Superstitious de Dominique Ropion, parfum d’hantologie

Lorsque j’ai annoncé à Frédéric Malle que je venais enfin de trouver mon parfum signature, on aurait dit qu’il venait d’avaler un crapaud. C’est que le parfum en question était le Superstitious de Dominique Ropion, créé en collaboration avec feu Alber Elbaz. Et que, je l’ignorais à l’époque – nous étions au lancement d’Uncut Gem en juin 2022 --, Superstitious venait d'être retiré du catalogue. Malle n’en a soufflé mot. Lorsque j’ai ajouté que j’avais redécouvert le parfum en le ressortant pour l’anniversaire de la mort d’Elbaz, Malle a laissé tomber d’un air pincé : « C’est gai. »

Il aurait certes été déplacé de discuter des rapports entre le parfum et la mort en plein pince-fesses. Mais à l’évidence, le parfum a partie liée avec les fantômes -- comme les spectres ou la magie, son effet persiste même en l’absence, ou après la disparition de sa source. Pour reprendre un mot créé par Jacques Derrida, il relève de l’hantologie, c’est-à-dire de la présence fantomatique, dans notre temps, d’éléments culturels du passé. Non seulement le parfum nous hante parce qu’il rappelle personnes, époques, ou lieux du passés, comme on nous le répète à satiété. Mais il est également hanté, traversé par les formes passées qu’il a assumées. Pour vous ou moi, ce seront les revenants de parfums déjà-sentis, perçus du coin du nez comme on dit du coin de l’œil, lorsqu’on découvrira une nouvelle création. Pour les parfumeurs, les formes olfactives qui les hantent, s’immiscent dans leurs formules, les mettent à défi de les ressusciter, de leur réinsuffler de la vie, aujourd’hui.

 

Les fantômes d’Arpège et de Rive Gauche

Superstitious est la réécriture contemporaine de la forme florale aldéhydée – plutôt Arpège que le N°5, m’a un jour glissé Dominique Ropion. Mais je ne peux m’empêcher d’y percevoir le spectre de ce Rive Gauche que j’ai porté très jeune adolescente (coïncidence, Alber Elbaz a été le créateur du prêt-à-porter féminin d’Yves Saint Laurent et de Lanvin). Pour sa collaboration avec Frédéric Malle, Elbaz a préféré la formule développée par Ropion à la proposition de Carlos Benaïm, dit-on ; sans doute lui aussi était-il hanté par le spectre des grands floraux aldéhydés couture du passé, même si son esthétique n’avait rien de rétro. De même, déconstruction/reconstruction de cette famille olfactive plutôt qu’hommage, Superstitious n’est « rétro » qu’au sens où il est purement abstrait, comme ses prédécesseurs des années 1920 : le dernier d’une lignée de produits modernistes de l’époque de la reproductibilité technique. Les formes abstraites innovantes du début XXème siècle annonçait le futur : aujourd’hui, ce futur est perdu. Il semblerait parfois qu’il n’y ait plus qu’à revisiter, remanier, hybrider des formes déjà créées.

 

A parte sur le clavecin

La construction des parfums de Ropion est toujours prodigieusement intelligente. L’émotion que j’éprouve en sentant Superstitious est, je l’ai compris un jour, de l’ordre d’une exaltation intellectuelle. Ce parfum exerce mon esprit à la façon dont peut le faire, par exemple, la pièce pour clavecin de François Couperin Les Barricades mystérieuses (à écouter ici dans l’interprétation de Blandine Verlet).

 

Une grande abstraction futuriste

Un sifflement de vapeur de fer à repasser – aldéhydes. L'effet métallique vert-noir de l’oxide de rose, teinté de cette acidité que l’on goûte en posant la langue sur le pôle positif d’une pile… C'est justement comme l'attaque d'une pièce pour clavecin, sans un gramme de graisse romantique (on entre tout de suite dans la note), que la salve d'ouverture de Superstitious pince délicieusement les nerfs. Blancheur sans pétale. Verdeur sans printemps. Ici, aucune allusion à la nature. Cette ouverture métallique introduit un axe vertical aldehyde-encens[1] qui ancre les facettes minérales de la résine dans cellesdu vétiver, plus terreuses et silex, reprise des tonalités vertes et noires de la tête. Ce thème minéral se double de la facette très indolée du jasmin qui enrobe cette structure, frais comme le satin duchesse qu’Alber Elbaz aimait à travailler pour Lanvin et sa propre marque, AZ Factory. Une pêche à la peau crissante développe le fruité de l’accord jasmin-rose. Le patchouli ressort en sillage – la plupart des parfumeurs ayant senti Superstitious sur moi l’ont identifié comme un chypre (ou plutôt à s’exclamer, « C’est quoi ce chypre, c’est génial ! »).

 

Un spectre dans la crypte…

Malgré, ou à cause de son intelligence frémissante, Superstitious s’est avéré encore moins commercial que le tout aussi brillant Une Fleur de cassie, du même auteur (les conseillers, chez Frédéric Malle, me confiaient qu’ils peinaient à le vendre). Le spectre olfactif qui le hante, la forme florale aldéhydée, est l’une des rares que les parfumeurs aient toujours échoué à faire revivre depuis sa dernière manifestation au premier degré, First de Van Cleef & Arpels, en 1976. Pourtant, paradoxalement, malgré l’impopularité du genre, Superstitious est l’un des rares parfums que j’aie portés qui m’ait systématiquement valu des compliments spontanés, tant de professionnels que de non-initiés – mes étudiantes de 20 ans, par exemple.

Par-delà le désastre que représente pour moi la disparition de « mon » parfum si peu de temps après que je l’ai trouvé, et bien que je comprenne qu’il ait été peu judicieux pour le groupe Estée Lauder de maintenir une référence liée à un créateur décédé et peu connu du grand public, cette disparition signe la perte d’une création réellement exceptionnelle. Un parfum spirite, convoquant et donnant forme à tous les éléments du floral aldéhydé, pour matérialiser ce qu’une forme florale aldéhydée futuriste pourrait sentir maintenant. 

Ce qui est héroïque dans le parti-pris de Dominique Ropion, ici, est son absence radicale de toute nostalgie. C'est sans doute pourquoi, malgré ses références au passé, Superstitious est aussi « alien ». Voilà ce que serait futurisme, aujourdhui. Ou plutôt, ce qu’il aura été. Désormais, Superstitious n'est plus qu’un spectre de plus, dans la crypte de notre mémoire olfactive.

 

Illustration: Cyanotype de Susan Weil et Robert Rauschenberg pour Life Magazine, 1951

 

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[1] Également exploité par Dominique Ropion dans le masculin Y d’Yves Saint Laurent, greffé à une structure fougère.

Superstitious by Dominique Ropion, or perfume as hauntology

 

When I told Frédéric Malle I’d finally found my signature scent, he looked like he’d swallowed a toad. The scent was Dominique Ropion’s Superstitious, launched along with the late designer Alber Elbaz. I wasn’t aware at the time – this was in June 2022, when at the press presentation of Uncut Gem --, but Superstitious had been discontinued, which Malle failed to mention. I added brightly that I’d rediscovered the fragrance on the anniversary of Elbaz’s death from Covid. To which Malle answered with a slightly reproachful tone: “C’est gai.” (Translate that as: “Well, you’re no fun, are you.”).

The launch of Uncut Gem was hardly the time or place to strike up a conversation about perfume and death, especially when the subject was a dead perfume made in collaboration with a dead man. But, of course, perfume is about death and ghosts. Like ghosts or magic, it is an effect that persists even in the absence or death of its source, invisible or wispy as smoke. But beyond this, to reprise a term coined by the philosopher Jacques Derrida and developed by the cultural critic Mark Fisher, it is about hauntology – defined as the ghostly persistence of cultural elements of the past.  So, perfume is haunted, not because smells carry you back, as the oft-repeated refrain goes, to past persons, times, or places (though a haunting is something that happens now; an event that is part of our present, not our past). But because beyond the Proustian cliché, it is run through by the past forms it has taken on. For you, these are the ghostly glimpses of perfumes you’ve experienced in the past. For perfumers, the olfactory forms that haunt them.

The ghosts of Arpège and Rive Gauche

In Dominique Ropion’s case, the aptly-named Superstitious was avowedly a reworking of the floral aldehydic form – he mentioned Arpège; To my nose, perhaps because I wore it as a very young teen, the past fragrance it most evokes is Rive Gauche (coincidentally, Alber Elbaz was an artistic director for both Yves Saint Laurent’s women’s ready-to-wear, then for Lanvin). As the story goes, Elbaz chose a formula that Ropion had been developing on his own over Carlos Benaïm’s proposal; the designer, too, may have been haunted by the grand floral aldehydics of the past, though his aesthetics were anything but retro.  The same goes for Superstitious: a de/reconstruction of the fragrance family rather than a homage, it is only “retro” in the sense that it is purely abstract, like its forerunners of the 1920s: the last in the line of those modernist products of the age of mechanical reproduction. The innovative abstract forms of the 20^th century spoke of the future; today, that future is lost. Perfumers revisit forms, tweak them, reinvent them.

 

An aside on harpsichord

The construction of Ropion’s fragrances is always prodigiously intelligent, and Superstitious is no exception. The emotion I feel when I catch a whiff of it is, I suddenly realized one day, intellectual excitement. The thrillingly rational Superstitious engages my mind much in the way a piece for harpsichord by François Couperin, Les Barricades mystérieuses might do. Couperin’s piece is described by the music critic Tom Service as “an ever-changing tapestry of melody and harmony, interacting and overlapping with different rhythmic schemes and melodies. The effect is shimmering, kaleidoscopic and seductive." (The Guardian, January 14, 2010). You could transpose the paragraph to Superstitious.

 

A grand, futuristic abstraction

The white, iron-steam hiss of aldehydes; the green-black metallic effect of rose oxide (hence the Rive Gauche reminiscence): the opening salvo of Superstitious elicits the same nerve-pinching delight as a piece played on harpsichord. This is green, but not spring. No allusion to nature here. The metallic overture runs along a vertical axis into incense[i], the resin’s mineral facets anchored in vetiver’s bitter earthiness – reprising the green-black tones of the opening. The mineral theme is echoed by the indolic tones of the jasmine that wraps the structure – cool and crisp as the duchess satin Alber Elbaz worked so masterfully for Lanvin and his own brand AZ Factory. Picking up on the jasmine and rose accord’s fruitiness, a slightly unripe peach adds another layer of olfactory texture. In an air-kiss, what you might catch is the patchouli, caused most perfumers who smelled it on me to identify Superstitious as a chypre (or rather, to cry out: “C ‘est quoi ce chypre, c’est génial!” or variations thereof.

Yet another spectre in the crypt…

For all its quivering intelligence, Superstitious was even less of a commercial proposal than Ropion’s equally brilliant Une Fleur de cassie (sales advisors at Frédéric Malle would tell me its sales were abysmal). The olfactory spectre – or spectrum – that haunts it, the aldehydic floral form, is one perfumers have failed to revive since its last grand manifestation, the 1976 First by Van Cleef & Arpels. Despite the genre’s disfavor, Superstitious is one of the few scents I’ve worn that has systematically attracted spontaneous compliments, both from perfumers and my 20-year-old students. Beyond the personal disaster it is for me to lose my signature scent just as I’d found it, and though I understand it didn’t make sense to maintain a product connected to a dead designer whose name is known only to fashion connoisseurs, it is a shame the Estée Lauder group decided to discontinue Superstitious. This is fragrance as a séance: the summoning and shaping of all the elements of the aldehydic floral; the conjuring of what that futuristic aldehydic floral form could smell like now. What is heroic about Dominique Ropion’s approach is its utter lack of nostalgia. Perhaps that is why, despite its references to the past, Superstitious smells so alien. It is futurism, now. Or rather, it was. Now it will live on as yet another spectre in the crypt of our olfactory memory.

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[i] Dominique Ropion reexplored the aldehyde-incense axis in the considerably more successful masculine Y by Yves Saint Laurent, grafting it onto a fougère structure.

600 Scents in Limbo

That is, roughly, how many bottles of perfume were left in storage in France when I moved to Canada this winter because there was no way, short of Fedexing dozens of boxes for thousands of dollars, that I could get my collection overseas… So amid the sorting, the selling, the discarding of decades of Parisian life – an archaeological dig through every person I’ve been, persona I’ve taken on, failed intentions and heart-rending memories, sheaves of manuscripts, all the books that have composed the biography of my mind, trifling objects charged with the mana of past lives… I’ve had to choose which perfumes I could take with me. In the rush of the move, there seemed to be no time to think. No considered pondering of what would best suit my new life in different country, which memories I couldn’t tear myself away from, which references I couldn’t do without. I had to choose instinctively, swiftly, the 60 or so perfumes that could fit into the boxes we shipped to Canada or in my suitcases. I did have some idea that away from Paris, and with a smaller collection, I would finally get to enjoy all those almost-full bottles more fully. But why those especially, I ask myself as I gaze upon the ones that made it across the Atlantic? 

That is one the reasons I’ve decided to revive this blog, over four years after writing a last post about another, far worse bereavement. As I reexplore this smaller collection salvaged from the panicked sorting of my humongous loot, I hope to reacquaint myself with the pleasure of writing about fragrance just for the love of it (and of writing). Perhaps also, and that is another intention, I hope to explore the culture of scent in Canada through the people who bring it alive. Hence the new subtitle of this (bilingual) blog, in French because there is no possible translation: (Se) sentir au Canada, which both means “feeling you’re in Canada” and “Smelling in Canada”. I promise it won’t all be about maple syrup.

My Top 10 Fragrances of 2018, dedicated to Vero Kern

Her big, boisterous laugh. Her even bigger heart. Her dauntless style. The free spirit that only comes with the second spring of age... We’ve lost Vero Kern. I’ve lost a friend. In one of our last conversations, an interview for the exhibition catalogue of « Nez à Nez » at the mudac in Lausanne, she told me:

« Naja is the culmination of my work as a perfumer: it unites, in some way or another, all my previous creations. From the beginning, I had the idea to create a limited collection, and with Naja it is complete. In 2020, I will turn 80. Can you see me bringing out a new perfume every year? No, of course not. The market has become much too tough and I would like to use the time I have left for doing other things! »

That was on September 18th, three months to a day before she left us. May the healing shamanic soul, she-wolf boldness and riotous beauty of her perfumes – her spirit --remain with us. So that this yearly round-up can only be topped with Naja...

Naja, Vero Profumo

In Vero’s words: A scent of tobacco, which is considered to be one of Native American shamans’ most powerful medicines. The name comes from an Algerian cigarette brand from the thirties:Naja, from the Sanskrit nāga, which means “cobra”. A symbolof renaissance and knowledge, healing and death, of cosmos and chaos. Blending tobacco absolute with linden blossom, tenacious osmanthus absolute and succulent melon, Naja is a rough diamond, contradictory and archaic: a spiritual reflection on the future and the soul.

Princesses de Malabar, Lubin

In France, “Malabar” is more likely to evoke a childhood chewing gum than the fiery spices of Southern India… In a sly play on both, Lubin’s Princesses de Malabar sprinkles gossamer iris powder on a pink, fruit-flavored bubble of musk. There’s a giddy, girly tenderness to the scent that matches its fairy-tale name and fairy-wing iridescence, but enough sweet floral flesh underneath to suit a grown-up princess.

Princess, By Kilian

When Kilian goes mainstream, with the Sephora-exclusive “My Kind of Love” collection, he teases out the most crowd-pleasing facets of his niche offerings (Love’s marshmallow, Dark Lord’s coffee and rum) and gives them a playful twist. With its matcha mocha/marshmallow accord Princess flirts with the gourmand without veering into the fruitchouli, Angel-inspired school of olfactory pastry. Rather, Honorine Blanc’s composition has a ginger-whipped latte foam fluffiness that heralds a new style of figurative food notes. And it’s fun.

The Only One, Dolce&Gabbana

The charming oddity of Violaine Collas’ main accord makes this bestseller another example of mainstream done right. A sprinkle of violet sugar sweetening a frothy caramel macchiato shifts the classic berry-patchouli accord on the olfactory ma, while giving the scent a nice little retro-lipstick touch.

L’Eau, Diptyque

The proto-niche L’Eau composed by Desmond Knox-Leet, one of Diptyque three co-founders, has hit 50 this year. Though more of a spice-infused potion than a “skin” scent, its ginger, cinnamon and clove pomander accord never fails to warm me in the damp Paris winter.

Acqua di Scandola, Parfum d’Empire

Most “sea and skin” scents go for a blend of aquatic (calone and its ilk) and sunscreen – the most interesting recent example of the genre being Arquiste’s Sydney Rock Pool by Rodrigo Flores Roux. In this tribute to the UNESCO heritage site of Scandola in his native Corsica, Marc-Antoine Corticchiato skips the Coppertone and coats burnt-sugar skin (labdanum, immortelle) with a fine spray of sea salt.

Moroccan Leather, Memo

When I want to give my students a proper, old-school floral leather to smell, I’ve been spritzing Moroccan Leather. Despite its name, this is what I imagine Catarani de Medici’s gloves to smell like, with Grasse’s fabled “green” leather rubbed in orris butter and rinsed with orange blossom water – there’s a proper whiff of indole lurking in there.

Noir Anthracite, Tom Ford

Cheating a bit, since this retro-70s masculine actually came out last year. But it’s become one of Monsieur’s go-to scents out of my collection and I’ve been nuzzling quite a bit of this resinous, galbanum-infused offspring of Bandit by way of Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme. 

Une Forêt d’or, Goutal

Don’t be fooled by the name: this “golden forest” is exactly the same formula as Isabelle Doyen’s marvelous Noël fragrance diffuser (there is also a candle), a bracing mandarin and fir balsam accord that can now scent your rooms all year round.

For more takes on the top fragrances of 2018, see Bois de Jasmin

My top 10 scents for fall 2018

Acqua di Scandola

A master of epic, saturated scents in the manner of Delacroix, Marc-Antoine Corticchiato delivered a delicate, quivering pastel with Le Cri de la Lumière. Acqua di Scandola sees him turn to watercolor, or rather, to an intensely personal, original take on marine notes. This tribute to a secluded UNESCO-heritage site in his native Corsica smells like the taste of sea-spray on your lips, with an underlying ochre animalic thrum that feels like sun-heated skin. Limpid and masterful.

Naja, Vero Profumo 

There’s always been something archaic about Vero Kern’s style – a hint of the witch’s brew, or of ancient times when spices were macerated in wine and honey to make scent, in Egypt or Imperial Rome... But if anything, though it is based on tobacco, Naja reminds me of Moroccan maâjoune, hashish candy made of honey, dried fruit, almonds and spices. But the vision revealed well into the sticky gingerbread drydown is a twisted skein of vetiver, radiant in its flint and citrus glow against the earth and smoke.

Pourpre d’automne, Violet

Launched by the young-old Maison Violet (founded in 1827, revived by a trio of enterprising perfumery school graduates), Pourpre d’Automne has the bone structure of a proper fruity chypre, cross-pollinated with Coty’s Rose Jacqueminot. Nathalie Lorson keeps it streamlined, breathable, stopping it short enough of pretty to make it moving and wistful, rather than lipstick-like. Can’t keep my nose off my arm, as one says.

Electric Purple, Lalique

Nathalie Lorson has a singular talent for composing berry and musk fragrances – descendants of L’Artisan’s Mûre et Musc – that turn the cheerful genre into an elegant statement. With Electric Purple, in Lalique’s exclusive Les Compositions Parfumées collection, she matches a mouthwatering Boysenberry accord with the deeper, bitter green of Artemisia against a light chypre background. This is a delight, and never fails to make me smile.

 Monstera, Xinu

Between Ella (Arquiste) and L’Ame Perdue (Le Galion), Rodrigo Flores Roux’s scents are in heavy rotation on my skin: I find his intensely emotional, baroque style moves me, and always keeps me interested. With Monstera, for the new Mexican brand Xinu, he grows a rainforest on my skin, from the humus-rich ground to the dayglow sap-oozing leaves of the canopy. This is green, raspy and wild: an olfactory fugue from Northern latitudes.

 

Fleurs et flammes, Antonio Alessandria

How can I have left out Il Bel’Antonio’s Fleurs et Flammes from these seasonal round-ups? I am remiss. I will atone. Because lilies. Carnations. My two favorite, flamboyant floral notes. And galbanum – there can never be enough. If you’ve ever missed Floris Malmaison, give it a try.

Carat, Cartier

Among the tumbrels of florals that have been tumbling since last year – a trend that shows no sign of abating, Carat is that rare jewel: a bouquet not planted in a pot of sweet vanilla and tonka. In interpreting the spectrum of light as diamonds diffract it, Mathilde Laurent raises the specter of aldehydic florals. Not so much the smell as the effect; the glimmer and glamour, in the original meaning of the Scots term – enchantment, spell. A swirl of delicately detailed flowers (violet, iris, hyacinth, tulip, honeysuckle, daffodil, ylang), Carat is very lovely fairy dance of gossamer-light, frost-edged pastel petals.

Rose Rouge N°19058NH, Van Cleef & Arpels

What gal doesn’t love roses and chocolates? And, if you’re anything like me, a good rose vetiver chypre. In Julien Rasquinet’s first fragrance for the always impeccable Collection extraordinaire, he matches petal and bean – the former an arrestingly natural fruity rose, the latter a slightly animalic cocoa extract – for a mouthwatering, yet amazingly light-textured effect. Exquisite work by the young perfumer-poet who signed Naomi Goodsir's wistful Iris Cendré.

Club Design, The Zoo

A winner of the 2018 Art & Olfaction Awards in the Artisan category – which I had the pleasure of handing to Christophe Laudamiel in London – Club Design offers a laser-sharp take on leather. Smoky saffron-dusted lily; burnt styrax; a yielding almond facet adds a touch of stretch to the kinky catsuit. The Zoo’s website recommends wearing this on clothes rather than skin, since it’s not quite IFRA-compliant for leave-on fragrance. But we’re all adults here. Do with Club Design as you damn well please – I have.

Orage, Louis Vuitton

Crackling citrus followed by a flint and petrichor accord… Orage could be a less alien(ating) version of Annick Menardo’s mesmerizing Peau d’Ailleurs for Philippe Starck. Simple, but it works.

Dark Lord, By Kilian

During my ISIPCA Summer School session this summer, I asked students to blind-smell three of Alberto Morillas’ fragrances and define his style. “This must be a very happy person”, they all agreed, and anyone who’s met the ever-smiling, genial Morillas would concur. So it’s kind of hilarious to see him do a fragrance called Dark Lord, in a Damien-Hirst-y, Goth box with a skull – it’s like casting Tom Hanks as Alistair Crowley. That said, Dark Lord brings his trademark fuzzy style to bear on everything that’s (deliciously) unholy in the perfumer’s palette. A delicately smoky vetiver, edging on the burnt, skewering booze-splashed leather, hides an unexpected puff of jasmine… The Devil is a smooth operator.

Illustration: Burning Flowers by Matt Collishaw

For more seasonal round-ups, please visit Bois de Jasmin, Now Smell This and The Non-Blonde.