French Fifi Awards 2012: The Winners

As this post is coming up, the gala dinner celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Fragrance Foundation France will still be under way at the Salle Wagram near the Arc de Triomphe.

The French Fifi Awards are now divided into 12 categories. Ten are given out by a college of 806 jurors selected among every field of the industry.

In selective distribution, two products by Beauté Prestige International nab the top six awards:

Elie Saab Le Parfum by Francis Kurkdjian wins Best Feminine Fragrance, Best Feminine Bottle, and best Feminine Media Campaign.

Kokorico by Annick Menardo and Olivier Cresp for Jean-Paul Gaultier wins Best Masculine Fragrance, Best Masculine Bottle, and best Masculine Media Campaign.

In the “distribution sous enseigne propre” category (fragrances only sold in the brand’s shops), L’Occitane nabs the award for Best Feminine Fragrance for Pivoine Flora, while Yves Rocher gets the Best Masculine Fragrance award for Comme une Évidence Homme Green.

For mass-market products, Clin d’oeil Passionné Eau Fraîche by Bourjois and Axe Provocation for Axe-Unilever nab the awards.

The two Prix Grand Public, given out by 20,500 members of the public voting on internet who were offered a choice between the 15 top-selling fragrances of 2011, go to: Amor Amor Forbidden Kiss (Cacharel/ L’Oréal Luxe) for Best Feminine Fragrance and Hugo Just Different (Hugo Boss/ Procter & Gamble Prestige) for Best Masculine Fragrance.

The Experts’ Award is given out to a product sold in less than 100 points of sale in France (i.e. niche and exclusive lines) by a jury composed of beauty editors, evaluators from the major supply houses and bloggers (Octavian Coifan of 1000fragrances, Sixtine Drossard of Ambre Gris, Nicolas Olczyk of Parfums, Tendances, Inspirations and myself).

The Experts’ Award 2012

 Orange Sanguine 

by Ralph Schwieger (Mane) for Atelier Cologne.

The  Finalists

Still Life 

by Dora Baghriche-Arnaud (Firmenich) for Olfactive Studio
Autoportrait
by Nathalie Lorson (Firmenich) for Olfactive Studio 

Chambre Noire 

by Dorothée Piot (Robertet) for Olfactive Studio

Myrrhiad 

by Pierre Guillaume for Huitième Art

Juniper Sling 

by Olivier Cresp (Firmenich) for Penhaligon’s
Santal Blush
by Yann Vasnier (Givaudan) for Tom Ford Private Collection 

A note on the selection process for the Experts’ Award: as in the two previous editions, a short list was compiled from the jurors’ pre-selection. In 2010/2011, we re-smelled and discussed the fragrances by name, which gave each juror the opportunity of defending her top choices, and of swaying fellow jurors in favor of more challenging compositions.

In this year’s edition, the 30 “long-short” list fragrances were smelled blind. Though this is a much more objective process – a cross between a consumer panel and an assessment by supply house evaluators – it tended to favor individual assessment over general discussion and favor legible products with pleasing top notes over more complex compositions that give out their best when experienced over several hours.

This isn’t to say Orange Sanguine isn’t a lovely fragrance: it is. I just feel that given a chance to defend creative perfumery, we might have put forward something a tad more challenging.

Which is why I’m delighted to salute the other finalists: with two fragrances in the short-short list, Céline Verleure’s brand-new Olfactive Studio confirms its status as a major player, and with Myrrhiad, the maverick Pierre Guillaume shows he can more than hold his own against big-house perfumers like Olivier Cresp!

Fragrance Foundation France 20th anniversary award

After dinner, the guests of the Fragrance Foundation were asked to vote directly with their smartphones for the best fragrances of the past 20 years, picked among the winners for best feminine and best masculine from 1992 to 2011.

Best Feminine of the past 20 years

Narciso Rodriguez for Her

by Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian

Best Masculine of the past 20 years 

Terre d'Hermès

by Jean-Claude Ellena

Les Fifi Awards 2012 France : Le Palmarès

Au moment où ce billet s’affichera, le gala de célébration des 20 ans de la Fragrance Foundation France battra encore son plein à la Salle Wagram.

Après avoir retrouvé leur intitulé international, Fifi Awards, les prix sont désormais répartis en 12 catégories. Dix sont décernés par 806 professionnels représentant tous les métiers de la filière.

Deux produits de Beauté Prestige International ont raflé la mise dans la catégorie du sélectif :

Côté féminin : Elie Saab Le Parfum par Francis Kurkdjian remporte les prix du Meilleur Parfum, du Plus Beau Flacon et de la Meilleure Campagne Publicitaire.

Côté masculin : Kokorico d’Annick Menardo et Olivier Cresp pour Jean-Paul Gaultier remporte les prix du Meilleur Parfum, du plus Beau Flacon et de la Meilleure Campagne Publicitaire.

Dans la catégorie « Distribution sous enseigne propre », ce sont L’Occitane pour Pivoine Flora (féminins) et Yves Rocher pour Comme une Évidence Homme Green (masculins) qui sont couronnés.

Côté « grande distribution »,  les prix des meilleurs parfums sont décernés à Clin d’oeil Passionné Eau Fraîche de Bourjois (féminins) et Axe Provocation d’Axe-Unilever (masculins).

Les deux Prix Grand Public, décernés par 20 500 internautes auquel on a proposé une sélection des 15 parfums best-sellers de 2011 en France, sont allés à Amor Amor Forbidden Kiss de Cacharel (féminins) et Hugo Just Different de Hugo Boss (masculins).

Enfin, le Prix des Experts (ex « prix des spécialistes ») couronne un parfum vendu dans moins de 100 points de vente en France, donc un produit de niche ou de ligne exclusive. Le jury réunit journalistes beauté, évaluateurs et blogueurs (en l’occurrence Octavian Coifan de 1000fragrances, Sixtine Drossard d’Ambre Gris, Nicolas Olczyk de Parfums, Tendances, Inspirations et moi-même). 

Prix des Experts 2012

Orange Sanguine 

de Ralph Schwieger (Mane) pour Atelier Cologne.

Les finalistes 

 

Still Life 

de Dora Baghriche-Arnaud (Firmenich) pour Olfactive Studio

Chambre Noire 

de Dorothée Piot (Robertet) pour Olfactive Studio
Autoportrait
de Nathalie Lorson (Firmenich) pour Olfactive Studio 

Myrrhiad  

de Pierre Guillaume pour Huitième Art

Juniper Sling 

d’Olivier Cresp (Firmenich) pour Penhaligon’s
Santal Blush
de Yann Vasnier (Givaudan) pour Tom Ford Private Collection

Un mot sur le processus de sélection. Comme chaque année depuis trois ans, on nous a demandé de proposer nos présélections tirées d’une liste de tous les produits lancés dans cette catégorie l’année précédente. Lors des années précédentes, nos discussions portaient sur des parfums identifiés: les jurés étaient appelés à expliquer pourquoi ils les avaient choisis.

Cette année, la trentaine de parfums présélectionnés ont été sentis à l’aveugle. Ce processus, plus objectif,  tend cependant à favoriser l’évaluation individuelle plutôt que la discussion générale, et à donner l’avantage à des parfums lisibles dotés de notes de tête flatteuses, plutôt qu’à des compositions plus complexes avec lesquelles il faut vivre pour les apprécier.

Orange Sanguine est bien évidemment un très joli parfum. Je regrette tout de même un peu qu’un jury destiné à défendre la branche la plus créative de l’industrie n’ait pas su se mettre d’accord sur quelque chose d'un peu plus audacieux.

C’est pourquoi je suis ravie que les autres finalistes aient pu être mis en avant : Olfactive Studio de Céline Verleure confirme son statut de petite-marque-qui-a-tout-d’une-grande, et avec Myrrhiad, Pierre Guillaume le franc-tireur démontre qu’il n’a rien à envier aux parfumeurs de grandes maisons comme Olivier Cresp. Bravo les artistes !

Prix des 20 ans de la Fragrance Foundation France

  Lors du gala célébrant le 20ème anniversaire des Fifis France, les invités ont été appelés à élire en direct les meilleurs parfums des 20 dernières années parmi les lauréats de 1992 à 2011. 

Prix du Meilleur Parfum Féminin 1992/2012

Narciso Rodriguez for Her

de Christine Nagel et Francis Kurkdjian 

(encore un parfum produit par Beauté Prestige International!)

Prix du Meilleur Parfum Féminin 1992/2012

Terre d'Hermès

de Jean-Claude Ellena  

 

Fifi Awards France 2012

À 22 heures, rendez-vous ici même pour le palmarès des Fifi Awards 2012, annoncés ce soir à la Salle Wagram.

At 10 P.M. Paris time (GST + 1), stay tuned for the announcement of the winners of the French Fifi Awards 2012, celebrated this evening at the Salle Wagram.

"I'm an awful bourgeois": Notes on a forgotten novel of the 1920s

Clément Vautel’s name sometimes wanders into footnotes in perfume history books because of his novel Je suis un affreux bourgeois ((“I’m an awful bourgeois”, 1922), whose main character, the self-styled “Napoleon of perfumery”, is inspired by François Coty. Vautel (1876-1954) was a hugely popular editorialist and novelist with distinctly reactionary leanings and unsavoury prejudices under the guise of satirical writing.

Je suis un affreux bourgeois is narrated in the first person by Honoré Paquignon, a self-made-man beset by the woes of the post-WWI West: his daughter is a feminist who goes off to open a garage with like-minded girlfriends, his son is a homosexual avant-garde poet who stages a Surrealist show in his mansion, his mistress a tart who manipulates him into launching her film career while cheating on him left and right, and his factory workers are Communists led by his ex-secretary, who publishes pamphlets calling for his execution on the Great Evening of the revolution. In this, Coty, who financed extreme-right-wing newspapers and movements, and penned his own Against Communism in 1928, is indeed the model for Vautel’s “hero” who backs a private militia to defend the interests and properties of capitalists.

However, readers seeking information into the workings of a perfume and cosmetics company in the 1920s won’t find much in the novel. Paquignon dismisses the composition of his best-selling fragrances with “it is the business of my chemists for whom the most poetic of perfumes is nothing but an industrially-produced formula”.

The book does, however, yield this tiny nugget which must reflect public perception of the cosmetics industry in the 1920s:

“It is the war that made the fortune of perfumery, the war that liberated women, made them more frivolous, more coquettish, more enterprising too (it was necessary) in their manhunt… The true victory is that of lipstick! If powder spoke, it was to ensure the triumph of rice powder! After asphyxiating gases, suave smells… All our female contemporaries are perfumed and made up. They want to seduce, conquer, keep by any means. But men also resort to our science and our art to improve their natural advantages (…). Cupid doesn’t only have arrows in his quiver: he hides bottles, boxes, items that no doubt bear my universally renowned brand.”

In the perfume appreciation course I’ve conceived for the London College of Fashion, when I consider perfume in the 1920s, I link the vogue for heavy makeup and heady perfumes (think Shalimar) with the shift in gender relations after WWI. Surely, there must have been a shortage of eligible men since many were killed or maimed in the trenches (in France, 27% of the men aged 18 to 27 were slain). Added to this, the new streamlined styles – bobbed hair, short shift dresses baring legs, arms and back – must have left many women who didn’t conform to the sleek flapper ideal bereft. Large flowered hats, long hair, corsets and floor-length dresses went a long way to cover any physical flaws. In compensation, simple 1920s dresses were often very heavily embroidered; this ornamental excess was echoed in vamp-ish makeup and the heady second skin of fragrance… If nothing else, Je suis un affreux bourgeois confirms that this was indeed how things were perceived at the time. Curious readers will easily find it online at low prices.

"Je suis un affreux bourgeois": notes sur une curiosité littéraire des Années Folles

Le nom de Clément Vautel surgit parfois dans les notes en bas de page des histoires du parfum à cause de son roman Je suis un affreux bourgeois (1922) parce que son narrateur, surnommé le « Napoléon du parfum », est inspiré de François Coty. C’est sans doute à juste titre que Vautel (1876-1954), auteur et chroniqueur très populaire de l’entre-deux-guerres et tenant du gros bon sens franchouillard et réactionnaire, a sombré dans les poubelles de l’histoire littéraire. Si Je suis un affreux bourgeois a le moindre mérite aujourd’hui, ce n’est que parce qu’on y découvre les préjugés contemporains exprimés sous couvert satirique. 

L’ « affreux bourgeois » de Vautel est en effet assiégé jusque dans ses usines et son foyer par les nouvelles idéologies des années 20 : sa fille est une féministe qui ouvre un garage avec d’autres Garçonnes, son fils un poète homosexuel d’avant-garde qui envahit son hôtel particulier pour y présenter un spectacle surréaliste, sa maîtresse une poule qui le manipule pour se faire lancer dans le cinéma et le cocufie à tout va. Quand à son ex-secrétaire, elle se mue en Pasionaria révolutionnaire pour entraîner les ouvriers communistes de son usine à la grève, et le pourfendre de pamphlets où elle le menace de l’éventrer comme un cochon lors du Grand Soir. En cela, Coty, lui-même réactionnaire au point d’avoir financé journaux et mouvements d’extrême-droite et pris la plume en 1928 pour rédiger Contre le communisme, est bien en partie le modèle du « héros » de Vautel, qui soutient la création d’une milice privée destinée à défendre les intérêts et les propriétés des capitalistes.

Ceux qui recherchent des renseignements sur l’industrie du parfum de l’époque n’y trouveront guère leur compte. Paquignon congédie la question de la composition de ses jus par « C’est l’affaire de mes chimistes pour qui le plus poétique des parfums n’est qu’une formule réalisée industriellement ». Mais outre une séquence exposant la montée de celles qu’on n’appelle pas encore les « égéries » publicitaires – mondaines, actrices et stars du music-hall – l’ouvrage recèle cette petite pépite qui traduit bien l’esprit de l’époque :

« C’est la guerre qui a fait la fortune de la parfumerie, la guerre qui a libéré la femme, qui l’a rendue plus frivole, plus coquette, plus entreprenante aussi (il le fallait) dans la chasse à l’homme… La vraie victoire, c’est celle du bâton de rouge ! Si la poudre a tant parlé, c’était pour assurer le triomphe de la poudre de riz ! Après les gaz asphyxiants, les odeurs suaves… Toutes nos contemporaines sont parfumées et maquillées. Elles veulent séduire, conquérir, garder par tous les moyens. Mais les hommes aussi ont recours à notre science et à notre art pour améliorer leurs avantages naturels. (…) Cupidon n’a pas que des flèches dans son carquois : il y cache des flacons, des boîtes, des articles qui portent sans doute ma marque universellement connue. »

Dans le cours sur le parfum que j’ai conçu pour le London College of Fashion, quand j’aborde le parfum dans les années 20, j’aborde également la vogue des fards lourds et des parfums capiteux sous l’angle de ces nouveaux rapports entre les sexes. La Grande Guerre avait coûté la vie à 27% des hommes de 18 à 27 ans, sans compter le nombre de blessés et de gazés estropiés à vie : la concurrence sexuelle devait en effet être rude. Or si les femmes avaient gagné en audace, elles ne disposaient plus des mêmes armes. Les chapeaux à fleurs et à plumes, chevelures abondantes, corsets et ourlets à la cheville qui pouvaient donner le change en planquant les dégâts avaient cédé aux cheveux courts et aux robes-chemises des Garçonnes, dénudant largement jambes, bras, dos et poitrines. La mode ayant horreur du vide, ces robes toutes simples étaient souvent richement brodées ; pour compenser toute cette nudité, maquillages et parfums de vamp créaient une seconde peau.

Ma lecture de Je suis un affreux bourgeois a au moins eu le mérite de confirmer en partie cette interprétation. Les curieux trouveront facilement l’ouvrage, tiré à l’époque à des dizaines de milliers d’exemplaires, à prix modique chez les bouquinistes.

My breasts all perfume... Happy Bloomsday!

Today is Bloomsday: the day of the wanderings of Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses set in June 16^th 1904. To join the celebration, two excerpts – Bloom’s musings on scents and smells, and the very end of Molly’s famous monologue…Ulysses is a book that ends with a rose, and a "yes".

 “Smell that I did. Like flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her slipper on the floor so they wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all round over me and half down my back. 

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it? Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her, with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. For instance if you go into a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself, slow but sure. Suppose it's ever so many millions of tiny grains blown across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It's like a fine fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and they're always spinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years. Dogs at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that way. We're the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on. Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the grass. 

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink gives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to. That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life. And it's extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me. 

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat. Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that's the soap.” 

From Molly’s monologue…

“…O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

The Birth of Séville à l'aube...

When you read these lines, I’ll be attending (and perhaps participating in) the grande pesée of Séville à l’aube, in sufficient quantities to produce a few thousand bottles, with my dear friends of Art et Parfum in Cabris, near Grasse.

The very tricky operation consists in weighing (the meaning of pesée) and adding the different ingredients of the formula to make up the oil (i.e. the mix without alcohol and water). This must be carried out manually, in a specific order, since all materials don’t have the same consistency – some are resins, other powders, oils, etc. – and some must be heated at different temperatures. In other words, it’s complicated. But according to Olivier Maure, the owner of the company founded by Edmond Roudnitska, you can smell the accords taking shape all the way from the garden, and even identify a perfumer’s style by the way they build up. Of course, I can’t say how thrilled I am to be there for the birth of the fragrance I inspired Bertrand Duchaufour to compose!

I know that in Parisian L’Artisan Parfumeur counters and shops, there are already waiting lists for Séville à l’aube (the only people I’ve heard of not loving it are SAs from other brands… ‘nuff said!). I know testers are available in many points of sale, though not sure where in the world – Paris and London, definitely. They’re sometimes tucked under the counter: the ladies tell me they’d be empty by now if they were left out, and that many of the people who test it are quite disgruntled not to be able to buy it straight away! Just so you know, though, if I’m happy that people seem to love the fragrance, it’s in  a purely disinterested fashion, since I am not, repeat, not, making a penny out of it! My part of the deal was getting the story. Anyway, feel free to ask SAs at L’Artisan Parfumeur points of sale for the tester, and report back if it’s already arrived in your city, I’d love to know.

For a lovely report by Angela of Now Smell This on our visit to Art et Parfum, click here and here. For my (much shorter) version, click here. And of course, you can learn all about the genesis of Séville à l'aube, and read a detailed account of my first visit to Art et Parfum, in The Perfume Lover.

And please check out Suzanna's lovely review of Séville à l'aube on Bois de Jasmin,

as well as Armellide's review of The Perfume Lover on Ecosrose, with an astonishingly generous draw of 130 samples! Needless to say, I'm immensely touched and pleased by both.

 Illustration: Odilon Redon's The Birth of Venus.