What is Chic ?

The human brain needs small incentive to go on a day dreaming track when provoked. A casual question on a perfume forum made me think about what constitutes chic in perfume. The unanimous response reigning supreme was Chanel #19, a scent I personally love and consider very chic indeed. Other chypres also featured prominently. However the issue deserves pondering on and not just writing it off with a few predictable recommendations.
Antisthenes the famous Greek philosopher, has a saying attributed to him, by which I have abided all my life: roughly translated, the beginning of wisdom lies in exploring meanings. So what is chic? I have thought about that, first of all.

via tubearc.blogspot.com

People have different definitions: some consider chic equals “confidence, timelessness...fragrances that are effortlessly stylish”, others say that it “means fashionable, to be sure, but also stylish in a kind of lean 'n' mean, insolent, provocative way” and cites models of a certain designer house as examples.
Ayala, a perfumer herself had this to offer: “timelessly stylish (as opposed to the passing fashion-du-jour). There must be something about it just a little bit cool or aloof in a way - as if there is no real attachment to the scent (or the fashion item), and they are just used as a tool...”

Luca Turin addressed the issue in a humorous way in The Emperor of Scent:

“Chic is first when you don’t have to prove you have money, either because
you have lots, so it doesn’t matter or because you don’t have and it doesn’t
matter. Chic is not aspirational. Chic is the most impossible thing to define.
Luxury is a humorless thing, largely and when humor happens in luxury it happens
involuntarily. Chic is all about humor. Which means chic is about intelligence.
And there has to be oddness –most luxury is conformist and chic cannot be. Chic
must be polite and not incommode others, but within that it can be as weird as
it wants.”

By that same token, Madame Clouzot, sister to film director Henri-Georges Clouzot in talking about French perfumery she deemed only two houses as really great French perfumers. She then ascribed Guerlain to cocottes (=kept women), while Caron was for duchesses (proper, proper chic). What the French consider chic nowadays is “a sort of kept-woman vulgarity”, luxury that shows. So I do find myself simpatico with that opinion expressed above. 

Many times women’s glossy magazines, fashion editors and coffee table books devoted to style do spreads with images alluding to the following ladies: Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly - and Katherine Hepburn if the editor is having a good day...More subversive personalities, like Diane Vreeland or D.Furstenberg, are considered exceptions that consolidate the rule. In that light, chic at some point deteriorated to certain "style-icons" of Western perception and scope.
A pearl necklace, a camel coat and black leather pumps look. You know what I mean. Timeless, classic, a little preppy. (I am having a difficult time imagining in those terms what would be chic in India, for instance, if one takes into consideration clothes’ tradition and climatic differences) But what was it that equated chic with that look? Is this chic? Not if a hundred women out there go out and copy it; because isn't chic supposed to be sophisticated? And what is so sophisticated and individual in following in the footsteps of someone else, someone as well known as the style icons just mentioned? I mean, everyone would expect it. Hmmmm...

In the interests of objectivity I searched the term online too.

The Free Dictionary had this to offer:

adj. chic•er, chic•est
1. Conforming to the current fashion; stylish:
chic clothes; a chic boutique.
2. Adopting or setting current fashions and
styles; sophisticated: chic, well-dressed young executives. See Synonyms at
fashionable.
noun
1. The quality or state of being stylish;
fashionableness.
2. Sophistication in dress and manner; elegance.

By that definition, chic has a stylish air, a contemporary element (not something obsolete) and yet possesses elegance aplenty.
Also there is this definition by Wikipedia: “means stylish or smart, as reflected in styles of fashion such as heroin chic or boho-chic”. This leaves much more leeway, though, for almost anything.

via goldgorgeous.blogspot.com

So what are the perfumes that personify all the elements of chic? What is elegant, contemporary, sophisticated, non aspirational, confident, insouciant, and humourous?
Maybe it can be better defined by what is not in that league.

Too much luxury has an effect of “blinding” the sensory receptors, registering as bordering on show-off. Cascades of costly ingredients, rich velvet feel, gold tinged nuances: all that points to the direction that the wearer wants to be perceived as wearing a rich perfume (why that would be desirable, enough to make it to a beauty magazine such as Allure with the corresponding views of Frédéric Malle -the head of “ Éditions de parfums”- in the article "How to smell discreetly rich", is perhaps the theme of another article). What could be included in this super-luxe category? Obviously the Clive Christian and Amouage perfumes, which are so costly they surely stand as the olfactory equivalent of a Hèrmes Birkin bag -in crocodile skin, no less; costs as much as a small car and has a waiting list of at least two years. I’d rather give my money to charity, thank you.

Unfortunately, although not as pretentious, there are other perfumes, lovely, gorgeous perfumes that bring to mind lush plush and starched banknotes: Joy, Shalimar, Boucheron femme and homme, 24 Faubourg. They don’t smell un-chic. But they do smell conformist, like someone who wants others to know he/she has good taste. Alas many oriental fragrances suffer from this affliction.

Too much sexuality is also anathema to chic, not because very sexual beings are not chic per se (they can be, as proven by some), but because advertising one’s sexuality with perfume might border on the desperate. So hairy-chested, virile, traditional male aftershaves that purport their attractant properties like Kouros pheromonic experiments and perfumes that have the dubious fame of resembling odorata sexualis (such as Musc Ravageur, Boudoir, Shocking, Obsession or Ambre Sultan to name but a few) bring to mind catcalls to carnality and cannot be seen as insouciant. Sorry…They do serve their other purposes admirably, though.
Too much experimentation on the other hand, that avant garde that is so prevalent among niche brands with unusual synthetic ingredients that mimic everyday objects of sometimes even an unpleasant nature, are also removed from the elegant part of the equation. Comme des garηons is a prime candidate, although I love their Incense series.
Obsolete creations that have withstood a myriad incarnations or bring on the reminiscence of another era can also be excluded. They do attach themselves to ageist jokes of a cruel nature and this is sadly to their detriment as well as to the joker’s. I am afraid Quelques Fleurs suffers from this fate, along with certain old lavenders, such as Yardley English Lavender. It’s not a fault of the perfume; it’s just that they seem far-away and not intended for a major revival.
And there is no need for me to elaborate on why fragrances that smell too much like food do not have associations with chic, now is there?

So what does that leave? I find iris scents and non invasive chypres chic. Some aldehydics can be too, if they don't conform too much. Even some select orientals could, if one wears Opium the way I do: very casually. Yes, Chanel #19 is very chic, exactly because it never shows off and is never more or less than a lady. Miss Dior is also playfully audacious and naughty under the effluvium of floral notes. Rive Gauche vintage is so coldly steely it can cut a swath in a room and make everyone wonder without ever becoming bothersome. Bois des iles is wonderfully composed to sit equally well on men and women, in formal or informal attire. Tauer’s L’air du desert worn by a discerning male could be very chic. Defiant. Mitsouko in all its veiled mystery can be chic, simply because it never elicits the instant recognition compliments and is sexual in a most intriguing, never obvious way. Guerlain Vetiver is always chic; dicreet but individual. Alpona or Jicky on a man could be all those things as well. I would like to put Madame Rochas in its older incarnation in this league, along with modern ones like Voleur de roses, Timbuktu, Fumerie Turque, Tubereuse Criminelle and Iris Poudre. Possibly there are others too.

Does perfume play such a major part in grafting chic-ness onto an individual? Is that even possible? I don’t know for certain. All I know is that chic needs humour. So maybe even the least expected perfume can be viewed as chic on a person who has the wit to make it his/her own.

War of the Worlds: naturals vs synthetics

The first half of my title today, which alludes to the famous H.G.Wells novel, is perhaps implying polemics of a greater magnitude. Still, it is hardly a small-scale issue.
Over the last decade a shocking realization dawned in the minds of most people. Ours was a polluted world, a world of decay and man-made confusion. A world in which Man had distanced himself from Nature.
The 90’s saw a growing concern about the environment, animal rights, the resources still available and the reversion to a way of life that would be purer and cleaner. Organic food, fair trade and a return to traditional techniques entered our vocabularies and our lives. Perfume was just one part of the equation that would go with the flow. Or would it?

Perfumes of yore have been changing their formulae over the past 2 decades at least (in many cases many more) substituting ingredients of a dubious origin with newer ones, usually of a synthetic nature.
The use of synthetic molecules is nothing new, of course. Jicky was the precursor of the modern perfume with its use of not one, but three synthetics (linalool, isolated from rosewood for the first time; coumarin isolated from the tonka bean; and vanillin of course) in 1889. Its success brought about the modernization of perfume as an art form and a new era dawned. Chanel #5 was the other great classic to make use of the aldehydic aroma-chemical family. In some cases it was necessity on the creative side that prompted the innovation brought by certain chemical molecules; gardenia or lily of the valley scents have to be created some other way, because the flower does not yield a satisfactory essence for perfumery. Milk is a note recreated in lactone, because it seemed like a nice, ground breaking idea at some point to include such a note in a composition.

Cut into today. The scarcity of certain ingredients, such as natural ambergris for example or the soon to be depleted natural sandalwood from India, as well as the ethical questions raised concerning the use of others still, such as the deer musk secretion and that of natural civet, have been only one of the factors that directed a new approach. The new guidelines of the European Union/IFRA and of the FDA dictated a substitution of ingredients which would pose a risk of allergic reactions or toxicity. Oakmoss is among them. So is birch tar and coumarin. Reasons of stability, longevity, unlimited possibilities and consistency also come into play for companies.
The issue is complex and companies rarely admit to the change for their own reasons, giving a rise to angered voices complaining of a cheapening of the formula (voices which are not always that educated themselves, I am afraid).
New launches have been proportionately bigger in synthetic ingredients than natural ones, of course. There are even perfumes composed entirely of synthetic ingredients, prompting Chandler Burr in his Synthetic No.5 article in the New York Times (Face, Aug.27) to hint that one very popular perfume is made so and the company is not letting him reveal the name because of the huge prejudice against synthetics in consumers’ minds.

Although I agree with his points made before that, namely that synthetics are expensive as well (sometimes even more so than naturals) and that the notion that natural equates safe while synthetic equates dangerous is not entirely true, I have to point out that this might explain the ignorance of an average consumer, but it does not stand up to a perfume lover’s scrutiny. And this is what Perfume Shrine is always striving to accomplish completely independently and non-strings-attached.

“Creating a perfume without them [synthetics] is like painting a picture without blues or reds. You could do it, but why?”

mr.Burr quips.

Personally I find this rather irrational. The spectrum is composed of 7 colours in the visible
end, which would make us think that therefore synthetics amount to 2/7 of the
total of possible smells. And yet, there are thousands of smells not yet experienced! A never ending journey into the compounds that make up our world and the worlds farther off in the cosmos. The human nose knows no boundaries in this quest. So it would be a little presumptuous to declare that synthetics, man-made substances, have the ability to encompass almost 30% of all smells.

The following quote is also a bit over the edge to me:

“every great scent, from Armani to Gaultier to Lauren, is built on them [synthetics]”.

Not to dwell on the fact that the afore-mentioned houses have not produced that many great scents (because that might be just my personal opinion), but to imply that only the use of synthetics accounts for the production of a great scent rules out centuries of masterpieces that have been maybe lost on us.

There is another prejudice, I am afraid; that one is on the part of perfume experts ~and non-experts alike~ regarding natural perfumers. Some aromatherapists started blending simple perfumes from essential oils about a decade or so back. Those of course were not proper perfumes but alloys for the enhancement of an experience in a spa or meditation. Then, Mandy Aftel wrote Essence and Alchemy which spawned the interest in natural perfumes. Natural perfumers are not aromatherapists, who use aromas for their beneficial use on the mind and body. They just like the aesthetics of natural ingredients and have a greater appreciation of nature’s complexity. They use concretes and absolutes that aromatherapists don't use, not to mention that they study classical perfume structure. Seems pretty valid to me. The main objection of perfume experts has always been that it would be difficult to manipulate natural essences, because they can be multi-nuanced and changing from batch to batch, and to coax them to comply with the given objective in the creative process. Natural perfumery has only got to prove that it can and the proof would be in the pudding, so to speak.

To cut a long story short, the issue is not easily resolved and there should be no aphorism uttered about either naturals or synthetics in my mind.
In the interests of keeping things on a balance however I have embarked on the appreciation of certain natural perfumes, three of which produced by Anya’s Garden I will go on to review shortly. So stay tuned!



Pic from the Girbaud controversial campaign.

Arabian Attars: a journey to the mundane?

A while ago, I got a very kind invitation by Janet (Spadefoot) from Perfume of Life to review some Arabian attars which she had brought with her back from Yemen.
She told me that she would be pleased if I reviewed them. So, as promised, here it is.

The little package came with a postcard created by Janet herself: a great sketch of a tourist photographing two muslim women wearing the chador and humouring the photographer with playful gestures to one another. She had written on it: “Enjoy the journey” with a wide, sweeping handwriting that denotes artistic tendencies and expressive personality.
The little box that held the perfumes was a sight: bright vermillion and purple, painted by her on a box which seemed to be an Altoids tin in a previous incarnation. I found this so fitting; a humble box that would hold humble –maybe- perfumes, but full of brightness and confidence. Not an Ali-Baba cave, full of costly treasure, but a journey to the everyday. This touched me; simple, poor, honest people are just as entitled to the mythical, the chimerical, the fantasy.

The perfumes were all in oil form, thick and viscous, in varying colours that capture one’s fancy like the multicoloured crayons in a Caran d’Ache box catch the fascination in a child’s eye. The word Attar refers traditionally to distillations of vegetal materials into sandalwood or sesame oil, used mainly in India. It could also be applied to more modern perfumes in oil form, as I have experienced in Middle Eastern perfumes before. These are not exactly natural extracts, but that is beside the point in an international industry that increasingly uses mostly synthetics in its products. In fact many of the “attars” smell natural enough to me. The texture meant that although they seem very concentrated and potently harsh at first, they mellow nicely on the skin, not evolving in the classical pyramid of French perfumery that relies on gradual evaporation, but remaining close to the conceived theme of each one, only allowing their more volatile ingredients to exit noiselessly.
I do not know who makes those compositions, which made my olfactory adventure all the more exciting.

This introduction to my fragrant journey reminded me in turn of the Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami and his films dealing with the mundane becoming philosophical. In particular A taste of cherry (Ta'm e guillas-1997) and Where is the friend's house? (Khane-ye doust kodjast? -1987). In the former a man is intent on committing suicide traveling all over the country, meeting people along the way and conversing, only to change his mind upon encountering an old man who was about to do the same but says the taste of cherry saved his life. In the latter a small boy is furtively searching the streets of the city, gaining experiences meanwhile, in pursuit of his schoolmate’s house in order to deliver his workbook that he had secretly borrowed, without which on the morrow his mate will be expelled from classes.
In this little non-heroic Odyssey I found the measure of my inspiration: imagine if a mature woman went through the streets of Yemen, this time, in pursuit of something else, savouring the tastes and smells along the way.

Arbitrarily I decided to baptise her Jasmin, an Arabian name of both the sweet little flower that is my favourite bloom and of women. Her true nature hidden by the conventional façade of an arranged marriage that had given her a family.

To quote Rabindranath Tagor (an indian poet)

“Yet my memory is still sweet with the first white jasmines
which I held in
my hands when I was a child.”

She would have an honest hard-working husband and kind children, friends and acquaintances. She would be tender, motherly, a little shy, a little wistful. She would smell of Abu Younis, honouring thus the losses of her youth. A light golden liquid like cloudy honey dribbling over lovers’ skin, like living things giving off their juice, smelling of citrus on the top like lime/lemon with a sharp greenness, segueing into a heart of rich and tender rose. She would evoke the nuance of a noble floral chypré with just a touch of the male in there, perhaps due to some incense or balsam (so ingrained in the Arabian tradition), to give a melancholic aspect of a long lost love that was not meant to be.

It would be a haphazard meeting with an old acquaintance that would remind her of that long lost love. Her gossipy, flamboyant, female friend would smell of Wejdan.
Golden ambery in colour it is fruity with peaches and plums, some bittersweet heliotropin in there and maybe even orange blossom, sweet vanillic ambery in the fond with just a touch of the animalic; this one would be the least Arabic in that cornucopia of smells that is an Arabian perfume shop recalling in fact a bastard L’heure bleue with its equally bittersweet background crossed with the very sweet nature of Jean Paul Gaultier Classique. That’s one acquaintance to either love or hate.
A passing mention of a man now ill, terminally ill, a man that had been the secret passion of Jasmin long ago, would set the latter upon a spontaneous one-day journey to the end of the town to bid him perhaps the last goodbye.

In her mental eye the woman Jasmin could have been beside him would be different, best represented by the whitish yellow of Shaikha: full of floral notes of a carnal and feminine nature such as lush jasmine that scents the alleys of middle eastern towns with its sweet fragrance during the balmy nights and exotic ylang ylang flowers touched with a little acrid wood and maybe a touch of leather; sensual, joyful , exalted. In this rendition the two flowers are intense and Arabian in nature; what Lutens might have come up with, not Guerlain. Perhaps not as complex, but uplifting and bright.

Her next stop would be at the mosque. Mosques are beautiful things, creatures of myth, tabulae for the arabesque word of spirituality. The majestic one in Cordoba is breathtaking. Yemen, I am sure, has many beautiful ones as well. The air is thick with incense, the walls sweat pure musk, ingrained as it is in the mortar by local craftsmen. And the mustiness of centuries would be a reminder of our own mortality. Although not musky to my nose, Shayma’a was my olfactory choice for that stop on Jasmin’s journey. It has a decidedly musty and herbal opening with a balsamic quality later on that recalls both frankincense and sweeter Peru Balsam. The rose is also making an appearance as it is so precious to muslims to appear almost everywhere, representing their tradition and unifying spirituality and sensuality in its thick petals.
The scent of wood is also prevalent, making this one a very complex and intriguing alloy that can be worn by both sexes who are willing to try something different.

Prayer though only being able to do so much, Jasmin would have to leave the mosque behind her as well. On to the streets through the souk she would bypass the rich reddish yellow of saffron and the dark brown of clove, dates and raisins wrinkling up in the heat, the proximity of numerous human bodies in all their olfactory glory, but also the smells of Maysoon and Zamani. Both of these are completely lovable, simple creations encompassing pleasing and agreeable notes that are more traditional and acceptable by a Western idiosyncrasy.
Maysoon is a light golden liquid with the playful, pretty, juicy smell of roses and violet leaves, with a fruity touch, insinuating perhaps the added use of damascones (which are naturally occurring in rose anyway); a sweet concoction for a young lady that is smiling behind her chador/yashmak, hinting with kholed eyes at a desire for private frivolity expressed by the background of some sandalwood oil. I see a street vendor trying to sell this to Jasmin herself, only to be rejected politely, and being asked for something for her young daughter instead.
Enter Zamani, a yellowish oil of lightness and zing that is owed to expressed peel of lemon coupled with the sharp note of petigrain perhaps, smelling like squashed lemon leaves, with pepper and another spicy note (which sadly eludes me), soaring into uplifting octaves of lightness and air, cutting through the heat of the Arabian landscape. I can very well see her buying that last one and her daughter smiling while playing dress-up in the small mirror on the stucco-ed wall. I see even her brother stealing drops of it when going out to flirt the veiled young ladies with his eyes.

As she would make her way through the market streets, tourists browsing and forgetting to haggle with the locals, she would change the itinerary to pass through less crowded places, allowing herself to glimpse through windows, catching women darning their husbands’ socks, children playing with frogs or chasing pitiful, dirty little dogs, men smoking the narguilé in silence lost in reverie, even a young bride getting dressed in the best cloth affordable by the family, anointed with Haneen al-Qulub in eager preparation. This oil of rich yellow was one of my favourites. I could see why the delicate young bride would wear it; soft, powdery, like a classic aldehydic perfume, rather sweet but not too much, it has the fizzy rush of someone embarking on an exciting adventure, oblivious to possible trouble; optimistic yet grounded with a little suede note hiding a budding sexuality. The more one wears it, the more it blends in to the natural smell of skin baked in the sun, imperceptible, yet still there, sensual and feminine, warm and inviting.

Diverting her eye and the melancholy such a sight would naturally produce in a woman who entered an arranged marriage, Jasmin would carry on to the little sweet shop in the edge of the town, in close proximity to her youth’s would-be-lover who had remained only the stuff of dreams and what-ifs all these years.
There she would purchase local variation loukhoums, smelling sweetly a bit like Mokhalat al Sed’ae. The white-gold of the liquid is watery like the airy flower-water of diluted neroli in the recipe of loukhoums, almondy like their flavour, rosy like the powderiness dusting sugar leaves on the palate, with the innocence of a white rose, like cherry pits in maraschino, yet not exactly gourmand in the sense we are accustomed to, neither exactly like loukhoum, but I wanted to fit this anyway I guess.
I liked the perfume oil a lot, I have to admit.

(By the way, to make loukhoums according to my recipe, one
would need 2 cups sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, ½ cup hot water,all of which one
would boil to thick syrup. One would then need to mix 2 tablespoons powdered
gelatin in ½ cup water separately and after a while add it to the hot syrup. To
that one would add ½ cup orange juice or flower water, 2 tablespoons lemon
juice, optionally 2/3 cup almond whites -roasted and cut coarsely- and ½
teaspoon bitter almond or rose essence. One would then pour into a wide pan,
refrigerate for 6 hours and when firm cut in little squares and roll onto
dusting sugar.)

Armed with loukhoums, to sweeten bitter memories of involuntary parting for the second time, Jasmin would call upon Karim (the imaginary name I devised for the ill man). He would be alone, deserted, with only a nurse to look after him. His tired face would alight upon finding out who the matronly lady was. Years had passed so quickly, only to stall in illness now.
After a few exchanges, he would direct her silently to an old chest of drawers squeaking when used. It smelled of aged Oudh. Old, musty, mouldy, the way a cold crypt would smell hiding bones of the holy or the unholy, it didn’t even matter by then… The dark thick oil that was named after that precious wood (which also comes by the name of oud, aoudh, aloewood or agarwood ) is dark brown, a singular colour for a perfume oil. Unusual and unfriendly, it would be very hard to wear alone, as if demons were festering a tortured body. And yet, it is an ingredient of so many fine perfumes it makes one wonder how the demonic can be rendered sublime.
In the words of Françoise Sagan:

"Doesn't perfume derive its beauty from that sensation of a time that doesn't
flow, but soars? Everything in this world is but smoke.”

To the bottom drawer, unused for years it seemed, under numerous yellowed papers she unearthed a little box; bright vermillion and purple. Inside it a man’s once-upon-a-time perfumed handkerchief holding a dried up remnant of a rose, smelling the way Taif smells. Rather musty and chypré, it has the vicious colour of absinthe, the green fairy of the damned poets’ soul. Its bitterness and mysterious smoky leather envelops the floral, its musty like vetiver background is reminiscent of the eponymous liquor too in its controversial reputation.

She instantly knew. That was her parting gift, her memento. No words were necessary. The long journey home awaited her.

I don’t know if “the taste of cherry” could save a desperate man’s life. It seems unlikely. It could certainly enrich a woman’s experience however and I am honoured I tasted it through that imaginary woman thanks to Spadefoot’s generosity.

Art in perfumery part deux: post-modernism?

In my previous post I elaborated on what constitutes art in perfumery and what criteria must apply for it to be defined as such. Some perfume lines were scrutinised in order to decide whether they deserve the term or not. Considering that some perfumes are in some degree artistically conceived and not merely as a means of generating income for the conglomerates that so often produce the majority of perfume today, the next question would be what style and period of art do they belong to and if post-modernism features in there.

Takashi Murakami Super Dob

According to certain theorists all art can roughly be divided into two extremes: classicism and baroque, styles antithetical to one another and with the consistent habit of succeeding one another through the passing of time.
Nota bene that it is of paramount importance for our purposes further on, though, to differentiate those terms clearly. I do not refer only to their standard definitions regularly used. I use them in a broader artistic sense. Thus by classicism we can not only define the ancient greek and roman art, nor the 18th century genre that mimicked some of those attributes, nor still the things that are generally viewed as “classics” by the layman.
Even within ancient greek art (which one would label classic, without thinking twice about it) the two extremes are inherent; the golden century of Pericles that provided such masterpieces as Diadoumenos was swiftly followed just another century after that by the equally exquisite Hellenistic baroque with Laokoon and the Snakes. Surely these two examples cannot be lumped into the same stylistic technique or aim of the artist. One is calm and sure of itself, relying on perfect harmony and rules. The other is full of expressive agony, imbalance and agitation.


In J.K.Huysman’s English translation of his famous book A rebours/Against the grain (Albert & Charles Boni), Havelock Ellis notes in the introduction that classicism is the subjection of detail to the form, the parts subordinated to the whole; while baroque/decadence is the antithesis of that; the glory of the detail above the whole, the homogenous in Spencerian phraseology becoming heterogeneous. Therefore classicism precedes baroque and can also be considered more “correct” as it has its roots into functionality. (the aim is served by the technique and not the other way around). He goes on to give examples from architecture and literature ( early Gothic is classic, late Gothic is decadent, Hume and Gibbon are classic, Emerson and Carlyle decadent)

I couldn’t agree more, even though I am personally drawn to baroque.
Baroque exalts segmentation over the whole, striving for the virtues of individuality. It tries to make beauty out of imbalance and feeling out of clash. Romanticism is baroque. German expressionism is baroque.

In that respect perfumery can also be seen through this lens; series of classical perfumes in contrast to baroque ones.
Classical perfumes are those that have a smooth balance of notes to serve an idea behind them that unifies the whole into one precise image, one specific aim. In my mind such perfumes are Allure by Chanel or Femme by Rochas. They give out a very balanced precise message. Every chord is serving that message: “like me” for Allure; “ravage me” for Femme. The nuances are there to serve the general purpose, no matter what that latter is.

In contrast there are other perfumes that follow a baroque sensibility, focusing on detail: Bal a Versailles, Angelique Encens, Tubereuse Criminelle are orchestrated in segmented glory in order to make us appreciate every evolving stage and hint at various different messages along the way. Although two of those are considered “classics”, this does not by any means refer to the term already discussed, but rather to their endurance to the passing of trends.

To make this issue contemporary and relevant and not an art history lesson, I have pondered on the art movements of the 20th century from post-impressionism to fauves to cubism to Dada, from modern and post-modern to pop art to Damien Hirst. Again the succession of classical style to baroque continues. Perfumery did not have so many phases as the visual arts, but it did have its fluctuations in style which does not mean they are clearly divided always into “pockets” of style. From the revolutionary modern phase of the late 19th century that produced Jicky and on to the roaring 20’s with their Guerlain Shalimar and Caron Tabac Blond to the 50’s with their lighter aldehydics and feminine chypres, to the 70’s with their emancipated scents or hippy-ish oils, to the opulence of the 80’s and on to the sparseness of the 90’s and full circle to the baroque gourmands of recent years.

However it was a comment by a poster on MUA, named Rhian, who got me into thinking that if the great perfume classics are those created before the 1930’s (the period of modernism in art and also the basis of most revolutionary setting of rules for modern perfumery) what exactly personifies the olfactory post-modernism?
Rhian reminded me of Louis Sass, who in his book Madness and Modernism elaborated on the shared disjunctive narratives, surreal images, and incoherence of both post-modern art and schizophrenia, which is intriguing to say the least.
I personally disagree with John Cage's maxim:

"Emotions do not interest me. Emotions have long been known to be dangerous.
You must free yourself of your likes and dislikes."

In my opinion perfumery is deeply rooted to the physical, being a transportation of the senses, so any cerebral interpretation has to go through this aspect still; we react very viscerally to smell, even though we may *think* about the specific stimulus in a certain way. So yes, in that regard perfumery as a whole could be viewed as an antidote to the mind frame of post-modernism.

"Postmodernist fiction is defined by its temporal disorder, its disregard of
linear narrative, its mingling of fictional forms and its experiments with
language."

according to Barry Lewis referring to Kazuo Ishiguro.

The notion that in order to create a post modern perfume one would have to break down the traditional techniques and shatter every well-received knowledge of the masters of the field in order to create something truly baroque to its core is so difficult to come by, though; since modernism is a classical stylistic means, like we agreed, it would follow that post-modernism should embrace the extreme baroque. Thus I cannot for the life of me get beyond two -or three, at gun point- lines that truly produce such a post-modern product. One of them is Serge Lutens for Les Salons du Palais Royal, who is deeply baroque in the most contemporary way in my mind. The mentholated opening that segues into creamy floral is a very post-modern idea. Ditto the warm ashes in conjunction with cool lavender.
The other line is pushing the envelope even more. It’s Comme des Garcons. If there is truly a post-modernist perfume they (and I refer to Rei Kawakubo by “they”) have certainly been the ones producing it.
From the cloning of dust on a lit lamp to burnt rubber to wash drying in the wind and from the Synthetic series to the Incense series to the Guerilla scents they have succeeded to churn out so many innovative and anti-perfume scents that they have earned the laurels of the rather unwearable but oh-so-revered post-modern perfume. Brava! The case for schizophrenia is not far behind.

An essay on art in perfumery

The issue of what constitutes art and what does not has been on my mind for years. Being an historian and having a degree in History of Art as well is no help though, because one would be amazed at the diversity of opinion in such circles as to what exactly would be the deciding factor. As perfumery might be considered an art form by us perfume fanatics, I wanted to discuss what exactly would define it as such and pose some questions.
I was reading an interview of painter and sculptor Fernando Botero -probably South America's greatest living artist today- given to Thanasis Lalas on Vima magazine the other day, which inspired this post.

Botero went on to give 9 suggestions to young artists which pretty much define the meaning of art to me. I roughly translate the suggestions and put my personal comment/explanation in parenthesis. Here they are:

1. Choose the right influence (meaning: the best ones! Get to know that
great masters and get influenced in a constructive way)
2. Art should
give some pleasure (he elaborates by saying he is old school in those
matters and doesn't think that you need a PhD to appreciate art, it just
"clicks" and makes you feel)
3. Develop your own sensibilities (ergo
develop a theoretical thesis about art and its meaning)
4. Abide by your
convictions (develop a personal style)
5. Be a rebel
(innovation, what else?)
6. Look upon your work as if it is someone
else's (objectivity is of paramount importance)
7. We all make
mistakes (he goes on to elaborate that an artwork's main mistake is to have
nothing to say in the first place, which is indeed much to the chagrin of a
modern art appreciator)
8. Success is never complete (personal
growth is tantamount to evolving in one’s style)
9. Art can be greater
than life (What a great line!!)

In that maxim I see a very nice summing up of what art is really all about (to me at least). It should make a point, it should have something to convey, it should innovate and not rely in its self-importance, it should be evolving and growing, making the artist as well as the audience grow with it.
I think it applies not only to sculpture and painting, but to music, literature, theater, you name it! Hence I thought about perfumery, which although does have a commercial aim (since the product of the creation is to be commercialized through marketing, advertising and sales) it does retain an artistic vision, much in the same way that a designer kitchen appliance designed by Phillip Stark can stand on its own as a modern day art piece (an “artefact” of a certain lifestyle, I’m afraid)
So a thing can have an aesthetic value as well as a commercial one, in that it can provide pleasure and to the degree that it does not break any other rule, it can be sold and bought.

JaeLynn (alias), a prolific writer and a poster on some of the fora I frequent said to me this great line and I quote:

“But then you start getting into the Frankfurt Schoolers versus
Jenkins/Hills/et al, which is a darned fine row if I do say so myself. What
constitutes "art" and are there divisions of high/middle/low? To put it
fragrantly, is there (Frankfurt) or is there not (Jenkins gang) a quantitative
and qualitative difference between a Lutens or Malle perfume and a Comptoir Sud
or Britney Spears perfume? “

What could we say to that? What exactly differentiates a Serge Lutens and a Frederic Malle from a Comptoir Sud Pacifique or Britney Spears perfume, if there is indeed a differentiation?

Surely when one approaches the different lines there is some snobbism inherent, especially among those who are just budding into perfume niches, because, let’s face it, the persona of the celebrity promoting the perfume with his/her name on has an uncanny way of entering our subconscious in more ways than one, alternatively influencing us into giving the perfume bonus points or inherent flaws, depending on our perception of Ms. Spears or any other eponymous celebrity or designer for that matter. Because many designers are capitalising on their name too in order to sustain their couture houses which would only crumble to the ground if left to the moguls clients only (after all how many are those and how many gowns could they wear in a given season?).

Lump in that category too overpriced exercises in trends, like sickly foody smells in a hundred different variations imaginable or oils that purportedly have a secret recipe and are all the rage among the famous. They are nothing special appearing as something that could be. Perhaps their art lies in clever marketing, but maybe that is a science after all?
Only blind testing would provide objective data in that stratum and we know this is a utopia for most of us when testing those particular scents.
Nevertheless, the one salient characteristic of most commercial perfumes is their ability to appeal and be pleasant across the boards for initiated and uninitiated alike. By that I do not mean that they are great, fabulous, wonderful or anything along those lines, because despite their pleasantness they often fail to make one genuinely interested and involved, leading to the launch of another new one that will in its turn become obsolete after the 5-year-time frame that modern day perfumes work within. They are perhaps too boring and forgettable to compel us to renew our purchase, so we become serial monogamists: using the new scent until the juice finishes and then on to another. They do smell inoffensive and “nice” though and sometimes being composed by the same noses who make other niche compositions with often comparable ingredients might beg the question why they aren’t considered art as well, per dictum number 2 discussed already.

The Frederic Malle line, on the other hand, started with an artistic reference point from the start as perpetuated by their motto perfumes without compromise: Malle gave the chance to top perfumers to create something they really wanted with the best materials available given no commercial restraints and he, like an editor, would promote it and distribute it for them. Hence the peculiar and sometimes bold nature of such animals as the lush, bombastic baroque Fleur de Cassie by Dominique Ropion or the pungent, bitter minimalism of Bigarade Concentreé by Jean Claude Ellena. In correlating this to the criteria we talked about in the beginning, the Malle line displays no specific homogenous “style” but rather the individual style of his artists who may indeed “abide by their convictions”. However among perfume loving circles I have come across many people who although they like and condone the concept have not found themselves in love with a single one in the line, at least not enough to buy a full bottle of it (what is affectionately termed as being “full bottle worthy” ).

Serge Lutens didn’t begin with such a concept, however there is a definite vision behind his creations with sidekick nose Chris Sheldrake: evoking the rich tradition of the Arabian world, however interpreted in a completely modern way with modern materials and procedures. The results are not erratic as with the Malle line because the collaboration of those two individuals in the line (with the exception of Maurice Roucel on Iris Silver Mist and Pierre Bourdon on Feminité du bois) has ensured coherence of style which however has the disadvantage of not always hitting the right spot. Hence the passionate feelings most Lutens scents arouse in perfume appreciation fans, whether their remarks are mostly positive (Chergui, Fleurs d’oranger) or mostly negative (Miel de bois, Gris Clair). The amount of pleasure one derives is subject to one’s personal associations and memories, as is with the majority of scents, however there is no denying that these are perfumes constructed as an exercise in pleasure recalling an opulence and sultriness of a modern odalisque that is active in an urban territory.

In their elitist mentality though (which in my humble opinion hides a snickering marketing angle too) they go on and produce such shocking segments such as the mentholated top note of Tubereuse Criminelle and the urine-like sweetness of Miel du bois that greet you when you open the vial. That would divert from the pleasure aspect if only there weren’t segments that transport the senses and validate the best wet dreams of an incurable perfumeholic (the creaminess of Un Lys, the deep plush of chocolate-patchouli in Borneo, the sweaty rot of the candied fruits in Arabie).

And then one stumbles on contradictory quotes such as this one:

"We don't care about celebrities at Hermès, it's the artists who drive us,"

Mr Ellena said.

"I do this for me. If it sells, it's a bonus."

The quote comes from TheAustralian.news.com on July 27th from an article about Ellena being in Sydney for the launch of Terre d’Hermès. Which left me wondering the obvious: if perfume is just art and not business, why travel to promote it?

OK, Mr Ellena, I forgive you the lapse this one time.