artwork by Alexey Kurbatov via artonfix.com |
She's a rose with thorns, don't mess with her.German Expressionism never left us, really. The angular, shadowed architectural specimens encountered in places like New York City, reflected in the fantastical Gotham of the Batman series, and the numerous homages to emblematic leitmotifs of the movement, such as in the films of Burton, Proyas and -to a lesser degree- Allen, merely prove that the juxtaposition of light & shadow (a more schematic carry-over from the chiaroscuro of the Masters) is as relevant today as it ever was. After all, humans are a mix of the two, aren't they? More apropos, Serge Lutens might be making a cultural commentary of our times, right in the heart of the melting pot that is modern Europe: much as Siegfried Kracauer's study "From Caligari to Hitler" examines the trajectory from this strained, anguished cinema images of the Weimar Republik to Nazi Germany, today's world in crisis with the darkness prevailing in fashion & design might be a reflective prologue to an even darker, more sinister era. Respectable professors turning into ridiculed and despaired madmen, the light of the blond hair of Siegfried eclipsed.
She's a girl who goes to extremes.
When she can, she soothes; and when she wants ... !
Her fragrance lifts you higher, she rocks and shocks.
~Serge Lutens
Let's hope not, but it's a poignant and potent omen nevertheless.
The metallic opening in La Fille de Berlin fragrance predisposes for the treatment withheld for rose in Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent; chilling and distant, as if hailing from the tundra. But give it a few minutes in the warmth of a Blue Angel's skin, hot off the beckoning performance on the stage, and it turns into the softest, velvety rose with a cardamom impression and the tartness of a hint of raspberry. But even warmer things hide in the background with an intimate and dirty musk and civet allusion (so very familiar in the Lutens opus) surfacing to wrap things in plush and sex.
Those who have found Sa Majeste la Rose too green-fruity for their tastes and his Rose de Nuit marvelously creuscular but too elusive, would find a good ally in La Fille de Berlin. I find it more feminine than shared, but if like Serge himself, oh gentle man you're of the "perfume is a celebration" frame of mind, you might want to try it out for yourself.