Leather Series 10: Les Gamines

As far as leather scents are concerned, the image prevailing in the first half of the 20th century was either one of emancipation and amazonesque flair or of luxurious leather goods and upholstery of posh venues catering to the tastes of the upper classes. Little by little something emerged from the fashion and cinematic world: a new frame of mind that distanced itself from the more traditionally sexualised images of the 50s a la Marilyn, but also patently different from the emancipated flappers of the 20s. Talking this over with my friend Denyse, she suggested the Gamine term and we pondered on it in order to describe the evolving cultural sensibilities in relation to fashion, olfaction and art in general.

Generally the term Gamine (feminine to French gamin) is translated in English as "urchin" or "waif". But despite its use in the English vernacular ever since the middle of the 19th century (appearing in Thackeray) it only approximated the French equivalent in the mid-20th century gaining popularity through various strata of society. The gamine has to be sort of a tease, but good-natured; a young sprite of a woman that will wink at you and be a little mischievous. Never too sexual or femme though, never aggressive, ultimately never dangerous in the Freudian sense.

It is an accepted fact that the modern iconography of popular culture derives its idols from the matinee as well as the fashion glossies. Early exempla of gamines could be argued to go back as far as Louise Brooks or Mary Pickford, but to me the former was too restless and independent for the tag, the latter too sweet and accomodating. Maybe Paulette Goddard in Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin is closer to the notion.

The optical, if not auditory, resemblance to the word “game” alludes to playfulness and naughtiness , which is transpiring through the iconic cinamatic gamines of the 50s such as Audrey Hepburn, Leslie Caron or Jean Seberg (especially in her Bonjour Tristesse and À bout de souffle roles). Interestingly, the musical that made Leslie Caron famous was preceded by a stage production in which Gigi was played by none other than Audrey Hepburn; personally chosen by the author, no less, the indomitable Colette, whose Claudine series of novels also wink towards the subtly sensual gamine.

Hepburn had been described by Don Macpherson as “overpoweringly chic” citing her “naïveté which did not rule out sophistication”, such as in her role in Funny Face. Thus she inaugurated a trend and a new perception in elegance. All those women were the pioneers paving the way to the waif look of 60s British models such as Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, manifested in their “swinging London” image.

In the spirit of this new sensibility, fragrance trends followed and the piquantly feminine aldehydics and pretty, powdery florals of the early 60s attest to that seguing from the floral chypres of the 50s. Leather scents were never very popular in those days, due to reasons already discussed when revising the vogues of the 1950s, with only the most noble and suave among them denoting luxury and tradition, such as Doblis. However, there is at least one that could be classified as the arch-gamine one: Miss Balmain by Pierre Balmain, a sister scent to Jolie Madame, much younger and lighter in spirit.

Perhaps the dark Rennaisance angel that is Diorling could also crop her hair into a pixie cut and with butterfly-shaped sunglasses atop her head send you a naughty kiss across the room when no one is looking.

I contemplated long and hard whether the precursor to this phase was Cabochard by Grès, issued in 1959. In the end I decided against it, not because the fragrance is not insolent, audacious and mischievous, because it is. But because Cabochard has a certain exoticism and gravitas that seems to be dragging down the featherlight load of the gamine, imbuding it with expectations beyond its capabilities. Only a naughty and light leathery scent would fit the image I have in mind when thinking of those icons. Yet Cabochard is such an emblem in the pantheon of leather fragrances and such an utterly ruined recomposition that it merits its own obituary following this post.

Pic of Audrey Hepburn from Audrey1 fan site, pic of Jean Shrimpton from Vogue.uk

Art by Women: an Equal Opportunity Manifestation?

Through the course of history, men have left a more prominent relief on the gauze that seperates present from past deeds. Even the term "history" is arguably problematic, a priori denoting a heightened importance to gender.
Expanding this thought into the realm of art and more specifically perfumery, it is easy to see that the emblematic fragrances of modern perfumery have been mostly conceived and composed by men, with the notable exceptions of pioneers Germaine Cellier (nose behind Vent Vert, Fracas, Bandit and Jolie Madame, among others) or Joséphine Catapano (the true creator of Youth Dew, despite tales to the contrary). Later on of course women took the reins and composed many interesting fragrances. I was inspired to think on those matters for today's post by the very interesting interviews of women perfumers hosted by Osmoz, which brought many facets of le métier into focus.

Before proceeding, however, one has to think about art by women: Is it any different in its structure and message than men's? And more importantly, should it be and why/why not? Is there some substance into the differentiation of feminine vs masculine produced Art?

In my opinion, which I had the chance to find out is also shared by Václav Havel, leader writer of the Velvet Revolution, it should not and should it do it ultimately becomes inferior Art. Because appreciation should focus on the content and not the creator it does not, in my opinion, make a lot of difference whether the artist is a woman or a man. I am personally no more lenient to art created by women and/or for women than I am with the equivalent by men (interestingly, you never see that latter advertised as addressing mainly men, do you?) This might explain why I do not generally read chic lit (the term is mirth-producing), but perhaps this is besides the point.

To revert to our question: Does a fragrance created by a woman reverberate into some subconsious desire and need di femina that is mostly incommunicado to men? Do women perfumers hold the secret to what other women desire in this most effervescent of arts?

Dutch-Canadian Ineke Rühland, founder of the INEKE line, is adamant on that point: "I honestly don’t see gender as being a major influence on my work", seguing to elaborate that the only difference is in her creating process for masculine fragrance ~she envisions how she would like men to smell rather than guessing how they themselves want to smell like. Clara Molloy of Memo fragrances agrees:

"I think it’s quite difficult to assign a gender to fragrances, characters,behaviors…It’s a very cultural thing. When you’re very sensitive, even the weather can influence you. Putting on a fragrance is an infinitely precious, delicate and intimate gesture that implies taking one’s time, letting oneself go, being gentle and languorous. Which can all be considered masculine too… "

On the other hand, Annie Byzantian of Firmenich, the creator of mega-blockbuster Aqua di Gio and co-author of Pleasures and Safari pour Homme, disagrees. To her, in contrast with the afore mentioned creators, being a woman plays a role in interpreting the goal of any given fragrance creation.

Perhaps the common thread running through the fabric of those artists' thinking process when creating is the importance of emotion.

Sarah Horowitz Thran of Creative Scentualisation brings the multi-sensory experience to the table, focusing on the inherent acceptance of sensuality in girls growing up. Indeed little boys are not as encouraged or condoned in their exploration of the sensual world, at least in my experience. I was especially interested by Sarah's comment that this appreciation and inspiration by the natural world has been heightened ever since becoming a mother: this is a true differentiation between women and men and as such it poses its own fascinating little questions.

Isabelle Doyen, resident nose at Annick Goutal and creator of 3 Les Nez perfumes, places highest importance to the creative effort above other things. In contrast to Nathalie Larson (who prefers soft, rounded compositions, often with rosy-woody accord, more traditionally feminine), Isabelle goes for the shorter formulae. They instigate a certain idea in no uncertain terms right from the start and thus she describes this effect as "a little brutal". Of course, anyone familiar with the Annick Goutal line might take this last bit in a less literal sense. Nevertheless I deduce that what Isabelle means is that she strives for a clear, hard-hitting vision that is immediately perceptible without roundabouts and frilly details. Quick to admit her own admiration for colleagues' oeuvre however she mentions the infamous Mousse de Saxe base used in the Caron fragrances by laboratoires Laire, but shuns the sensibility of most men's fougère scents. In this instance we could argue that her feminine disposition is showing through.

One of the most illuminating comments was made by Nathalie Larson, creator of Bulgari Pour Femme, Encre Noir and Perles by Lalique as well as Kate Moss:

"as a woman, some brands’ images suit me better than others"

This is something that has to do with the prevalent objectification of women in many mainstream brands that capitalize on a raw sexuality for the sake of shock-value; but also, I surmise, with the concern about brands projecting images that could be safely emulated by women instead of unrealistic ideals of men-imagined archetypes.


It is also interesting to note that when asked to name some of the fragrances that have made an indelible impression on them and which they would have liked to have created themselves, the choices named are composed by male perfumers. But to round out things, ending on the same note as we began, that might have to do with men gaining recognition more easily than women in the past anyway.

For two interviews with women perfumers on Perfume Shrine click here for Anya McCoy and here for Vero Kern.


I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on those questions posed.

Pics of Isabelle Doyen and Clara Molloy courtesy of Osmoz

Better Butter? Doblis by Hermes: fragrance review

At Hermès, craftsmen work with various luxurious materials: Barenia calfskin, Mysore goat (chèvre Mysore), and taurillon Clémence, as well as lizard, ostrich and crocodile skins. One of them is "Veau velours Doblis" suede. This suede comes from a variety of cowhide that is treated in such a way as to render the most velvety, buttery tactile feel on the hand.

As I pass outside the boutique Hermès at the buzzing city center, I swift on my heels to catch a passing glimpse on the shop window at the corner, opposite the jewelry stores of hefty carats and heavy industrialists. The version of the Birkin bag in marron glacé especially is trully breathtaking, reserved for someone who commissioned it, catching my eye inadvertedly ~despite my realization that the prices of those bags are so obscene as to sound almost unethical in a world of hunger and pain. The covetability of the item as an almost obligatory status symbol in recent years, referenced and ultimately spoofed in pop culture, demeans the sheer beauty of the noble materials and the superb craftmanship and makes me view it with added apprehension. It does pose a big question mark over such an object of abject, materialistic excess and it leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

In the words of Comité Colbert, however, an organisation for the protection and patronage of luxury French brands:

“It’s not a crime to love luxury and talk about it. Even if people have their doubts because it can go hand in hand with excess; even if luxury is often confused with wealth and today does not suggest rarity so much as products, corporations and industry.”

So let’s talk about Doblis: The rare gem that shines in the milky way of scents, this time!

Trés elégante, Doblis the fragrance has the pedigree not to shout its aristocratic lineage. Instead it whispers seductively of good taste, restraint, moderation and sheer quality. It is bon chic, bon genre always, just like the silk scarves of the house, and it smells like old money.
Doblis was conceived in the fertile imagination of perfumer Guy Robert in 1955, a perfumer who has worked on emblematic Hermès fragrances such as Calèche and Equipage; both echoing the tradition of the saddle –making luxury brand first established in 1837. Doblis was re-arranged and festively re-issued in winter 2005 to commemorate 50 years of its launch by Guy's son François Robert (according to French Osmoz) who has also worked on many of the modern Parfums de Rosine (the latter incidentally do not bear any relation to the inspiration of Paul Poiret who first issued the line).

Coming across Doblis I am reminded of sniffing an upholstery catalogue of leather and suede swatches as a child. A family lineage of architects, among other things, meant an early familiarity with the materials used in interior decoration. Those alternatively buttery and acrid pieces of treated hides held a secret of initiation: Codes like P25, P5, P12 and P2; and dreamy names like cinnabar, parchment, stone and oyster to correspond…


There are elements of the aldehydic soapy waxiness of both Calèche and Madame Rochas, other revered Guy Robert perfume creations, but in Doblis the effect I get is warmer than the former and less prim than the latter with the addition of an herbal accent. The floral touches of noble Grasseois rose and jasmine blossoms meld right into the skin; they do not stand out, merging with the leathery touch that makes its presence instantly known.
Comparing the current extrait de parfum on my wrists with my tincture of natural deer musk with its warm, almost urinous smell, asserts that the natural component does not make an appearance. Yet there is a refined animalistic streak running through the background of Doblis with an orientalised feel that takes some inspiration from the warmth of Shalimar. The finely sweet aspect of a leather accord in this fragrance might suggest inclusion of styrax and the suaveness of sandalwood. Its smoothness is only comparable with the seamlessness of the rather more easily procured Diorling. Still, it is an indulgence that will leave me sad when it runs out.

Official notes:Chamomille, coriander, thyme, rose absolute, jasmine absolute, leather, moss, musk infusion.

The bottle of Doblis is inspired by a lanterne de calèche, the lantern on an exquisite type of horse-drawn carriage {you can see a comparable model clicking here and many more antique looking models if you're so inclined here}.
A cabouchon cap wrapped with a leather cord of Doblis suede velours crowns it. Only 1000 numbered, collectible bottles of extrait de parfum were issued in 50ml/1.7oz and they make infrequent and extravagant appearences on Ebay. Samples, however, are available at The Perfumed Court.

Painting Alphonse De Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (1838-1913) Driving his Mail-Coach in Nice, 1881 courtesy of allposters. Pic of bottle from Osmoz.

Valentine's Day Wishes

Perfume Shrine grabs this opportunity to wish its readers the best that life can give: true, unconditioned love. The way we pictured it when we had childish, idealistic eyes.
May this day, as well as all the subsequent ones, be filled with the passion that rocks the leaves of a young-in-spirit heart.




Please check back later for a surprise post concerning a true gem!

Pic courtesy of devaneiosdacordoceu

The Case of the Jolie-Laide Madame ~Jolie Madame by Balmain: fragrance review

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears".

~Getrude Stein

It is perhaps fitting that a review of Jolie Madame, the leathery fragrance by Germain Cellier created for couturier Pierre Balmain in 1953 should start with a quote by one of his famous clients who graced this perfume with her preference over others* [*actually this last bit isn't conclusive as Stein died in 1946 as pointed out by our readers, assuming the fragrance was originally created in 1953, and not before, for her own use].

Like Stein herself, Jolie Madame bypasses jolie (=pretty) for stunning and makes you experience it with other senses than the designated one.

I personally remember first smelling it from an almost empty little bottle of parfum on my grandmother’s dresser: a woman who had a way with poetry as well and spoke no less than 7 languages.

On meeting Stein, Alice B.Toklas, her longtime companion and her Paris confidante, wrote:

“She was a golden brown presence, burned by the Tuscan sun and with a golden glint in her warm brown hair. She was dressed in a warm brown corduroy suit. She wore a large round coral brooch and when she talked, very little, or laughed, a good deal, I thought her voice came from this brooch. It was unlike anyone else's voice--deep, full, velvety, like a great contralto's, like two voices”.

~Mellow, 1974, p. 107-08

It is this sound coming in a stream of conciousness as I think of the sonorous merging of violets and leather that is at the verdant core of Jolie Madame: two voices, the pitch of a deep contralto.
Cellier was an iconoclast working with essences and concepts that were rejected by other perfumers because they weren’t au goût du jour: her hyperbole of galbanum dosage in the vintage Vent Vert (a Balmain creation that trully is the antipode of everything Jolie Madame stands for), the assertion of isobutyl quinoline rendering the leathery note in Bandit, the rubbery nuances of tuberose in Fracas that has an almost trigeminal effect to our brain.

Directly inspired by her previous work in Bandit and to a lesser degree in Fracas, Cellier set out to create something for Balmain that would smother leather with an unexpected accord: the duskiness and powderiness of violet.
Violet has an old-fashioned, Victorian connotation, because historically that was the zenith of their popularity. Violets also have a reputation of an aphrodisiac effect, albeit a tempered one. And for that reason they have been featured in pastilles as well as other edible treats. However the surprising fact is that it was the sweet, powdery flowers which were prized then, whereas it is the greener-smelling leaves which are now used in commercial perfumery. As the floral absolute is labour intensive and therefore prohibitedly expensive the recreation of a violet accord is composed with 2,6-nonadienal, beta-ionone, dihydro-beta-ionone and alpha-ionone in addition to other elements.

Jolie Madame marries violet with the ingredient which lends Bandit its harsh, demonic character: quinoline. But whereas Bandit is un parfum figuratif, trying to give the rendition of quinoline’s acid pungency, Jolie Madame is not as much. Instead alongside violets it takes some elements of the gardenia chypres that were popular at the times, yet pushing the envelope all the way. Lots of the chypres in that genre began as a mossy composition embracing a heart of gardenia rendered by styrallyl acetate, a substance naturally found in gardenia buds. Featured in Ma Griffe, which was at the time considered the pre-eminent debutante fragrance, as well as in Miss Dior, it bestows its feminine, oily fattiness to the proceedings attracting women who still kept a little girl hiding someplace in their hearts. Leather scents, on the other hand, whether they were strictly adhering to the chypre structure or not, were not as well-received and popular in a time of traditional values and fashion sense (the 1950s) as the gardenia chypres.

Jolie Madame therefore took a risk: a calculated one, given Balmain’s fashion apotheosis in that decade in the halcyon days of Paris fashion dominance, but still a dare. It was unapologetically the scent of a woman, not a debutante, and it mirrored Stein’s words who claimed Paris was her hometown as much as America was her country:

“…in our American life where there is no coercion in custom and it is our right to change our vocation so often as we have desire and opportunity, it is a common experience that our youth extends through the whole first twenty-nine years of our life and it is not till we reach thirty that we find at last that vocation for which we feel ourselves fit and to which we willingly devote continued labor”.

~Mellow, 1974, p.67-68

Indeed, much as I try, I would find some difficulty in gifting a very young woman with the wonder that is Jolie Madame. The acrid opening of artemisia that vibrates at an emerald frequency is otherworldly and trully awesome. It has a passing resemblance to the minty top of Halston, a scent that came two decades later, at the time of the resurgence of emancipated chypres.
Less strident than brigant Bandit, not as dry as Chanel’s Cuir de Russie but with a more animalic streak running into alleys of deep castoreum and womanly civet, Jolie Madame opens up to reveal a vista of patchouli and moss-laden powdered hides. Its roguish leatheriness stays on throughout, lasting exeptionally well even in the modern eau de toilette. To reference Luca Turin, everything in Jolie Madame is mature, powdery, evolved.

On that note it bears mentioning that the reformulations have not been tremendously respectful to the original and in fact there have been at least two of those: one occuring about 3 years ago and one in the late 90s. I can’t profess an opinion on the most recent edition other than I have heard it described as more aldehydic and with a more pronounced iris heart while trully different than the version which I enjoy; the latter is deeply mossy and leathery, uninhibited rather than demure.
The lighter-coloured version comes in the rectangular bottle with grey label surfacing on many online stores. The vintage is coloured like fine thyme honey and encased in a bottle as the one depicted.

Pic by Migr.