ELLA, Arquiste
It’s a tribute to Carlos Huber’s taste and Rodrigo
Flores Roux’s peerless ability that Ella smells
like a mash-up of every 70s chypre rubbed in sweat and venomous sap, without
ever devolving into a hot mess -- except the most pleasurable type. One of my
biggest perfume thrills of the year. More about it here.
Kimonanthe, Diptyque
Fabrice Pellegrin’s best work comes in two types of
flavors: the materials-driven soliflore (as in Diptyque’s “Essences Insensées”
collection). And the weirdos, like By Kilian’s cannabis-inspired Smoke for the Soul or Dear Rose’s mint-and-patchouli
Mentha Religiosa. Named after the
wintersweet blossom and based on zukoh,
a Japanese powdered incense, Kimonanthe belongs
to the latter group. Sweet and unusually camphoraceous, the scent comes
strikingly close to its model and is therefore just off-kilter -- foreign -- enough to be fascinating.
L’Air du temps: Le Crépuscule, Nina Ricci
Out in November, Calice Becker’s two limited-edition
variations on L’Air du Temps, L’Aube and Le Crépuscule (“dawn” and “twilight”) extrapolate their accords from the original formula, an olfactory
form so fertile it spawned Fracas, Fidji and
Paris. In Le Crépuscule, Becker tugs out the benzyl salicylate used in the carnation
accord to grow Mirabilis jalapa, known
in French as belle-de-nuit (“beauty
of the night”). Green, moist and indolic, with a faint whiff of tropical fruit,
the scent smells like an actual flower,
even if you’ve never stuck your nose in a Mirabilis
jalapa blossom. Arrestingly lovely.
“Les Extraits Verts” collection, Tom Ford
Like Arquiste’s ELLA
and EL, Tom Ford’s new “Les Extraits
Verts” collection specifically references the 70s (this being Tom Ford, of
course they decade is dubbed “decadent”). The vernal Vert Bohème falls somewhere between N°19 and Vero Kern’s Mito on
the galbanum-hyacinth scale (did TF recycle the formula of his discontinued Ombre de Hyacinth -- eech, the
Frenglish). Vert des Bois, which
boast a novel poplar bud extract, gives off a tart-raspy sap scent with a
smidge of umami -- a lovage-like note. The heliotrope-sweetened patchouli in Vert d’Encens, initially reminiscent of
Dear Rose’s compelling weirdo Mentha
Religiosa, adds layers of salted herbs and smoke to the mix, with a hint of
box tree (which may go catpissy to certain noses). Perhaps the most autumnal of
the three, but all are tremendously enjoyable and a little offbeat. (Ok, so
that counts as three, right?).
N°5 L’Eau, Chanel
Like the Argo ship mentioned by Roland Barthes, whose
pieces were replaced one by one by the Argonauts until they ended up with an
entirely new vessel without changing its name or form, N°5 has crossed the century without changing its form, perfectly
recognizable with each slight shift on the olfactory map. The new curator of
this Modernist monument, Olivier Polge, has confronted it with a more
contemporary sensibility by opening, within its notes, a habitable space; creating
a clearing that makes them more legible. Here, aldehydes remember they come
from citrus peels, and flowers plump up with that moist-petal feel that signifies
freshness in perfumery. But it’s still N°5.
The form holds up. And it’s lovely.
Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert, Bulgari
I poked my nose into this again this fall, and once
more, I was gobsmacked by the perfect, so simple-it-looks-simplistic balance of
Jean-Claude Ellena’s composition. Eau
Parfumée, which introduced the slightly tannic hedione-and-ionone green tea
accord in perfumery, was initially a proposal for Fahrenheit (Maurice Roger, the CEO of Dior perfumes at the time,
had put out a brief for a tea note). Limpid, figurative and gender-free, it is
one of the four game-changers of 1992, along with Angel, L’Eau d’Issey and Féminité
du Bois, though considerably more discreet. Perhaps the word that defines
it best is the Italian sprezzatura,
coined by Castiglione in The Book of the
Courtier to express "a
certain nonchalance, so as to conceal
all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and
almost without any thought about it".
Cozé Verdé 2.1, Parfumerie Générale
When I saw him at the opening of his boutique (see
below), Pierre Guillaume told me he’d dug up my first order on his website some
9 years ago, a sample set that included his maiden scent, Cozé. Dipping my nose into his earliest efforts brought me back to
my early, heady days as a fledgling perfumista (remember when we could talk
about the same thing for weeks
because the number of launches was under 1000?). As a tribute, I walked out
with Pierre re-reading of Cozé, Cozé
Verdé. A perfect fit for early fall, with fig adding a sweet, milky-raspy
splash of sap to the original’s tobacco leaf, and added licorice tying in with
the fruit’s deep-purple woody effect.
Pierre
Guillaume’s new Parisian boutique
For his brand’s 10th birthday, the maverick
and adorable Pierre Guillaume gave himself a gift: a Paris boutique on the
chic, soon-to-be-pedestrian rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, just a spritz away from Serge
Lutens at the Palais-Royal. In addition to the Parfumerie Générale, Huitième
Art and Croisière line-ups, the shop features the Paris-exclusive Rhapsody
collection, a series of accords Pierre Guillaume deemed too uncommercial for a
wider release. Not to be missed: the secret closet full of raw materials,
including rare, sexy bases like Prunol and Mousse de Saxe… Be sure to demand a
sniff!
Pierre
Guillaume Paris, 13 rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, Paris 1
Open Tuesday-Saturday,
11 am to 2 pm and 3 to 7 pm
For more seasonal selections, please visit my friends at:
And if you read French, this is what I've been up to (among other things...)