Dior Dolce Vita: fragrance review of a perfumery classic

Photo by Bianca Czarnock on behance, borrowed for educational purposes

 

Dior's Dolce Vita fetes its 30th anniversary this year, being launched in 1994, when Dior was very careful with its new launches and the firm was creating mega-hits that shattered antagonism in one fell swoop. The promise of happiness, exuberance and confidence in Dolce Vita, in its flamboyant and optimistic package, looked smashing. A drop of sunshine, dropped magically in your lap, for special moments and for making it your own.

The scent of Dolce Vita by Dior indeed smells as voluptuous and sensuous as Anita Ekberg looks in the classic Fellini film La Dolce Vita. It was under the direction of legendary director Maurice Roger that Dolce Vita came to be, composed by Pierre Bourdon.

Under Roger's direction Dior's iconic perfume, Poison, was born in 1984, launched with much aplomb, as well as Fahrenheit in 1988 and later in 1994 the subject of our story, Dolce Vita. The fuzzy peach fruitiness in Dolce Vita is part of its succes. The effect, possible since at least Mitsouko by Guerlain in 1917, is mainly accountable to γ-undecalactone and despite many other molecular options today, it is still used by perfumers. The scent thus becomes wondrously sensual, with a fuzzy feel akin to caressing the skin of a peach or a smooth epidermis still with vellus hair, all tactile contours. Just beautiful. With the addition of baked goods cinnamon, the pleasantry in the fragrance is exponentially increased. The inclusion of palissander, commonly known as rosewood, is what ties the comfortable woody backdrop with the gourmand impression of the more delectable notes and makes for a soft, pliable, squishy feminine woody. 

Happiness in Dolce Vita lies in sweet accords that immediately seize you by the taste buds: warm cinnamon, spicy cardamom adding a middle-eastern touch, and the juicy lushness of soft apricots and lush peaches. An accent of juicy citrus puts a welcome dash of sharpness so as not to lose the bones amidst the plush. The magnolia, key within the floral bouquet, puts a spin on the citrusy fruitiness and almost lends air to the molecules. It feels expansive and melodious in the air at this stage. Finally the composition renders woody and soft notes: as the scent of Dolce Vita dries down the notes of palissander with heliotrope and vanilla beckon you even closer. It's a come hither of a scent, yet exuberant and confident too. 

I have dedicated an anniversary article to Dolce Vita on Fragrantica, if you care to read in its entirety.

Hermes Equipage: fragrance review

If Calèche encapsulates perfumer Guy Robert's idea of a great taste feminine perfume, then Équipage is his idea of the perfect masculine; sober, handsome, restrained, graceful. These two Hermès fragrances embody both the house's easy, effortless elegance aesthetic (you can imagine them as "old money" contrasted with nouveau rich) and Guy Robert's idea that only a "lived-in" ambience about a scent makes it truly romantic; if you need more proof you can just test out Madame Rochas and his other marvels (Amouage Gold, Dioressence etc).

Scent Description 
Aromatic, spicy and woody, the brief for Équipage was based on the success of Monsieur Rochas, composed by the same perfumer (Guy Robert) just one year prior, demanding the scent of a "cold pipe".  Word has it that Jean Louis Sieuzac also worked on this one. The smokiness is there all right (I'm hypothesizing birch tar to give a smoked leather note, reminiscent of the Cuir de Russie type of scents), but there's pungent dryness instead of the usual rum casket fantasies of honeyed milky tobacco; such as the ones evoking languorous Turkish escapades that Lutens brings to his Fumerie Turque, to cite but one example.  Liatris is an interesting note: it possesses both a herbaceous facet on one end and a hay & tobacco facet with only a subtly vanillic undercurrent on the other end, so it balances off nicely the bitter, pungent top notes of Équipage, reinforcing the concept of a smoking pipe.

Équipage is resolutely old-school and conservative smelling ~therefore probably anathema to anyone under 40, unless they have a perfume obsession~ and like an experienced acrobat balances between strength and finery, between the rustic herbs, the bitterness of the clary sage opening and the bite of cloves, on a base of smooth wood notes and a little sweet floral touch, a combination as dependable as a gentleman of the old guard. The florals cited in official notes description give only half the truth: the lily of the valley gives but crispness, the rosewood a profusion of linalool (that ingredient familiar from classic lavender), the carnation adds a clovey tint, as carnation composing was done by utilizing clove essence.
The true character of the fragrance evolves from the evolution of the aromatic, rustic and bitter herbal essences into rich woody, earthy notes in the drydown with a tinge of leather notes. In this it is in the same league as the equally magnificent Derby by Guerlain, which epitomizes the smooky woody fragrance genre; perhaps the Guerlain is a bit more balsamic and greener than the Hermès.

Who is it for?
I can vividly picture Équipage on a tweed-clad man out in the woods, lithe, supply riding his horse with his gun between horse bridles and saddle, leather lapels & patches on the jacket, having a good time only to return home when the sun is beginning to set. Perhaps it's so old-school that such a picture doesn't really seem ridiculous or overblown. Hermès at any rate likes to emphasize its "team player" name, showing the bottle over the photo of a rowing team. Cool, I get it. That's got to be some posh British college we're talking about, where the idea of a team spells dedication and loyalty and doesn't mess with anyone's individuality. Équipage smells perfectly individual nowadays, sticking like a diamond ring among graphite pencils, so perhaps my modern take is skewed. I suppose more men smelled in some variation of this liquid nectar back then....and oh boy, weren't those the times.

Équipage seems perfectly at ease on a smoker too, a heavy one at that, fusing with the remnants of the ashtray scent on the clothes into producing something delightful rather than repelling. No wonder in this age of cigarette demonisation Équipage looks like an outcast. Most interestingly this masculine eau de toilette works well in both the hot and cold season and lasts equally impressively, as it seems to morph to suit the weather. Winter brings out its crispness of sweet earth and woods. Summer heat highlights its cooling herbal, almost mentholated effect and its spicy kick.

I am a bit at a loss on how it would be possible to recommend it be worn by women, evocative as it is of virile-looking men like Sean Connery, however I have to share that I indulge myself in my vintage bottle more often than I'd care to admit. Perhaps there's something to be said about women embracing the idea of wearing a virile scent from time to time...

Vintage vs Modern Équipage 
The vintage versions of Équipage bear a light brown cap with a screw top design; the modern is sparse, black, architectural. The modernised version, available at  Hermès boutiques and department stores with a big selection of Hermès fragrances where you will have to ask for it by name, has attenuated some of the pungency and projection of this fragrance, without messing too much with its bouquet garni of herbs. If anything it's more citrusy and terpenic now than leathery, but not by much.

Notes for Hermès Équipage: 
Top: bergamot, rosewood, lily of the valley, clary sage, tarragon, marjoram
Middle: jasmine, carnation, pine, hyssop, liatris (a herbaceous perennial)
Base: Vetiver, patchouli, tonka bea, amber

Nina Ricci L'Air du Temps: Fragrance Review & History of a True Classic

Reflecting on a classic fragrance which has inspired me into delving deeper into perfume history and appreciation, I can’t disregard L’Air du Temps by Nina Ricci, one of the most recognizable perfumes in the world. Even Hannibal Lecter is quoted smelling it on Clarisse Starling in Silence of the Lambs: “You use Evian skin products and sometimes L’Air du Temps… but not today...”.
Despite any foreboding connotations, the perfume's introduction in 1948 under a name halfway between Marivaux and Cocteau (denoting ‘the spirit of the times’) hallmarked a longed-for return to optimism. Much like Miss Dior was ‘tired of letting off bombs and just wanted to let off fireworks’, L’Air du Temps presented the new found hope for peace after the ravages of WWII, as reflected by the original flacon design of a sun with a dove perched on the stopper by Christian Bérard.

 Iconic Design and Symbolism


L'Air du Temps is a triumph of bottle art and symbolism: The intertwining doves affectionately termed ‘Les Colombes’, a romantic theme by Marc Lalique, originates from 1951 and came to denote the virginal quality of the visual aspects of its representation, perpetuated in its advertising ever since. Originally the 1948 design envisioned by Jean Rebull and materialized by crystallier Marc Lalique involved a rising sun surmounted by a single dove. The interwining doves however marked the "kiss and make up" peace mood after WWII.
The "colombes" kissing motif also reflected the ever feminine, always understated and ethereallly romantic Nina Ricci sartorial fashions; nothing vulgar! The perfume became signage for fashions: "The most romantic gift of fragrance a man can give a woman" came to be accompanied by elfish gowns that draped the female form in a slippery, ethereal, 19th-century-aesthete nostalgic way; lacy ivory and white denoting youthful and -a little faded- aristocracy rusticating in the sunny French countryside.The L'Air du temps advertising mostly matched.
In 1999 the L'Air du Temps flacon was named "perfume bottle of the century".

Scent Description
The formula of L'Air du Temps, composed by Francis Fabron, was simple : no more than 30 ingredients which co-exist in harmony, a chaste -but not quite- bouquet of flowers enrobed into the silken sheath of benzyl salicylate; a massive dose of an –at the time- innovative product aiding the blending and linear evaporation of the other molecules. According to perfumer Bernard Chant “‘[benzyl salicylate] produces a diffusing, blooming effect very pleasing to the public”. Coupled with spicy eugenol and isoeugenol, the effect becomes almost carnation-like with its clove tint : the very heart of L’Air du Temps ! The celestial opening of bergamot and rosewood is undermined by the sensuous note, half-lily, half-carnation, suave with the fuzziness of skin-like peach and a green hint of gardenia. Powdery orris, coupled with dusky woods –poised at the intersection of winter falling into spring- and a faint amber note finish off the fragrance. The effect is peachy-carnation-y and very characteristic: a sort of Doris Day, the way she was, rather staunchy actually, active and hard to eradicate, rather than how she appeared to be in those rom-coms of the 1950s, all mock innocence and eyelashes aflutter.

The success of the classic Nina Ricci fragrance seems to be the sassiness of its aerated, distinctive bouquet coupled with its refined classicism, sometimes maxed out to sentimentality : an aspect which prompted critic Luca Turin to joke it was created for romantics “who shed a tear listening to La Sonate au Clair de Lune*”. Maybe not quite that way, considering how the latter might have been an impromptu requiem on someone’s deathbed. At any rate, the trickle-down effect must speak of the need to do just that: the skeleton of the formula has been imitated in various soaps, deodorants and hairsprays for decades, while in itself L’Air du Temps has influenced many other fragrances from Fidji (Guy Laroche) and Madame Rochas to Anaïs Anaïs (Cacharel).

 Comparing Vintage vs. Modern L'Air du Temps Perfume

Nowadays the suaveness of the original formula has been somewhat compromised, due to necessary surgery dictated by allergens concerns… The peach base is mollified into synthetic submission, the carnation is less spicy and rich than before, the whole excellent exercise seems less itself as if it has been Botoxed into a perpetual complacent smile....yet L’Air du Temps is still instantly recognizable in its sillage, the trail left by the many that pass by wearing it : the mark of a true classic !
The bottle design can be a gauge of age: Vintage Eau de Toilette from the 1970s and 1980s circulates in the amphora-like bottle with the gold cap in splash, while spray bottles are long and encased in white bakelite. If the front of the bottle has the doves in relief and the plastic cap is rounded and in relief as well, your specimen comes from the 1990s.

The vintage parfum is in the characteristic Lalique design with the perched doves atop. Old models of diluted concentration can also be in ribbed sprayers with gold overimposed sprayer mechanisms in squarish design. Really old versions can be in a round flask bottle with a boule cap in splash form.
Modern  eau de toilette on the contrary is in the familiar fluted oval-shaped bottle, reprising the dove design on the top in transparent plastic, the cap going over the sprayer mechanism. 

(*) Piano sonata N°14 by L.van Beethoven

This review is based on a text I had previously composed for Osmoz.com