Tom Ford Black Orchid (new baroque?): Fragrance Review

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Film noir: a perfume to be wary of

What perfume does a film noir heroine wear? More importantly: what perfume does a film noir cinephile wear? If the twists of plot found in a good noir are you cup of tea (or, in this case, coffee), then Film Noir by Ayala Moriel perfumes might be your hot ticket to a ride of pleasure for the evening. And many more evenings to come, if you are lucky and smart. But let's concentrate on your smarts, pal.

Ayala Moriel is dedicated to the art of natural perfumery, a niche that is witnessing a renaissance lately. Perfume Designer Ayala Moriel creates handcrafted perfumes from 100% precious botanical essences. On her site, she describes Film Noir thus:

"This perfume is as dark as a Film Noir plot; as dark as a dim-lit alley in Chinatown and musty as the sewer in The Third Man where the
ambivalent heroes and heroines find their inevitable death, over and over again.
Film Noir is as dark as the soul of the genre's script writers, directors,
actors and viewers. In fact, it is so dark that it includes only the darkest
base notes: cruelly luscious dark cacao absolute, musty-sweet patchouli and the
mysterious bitterness of myrrh. "

Built around the noble essences of dark-roast coffee and the bitterest Valhrona chocolate they combine with patchouli to render a surprising gourmand that catches the darkest images. If you have sampled the wonder that is Serge Luten's Borneo 1834, then you are already familiar with the weird attraction that such scents produce in the limbic system of the person smelling them. Although the depth is somehow bitter and musty, as if glimpsing the jaws of hell, it manages to also recall memories of cosiness and comfort in woolly seperates on a very cold day. Film Noir might have been inspired by such an olfactory memory and created to pay homage to all those inwardly dark heroines (even if they are blondes) that fester the imagination of screenplayers from the dawn of cinema but only culminated in the 40s and early 50s . The breathy voice of Lauren Bacall in "To have and have not" and her gaze as she takes the matches from Bogart. The intricate plot of "The Maltese Flacon" and the wit of "The Third man". And the great "Chinatown", the noir that summarises all the great traits of the classics without copying any of them. And then the recent greats, even if they break some cardinal rules to accomplish it: "LA Confidential" and "Sin City".
Venomous and razor sharp, the heroines emit a female mystique that leaves you shivering from the iciness and hot and bothered by the promise of fiery sex. But you'd have to sleep with a revolver under your pillow, you never know...

The dark ambery liquid reveals its assets early on, as a drop on the skin is more than enough. It then unfolds the notes with the gusto of a cutthroat assasin draped in a killer tweed suit. They did it oh so glamourously back then! Patchouli lingers in the base making it very lasting. The veil of Faye Dunaway is not raised, not will it be raised ever, the dark glasses remain firmly in place, hiding her gaze. Is it happy, is it sad? is she shedding a tear? We will never know. The mysterious aroma will linger in your memory for ever, like the infamous lines in Roman Polanski's film Chinatown when the secret is revealed between heavy slaps: "She's my daughter. She's my sister".Film Noir is our dark sister. And the daughter we should be quite worried to have.

You can read about natural perfumery and her creations and get Film Noir by visiting Ayala Moriel perfumes clicking here

Top pic is from Black Dahlia, the movie based on James Ellroy book. Pic of Faye Dunaway by Helmut Newton courtesy of temple.edu

Perfume advertising 5: the hilarious side! (multimedia clips)

If serious advertising were not enough, sometimes marketing teams play up on our conceptions about perfume in parody-style, satirizing our wishes for perfume to make us powerful, mysterious, indomitable and just plain old attractive and irresistible to the object of our interest. If only things were that easy. And yet, how many times have the same questions have been asked: what to wear to get attention? What would make the opposite sex melt? What would make us look younger and thinner and 5 inches taller with a mane like a supermodel’s and legs that go for miles? Personally if a perfume were that powerful, I’d just as likely prefer it to vacuum my house and do a good hard rubbing at all those difficult corners, thank you very much. That would greatly put me in a sexy mood, all right.
But it’s fun to contemplate what people would put themselves in denial about and how advertising is playing with that, right?

The angle of sexual attractiveness regardless of exterior attributes (which is, let’s face it, a plain looking person’s wildest dream) is brilliantly exploited in the following AXE commercial. Just see what happens when one rides the elevator. Given AXE’s reputation for potency and its users’ abandon with the sprayer the commercial is down right dangerous, if only because it might encourage stinking up closed spaces with the evil fumes. But funny as hell, nevertheless Watch the clip clicking here

In general AXE has capitalized on witty commercials tongue-in-cheek-style to drive the point of “use more, get more” (yep, that kind of “get”, you've understood it right), aimed at an impressionable adolescent male audience. Even if they laugh, I suspect their Id is getting the message across that this magical juice will help them surpass Porfurio Rubirossa’s fame. Dream on, little ones. You might as well spritz some Egoiste (or if you’re hard for cash some Coty Wild Musk) and be done with it, so much simpler. There's also much to be said about the merits of soap, plain deodorant and oral hygiene. But you already knew that, I hope. After all, if you're a good guy someone somewhere will perceive it, right? No matter how divenly you smell if you're behaving like a jerk, no way will you be popular with the ladies. (say that out loud 5 times before you ask again what cologne is a women's magnet)
And it’s great to see that LYNX, the British equivalent of AXE, has aired a commercial that takes this to the next level with a touch of the absurd and the borderline macabre. The heavy british accent of the voice-over is completely engaging as well. Not to be missed! Watch the clip clicking here

But of course teenage boys aside, the greatest target of perfume as a sexual attractant, a magic amulet of irresistibility are women. Women from all walks of life, all physiques, all cultural levels. Perfume always sold fantasy and women are always a little more susceptible to daydreaming it seems. Whether that’s ingrained or a result of upbringing is debatable (and getting girls girly things certainly makes them impose on them powers beyong their capability). Hey, it doesn’t even have to be in the sexual arena (we have come a long way baby!), but it’s so much more thrilling if it works there as well. In my humble opinion, perfume as a manipulating social weapon is like copulating as a dieting means greatly overrated. It's no accident that human beings have gone from the olfactory to the visual emphasis, after all we don't walk with our noses down the ground and into other creatures' butts all day like dogs, now do we?
We won’t go into the subject of perfumes containing the infamous pheromones, because I have zero experience with them and studies show that the results vary greatly (and can be attributed to self-induced feelings of confidence), however it’s not unheard of people using them to accomplish just that. Which begs the question what would happen if the result wears off or if they run out. But I think they consider it a fait accomplit if the victim has been safely anesthesized by then...They will have found a way to keep it by then or have gotten the chance to show their great personality. This is just theoritising on my part, mind you; not that I reject the right of anyone to use whatever he/she considers best.

In the great spoof I discovered, aired on Mad TV, Antonia Perfume, an otherwise sane woman (and not really unattractive, if you deduct the purposesly silly styling and lisp) has gone bananas over the desire for her perfume to attract and entice men. And it makes the great point that in order for someone to actually be attracted they have to be really close to smell the fumes, wouldn’t they? Which they wouldn’t if there is no other reason for them to get close in the first place. Imagine a woman trying to bumb into the object of her affection in a crowded bar. Many hilarious misunderstandings later and alcoholic shots as well, it might garner some attention. Watch the clip clicking here Unless one is olfactory stalking strangers purposesly offering them their wrists for sniffing ("smell me!"), which would make for another great spoof I guess.

Hope you have enjoyed the perfume advertising section critique and the multimedia clips courtesy of Youtube.com.

You can watch many many more in the appendix I have compiled on my info site Perfume Shrine, direct link clicking here

Enjoy!

Pics come from ads in okadi.com

Perfume advertising 4: discrepancies? (multimedia clips)

Exploring the avenues of perfume advertising, especially in commercials to be viewed on TV, one shapes a particular assumption of how something would smell, coaxed by the imagery and setting of the commercial. Often there is some discrepancy witnessed between what is expected and the actual olfactory experience. Especially so when there are famous faces or egeries involved fronting the perfume.

On a nostalgic trip down memory line, Soir de Paris in a very old commercial, from 1958 to be exact, shows us the rapport between jus and image that existed initially. Soir de Paris by Bourjois is known as Evening in Paris in Anglophone cultures and the olfactory profile is a very refined aldehydic floral that has a touch of the Parisian melancholy and sense of glamour. In its vintage form it stood as a very elegant and lovely representation of everything that joyful Paris evoked in the imagination of countless American women, especially after having seen the classic film "An American in Paris".
Today, the Vermont Country Store is touting its stock of original Soir de Paris and everyone may have a slice of that glorious imagery of French women preparing for a Parisian outing in their strapless gowns and dainty high-heels. Watch the clip clicking here

Those days are over however. Very soon the visual aspect of a commercial went on to a completely different independent track, often creating images that do not correspond to the olfactory response of uncorking a perfume. Case in point is the following commercial for Poison from the mid 80s , when this perfume grenade initially launched to be the object of derision, huge sales and eventually legend. In the commercial a lady dressed in tailored clothes in the purple hues of the perfume’s bottle is sitting head tilted romantically, drapes being drawn as if to signify a new start, a revelation or a concealmentWatch the clip clicking here
Suffice to say that the bombastic juice that lurks inside that insidious purple bottle is radically different to what one might think watching those visuals. A potent, venomous elixir of sexual emancipation and witch-like power, it manages to make lovers and haters and nothing in between. Sadly this is hard to find today in a world in which the visual has become significantly more aggressive, while the olfactory has become astoundingly tamer. Contrast the above with the recent black panther commercial for Christian Dior Pure Poison and smell the respective jus and you will know what I mean.

Romantic images however do have a power on their own, corresponding or not to the perfume’s aroma. Such a romantic commercial is one of my personal favourites from the early 90s (around 1990-1992) for LouLou by Cacharel. I have already elaborated on what makes LouLou the perfume so evocative for me, but the advertising has played a major part in this as well, being inspired by Louise Brooks and her Lulu role in Pabst's film. The bluish tones of the film, paired with the insouciance of the young girl who talks to the camera is endearing and makes us view the perfume under the lens of an insouciant, unaffected girlish seduction. Which is not far off the mark of the perfume’s intent.
Watch the clip clicking here

The following commercial for Champs Elysees by Guerlain however is again in contrast to the jus inside. Shot in black and white on the eponymous Parisian street with gorgeous Sophie Marceau as the protagonist who exits a car stopping abruptly taking with her a bouquet of roses and a sac voyage to march off angrily and then self-awardingly on the famous street, it is too cinephile and hinting at a background story.
The effect is greatly augmented because it features one of the songs that would best illustrate an insinuating and dark perfume: Glory B0x by Portishead. The music is so suggestive that it would be great underscoring trully dark, biting frags such as Poivre by Caron or Ambre Sultan by Lutens. The tagline of “life is best when you write the script by yourself” is meant to evoke exactly a cinematic reference and independence. However the jus of Champs Elysees is oblivious to such scheming and trails off in candied blackcurrant buds and mimosas tumbling out of its sunny coloured bottle. Too tame by half...Watch the clip clicking here

To finish this exploration of the correspondence between visual image and perfume composition, two last examples. One is of a commercial capturing the essence of the perfume, that of Sicily by Giuseppe Tornatore featuring the beautiful, expressive as a weeping widow Monica Belluci, an uber-woman if there ever was one. A perfume that is indeed quiet, but not undistinctive; cosy, old fashioned in its way, soapy like the white linen of a neorealistic film’s heroine. It did not manage to be a best-seller, but the connection between what seems to be a very Mediterranean concept and its scent is masterfully accomplishedWatch the clip clicking here

And then there is the aggressive luxe of a baroque mansion in which strides stripping all the while the statuesque Charlize Theron for Dior’s J’adore. Although the presentation and imagery is one of opulence, J’adore is no more than a nicely put floral with violet, orchid and rose and scattered fruity touches on top. Certainly not the super exclusive thing alluded to. But a brand of a reputation for luxury and with a couture show to support had to go to extravagant lengths to cement the opulent touch in our minds. And Charlize’s commercial was indeed very successful in that regard. Because who wouldn’t want to emulate her? Watch the clip clicking here

Next post will be really funny, guaranteed!

Perfume advertising 3: gender play (multimedia clips)

The issue of what differentiates female from male idiosyncrasies in general is complicated enough. In perfume terms the composition of different formulas for the two sexes (roughly floral and oriental for the ladies, woody and citrus for the gentlemen) is a fairly recent phenomenon, dating from the dawn of modern perfumery in the end of the 19th century. Up till then, there was pretty much lots of leeway for men to delve in floral waters of the Victorian era or even the rich civet and musk laden compositions of the 18th century decadence. The issue of how male and female attributes translate in the iconography of perfume though is worth investigating for its many surprising facets.

Here today I decided to delve in some perfume commercials that redefine the role of gender as we know it.
The 70s were the years when it was acceptable for the first time after many long years for a woman to appear in pants. Up till then, emulating a man’s wardrobe was considered outré and not to be encouraged. In upscale restaurants and hotels in the 60s, time of the mini, it was customary to ask ladies in pantsuits to remove the pants and just wear the long jackets as dresses. Katherine Hepburn in her signature slacks was repeatedly asked to use the staff hotel stairways when going to see Spencer Tracy some years prior. In that regard, the first ad for perfume that showcased this new freedom was Charlie by Revlon. Codenamed “Cosmo” while being developed, as this was intended for the young and liberated Cosmopolitan readers, that magazine being full of women’s liberation articles back then besides the tips for better sex; it then got named Charlie from the first name of Charles Revson, owner of Revlon. The face of Charlie was Shelley Hack whom you may remember as part of “Charlie’s Angels” TV series, here with Bobby Short. Watch the clip clicking here

Indeed watching the commercial, Shelley dressed in a shiny satiny ensemble of pants and shirt, with a matching little hat on her short bouncy do, it takes a close up to see that it’s actually a female. The fact that she is thin and with no discernible décolletage makes it even more risqué. As she sprays the perfume on her neck while in the car before getting out at her destination we get a glimpse of what an emancipated woman is like; driving, wearing the pants, getting alone to the place she is invited. There is no need for a man to accompany her. She is the man in her life. So recent commercials compared to that seem to tie women to their traditional roles of either homemaking material (pretty, happy) or dangerous fantasy (aggressive seductresses). But that is as much a societal phenomenon as to warrant a separate article of its own on another venue.

Many years later it was advertising provocateur Calvin Klein who brought homosexuality in the mainstream with his memorable commercials. As an aside when talking about the issue, please note that it is males of such a preference who feature prominently in the ads, not women. This may have to do with more homosexual men being involved in the media in the first place (and we all know the designing world is full of them), but it also has to do with the taboo of female homosexuality in advertising as well. For some reason, women in advertisers’ minds should be seen as dynamic, but not butch, aggressive as they are often depicted in the sexual arena, but not manly. I guess it has to do with the male mindframe being deeply disturbed by the idea that a woman renounces the attributes that make him the center of her universe, even though he may renounce those that make him desirable to her! Egotistical though it may sound, men seem flattered if women are concentrating on them. Homoerotic female images are desirable – and intensely so- only if they entail a man eventually and only if the ladies in question outwardly look very stereotypically feminine. To revert to Calvin Klein though, his commercials exploit the homoerotic ideal to the max. A series of commercials for Obsession as well as Eternity used photographer Herb Ritts as the vehicle for an aesthetic that was distinct in an American way.
To witness, these 4 short clips for Eternity for men from the 80s, featuring the exotic Shana Zadhrick as the female presence in an otherwise male territory, which idolize the male physique, sculpted during long hours at the -then- temple: the gym. The droplets of water on rippled flesh, the eroticism of swimmers’ bathing suits, the movement that is resembling diving. Everything speaks of the promise of a different erotic experience.
Watch the clip clicking here

And then of course we have the cheeky ironic representation of Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier. The theme is reprised in a tongue-in-cheek way (as Gaultier takes himself far less seriously than Klein) and the sailor and his uniform, both a nod to a popular homosexual icon and Jean Paul’s favourite matelot top as well, make their appearance in ads that emanate a playful mockery. Le Male the jus is full of the traditional male note of lavender and yet it is so sweet that it has a candy like tone, like only someone who is totally oblivious to rules of propriety is capable of carrying off. In the following commercial Gaultier not only depicts the sexual deviant of a sailor, but dresses a woman in the sailor uniform -shot from behind, walking in what seems a bar full of such sailors- in a transvestite effort in reverse, having her kiss another male, only to reveal that underneath her clothes she is corseted in the traditional attire of her sex from long ago, to match the torso of his eponymous feminine scent, known as Classique. It is important to note that the ad refers to men and the eternal female. Even openly homosexual men have their prejudices about women I guess, or perhaps they have had strong female icons in their environment shaping their views on the subject, as in Gaultier’s case with his grandma. Watch the clip clicking here

In another Jean Paul Gaultier commercial, this time for Classique only, several models sit on a table talking about l’amour (love), differentiating in attire and image as day and night, one of them being the androgynous Eve Salvail, a Canadian model with a tattoo on her shaven head. The old woman suddenly and briefly morphs into Gaultier himself, as if the designer wants to remind us that some part of his grandmother's spirit which inspired the perfume still lives in him. Whatever, Classique is a very feminine scent. Watch the clip clicking here

While at it, you can witness the difference in perception of what is appropriate and what is not in the iconography of these two similar print ads for Paris by YSL, under artistic direction of Tom Ford. The top one is the US version, nipples covered and the effeminate face of the guy cut from the photo, only the cuff hinting at a ménage a trois. In the European version, shown here, however, such niceties do not cut it and the whole deal is laid bare –pun intended- for readers. Pity Paris perfume which used to be viewed as elegant, it now has earned a reputation for racy.

Last but not least, Calvin Klein again plays the gender bender with his masterful commercial "Altered States" (which reminds me of a William Hurt starring film) for both CKone and CKbe. The diaphanous and black bottles respectively are used in brilliant effect for a morphing computer play that emits a weird and truly wonderful vibe that compels the viewer to watch the clip over and over again. I find it seriously cool in its androgyny despite the eerie factor. The limits between the sexes have never been thinner and the interplay between the two is evinced in the unisex jus of the two perfumes which represent two different moods, but never two different sexes. Watch the clip clicking here The 90s heralded the cult of the unisex, or euphemistically called shared perfumes and the commercials that played upon this were many and varied. In my opinion this is the most memorable and worth watching one. What the future brings is anyone's guess.

Next post will revert to softer, more romantic notions and the discrepancy between image and smell.

Pics from imagesdesparfums.