vero Kern's Onda maybe...

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  9. Marla, I suppose that an independent like Andy can use his creative freedom to conceive a perfume that's more of a reflection and less of a product... He's right to avail himself of it, supposing that was his intention.

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  10. Alexp, Vero's Onda is quite feral indeed! I love it but it's got a tendency to wear me, so it's true I don't take it out very often: it's really quite a commitment. But it's so beautiful...

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  11. Disteza here, and I'll posit SL's Tubereuse Criminelle. It's wearable, but it's also conceptual, and it's one of few perfumes that to me screams "I'm ART, dammit!"

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  12. Disteza, I quite agree TC has a bent for profanity -- like all her sisters. Much as I love tuberose, subtle she is not.

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  13. A Kurkdjian play on mineral/animal? Please, please! (After Lumiere Noire pour Femme and then Absolue pour le Soir, I think he's my "favorite" perfumer.) I can't believe I've been uprooted from Hamburg and now am living in small-town America, with no niche perfume store to pop in for a smell of this new Byredo. They carried Byredo at Harald Lubner in Hamburg, I would love to smell this with a copy of your description in hand. Alas. I tried to imagine metal aldehydes with animalic honey. And now I have to sniff an incense scent again...I never ever thought of the smell of mineral or blood with incense.

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  14. Carla, Francis K.'s "L'odeur de l'argent" was never commercialized as it was solely composed for Sophie Calle's show.
    As for incense, those aspects are more "legible" in the raw material. Usually perfumers will try to cover them up.

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  15. I'd put Secretions Magnifique next to it. Like SM, M/M is either heaven or hell, depending on your ability to put up with funk. I love M/M's weirdness, but it does smell remarkably like dog breath and/or dog saliva to me...

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  16. Barbara, I haven't been up close and personal with a dog in ages, so I'll take your word for it!

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