Patou Ma Collection: part 4 ~Divine Folie, Normandie reviews

The Great Crash of 1929 brought the US on its knees. The glamorous lifestyle of those who vacationed to sunny places, yachting and swimming in the trendiest swimming-suits with stripes and bare midriffs after the Chaldée ideal wasn’t at an end, but destitute people were a common occurrence across the country with diverse results as a consequence. Its echo was heard even across the Atlantic, to France where Patou saw many of his American clients diminish their orders in the throes of the Great Depression. In an era of tight economy, however, everyone tried to cope or fake it. "In times of crisis, we shorten the skirts"; a famous Parisian couturier has been known to say. And the best way to impart a little luxury is enjoying the more affordable items of a designer’s brand, such as lipstick or indeed fragrance.
Jean Patou who had devised Joy as “the costliest perfume in the world” at exactly this time, shocking the system, was well cognizant of that axiom: fragrance was still more affordable than couture, even if that fragrance was the “costliest” in the world. The extravagance which any period of crisis brings out in people was reflected in the trends of the 30s.

In 1933 Patou came out with an invitation to “a party mood of exquisite madness” to reflect that extravagance, with his Divine Folie (Divine Folly); an ambery fragrance with a powdery feel, a scattering of slightly sour, oily blooms and a spicy note to give it piquancy. That clove-y carnation whiff reminds me of Adieu Sagesse and the two share the overture but they part ways in the coda: Divine Folie is more ambery and powdery, with a pronounced vanilla veil. It has the nostalgic feel of old-fashioned putty makeup put on to convey a gaiety that is not really felt in the heart, desperation of seeing the end looming after what seemed like the promise of happiness: a little skewed a little flawed, einmal ist keinmal.
Divine Folie resembles Sophie in Maugham’s "The Razor’s Edge", a happy life shattered by tragedy, trickling into the doom of drink, opium and the promiscuity of “dumb but beautiful” sailors. Her decadent façade merely a vitrine, putty make-up to hide the wounds of her soul, her mascara-shoot tears black rivulets betraying the better side of promise.

Notes for Divine Folie: Neroli, Ylang Ylang, Iris, Rose, Jasmine, Musk, Vanilla

In contrast Normandie is Isabel, the proper but not without passion fiancée of Larry who settles for a married rich life instead of pursuing the path to spiritual enlightment with him. Her own disillusionment after the Great Crash and her re-evaluation of her life are aspects which have not yet being explored in Normandie. The fragrance is still the emblem of the good life, of yachting, of cruising, of travelling the world over in defiance of poverty or misery. How extravagant indeed to name a fragrance after a cruise liner! Perfectly fitting the megalomaniac tendencies of the Patou brand, Normandie the liner which showcased some of the most celebrated art nouveau décor in the world and its maiden voyage in 1935 was to be commemorated through Normandie the fragrance.
“The grandiose crossing of the Atlantic. An amber perfume with a pronounced oriental note. A fragrance full of character, mingling jasmine, rose and moss” is how Jean Kérleo chose to present it in the "Ma Collection" booklet. The charming gesture of presenting each passenger aboard the ship with a sample, slot in the funnel of a stylized metal steamer was the ne plus ultra in extravagant launches, on a par with parachuting Paris with Ma Griffe samples.

Normandie blends the prettiest powdery flowers in a picture-perfect bouquet of carnation, jasmine and soapy rose that rests on a table of rich mahogany, the smell of balsam in the background. Much like Ombre Rose or 24 Faubourg, Normandie is a sumptuous, expensive, woody floral with slightly sweet vanillic base which personifies the meaning of good taste and restraint. Exactly like Isabel: well mannered, beautiful yet subtle, an excellent conversationalist, it makes for witty small-talk about the latest gossip if you wish it, but also a discussion about Götterdämmerung. The question is whether she will find the chance to dwelve in the latter and that chance you have to provide for her yourself.

Notes for Normandie: carnation, jasmine, rose, opoponax, tree moss, vanilla, benzoin

Pic of Bonnie and Clyde film courtesy of athinorama.gr, of bottles courtesy of fragranceglobe and netstoreusa.us

Patou Ma Collection: part 3 ~Moment Supreme, Cocktail reviews

There are moments when one is forced to face their demons and try to tame those things one believes to be most antithetical to their nature. Lavender has for a long time eluded me as an aroma to be savored in perfumery, mostly due to its cliché status in many masculine fragrances and secondarily due to its ~I thought~ unimaginative medicinal-ity.
But sometimes one is taken aback: Moment Suprême and Cocktail, both by Patou from the "Ma Collection" set, are linked by their lavender opening, which is treated in two different ways, like the two faces of Janus. While they both present a unisex feeling thanks to the emblematic use of lavender, showing its striking cheekbones and decisive jawline with pride, in Moment Suprême the composition interweaves lavender through its thicker sweet brocade, while in Cocktail it serves as a sparkling top which resembles the brass tromboni in the opening of Stravinsky’s "Sacrificial Dance" from "Rite of Spring".



Moment Suprême came out in 1929, composed by in-house perfumer Henri Alméras, although some give a 1933 date for its introduction. At some point it was incorporated into the love story coffret with the other three beauties: Amour Amour, Que sais-je? and Adieu Sagesse.

Upon cracking the bottle of Moment Suprême open, having observed the pale celadon of the juice, you’re taken with the vintage feel it evokes: lavender showing its medicinal character while just as quickly the plush of amber and vanilla along with a bouquet of flowers peek through. For about half an hour this is the story, when later on there is a delectable hint of spice, like carnation which was so enticing in Adieu Sagesse, makes its solo appearance before retreating to the wings; but leaving the stage lights open to an empty scene which has retained the warmth of the people who have performed. The character of the composition is elegant, defiant and businesslike with a distinct warmth underneath that speaks of silky undergarments.

Notes for Moment Suprême: bergamot, lemon, neroli, mandarin, lavender, May rose, clove, ylang, lilac, jonquil, orris, vanilla, sandal, musk, honey, heliotrope, civet, moss, and benzoin.

The story of Cocktail is fitting to its name, recalling rich patrons sipping dry Martinis and Gibsons while listening to Benny Goodman’s swing clarinet, Prohibition laws making it a naughty affair to get a decent drink.
In his couture shop at 7, rue Saint-Florentin, Jean Patou had the brilliant idea of creating a cocktail bar where men could drink and small-talk while their women shopped for their dresses. In 1930, Patou decided that this could be converted into a veritable perfume bar and Henri Alméas was instructed to create "cocktail" fragrances. The results were the original, Cocktail Dry, Cocktail Sweet, and Cocktail Bitter Sweet.

Cocktail takes crisp lavender and utilizes it like angostura bitters to set off the rest of the intoxicating dryness of this heady drink you’re about to consume. Sharp at first, subtle upon closer inspection, it sparkles with the greeness of herbal aromas like the juniper berries in gin to later whisper with the dry powder of hazy blossoms seen through netting, as if in a drunk stupor. But the point is you could do a lot worse than getting high on Patou’s Cocktail!
In a strike of either ironic coincidence or elective affinity, twenty-five years later perfumer Henri Giboulet created a "cocktail" perfume for Lubin, Gin Fizz. When Henri Alméras retired, Henri Giboulet became in-house perfumer for Patou.

Notes for Cocktail: lavender, geranium, clove, rose and jasmine.

Pics courtesy of mooseyscountrygarden, tout en parfum, netshopusa.us

Patou Ma Collection: part 2 ~Chaldee review

In a roundabout way it was Coco Chanel, Patou’s main rival, that upon returning from vacation tanned as a sailor made sun-bathing fashionable and ultimately desirable inducing Patou to mastermind a fragrance, Chaldée, inspired by the new trend. Sun-worship was to witness resurgence after eons of absentia since its pagan days of idolatry.
For millennia ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks and Incas embraced the sun’s warm rays as the giver of life. And then even before western society abandoned slavery it embraced distinct social ranking which manifested itself through a very simple means: light skin meant less time spent out in the sun, which was the destiny of workers of the fields and the low classes in general. Thus an Odyssey began for women around the world employing poisons such as lead or arsenic in their quest for the unattainable pale ideal. Until Niels Finsen, that is, who introduced his Light Therapy in 1903 with purported health benefits, creating a mini-revolution, at least amid the scientific community.

But it was Chanel’s finger on the pulse of fashion that brought things full circle. A 1920s accidental tan while cruising from Paris to Cannes aboard the Duke of Westminster's yacht was quickly transformed into a trend-setting fad that was unprecedented. Tanning became a sign of leisure, of wealth, the sign that someone was able to take a vacation, preferably in a warm sunny place. The idolatry angle of the golden sun’s effect was also to manifest itself through the adoration of Josephine Baker who, with her outré style of performance and caramel skin, mesmerized Parisians into wanting to emulate her. Famous fashion photographer Cecil Beaton describes the Duchess of Penaranda in the pages of Vogue magazine:

"She wore sunburn stockings with white satin shoes...the duchess's complexion matched her stockings, for she was burned by the sun to a deep shade of iodine."

Jean Patou could not let this new ideal slip through his grasp like grains of sand between a sunbather’s fingers: he acted fast with Huile de Chaldée, one of the first sun-tanning oils which Henri Alméras, then in-house perfumer to Patou, re-interpreted in fine fragrance simply named Chaldée in 1927. The chosen name was to recall an ancient Babylonian region famed for its amber-skinned beauties. Chaldée with its deap, oily-smelling ambery character bears no relation to modern aspirations to being a Bronze Goddess, no matter how pleasant those might be.

A terrible dawn is showing through the parapets of Chaldea and, as the initial darkness of the night ~heavy with the fatty smell of hyacinths~ lifts, slowly you see upon the ziggurat the woman, adorned in candied tones of orange blossoms; her warm, pulsating flesh offered as an oracle and sacrifice to the all consuming Shamash. Her skin deeply bronzed, emanating all the aromas of Arabia, resiny, intimate, fetid. You can see the furtive but excited looks of the common folk awaiting, smell their humanness. The great knife is raised and swoosh… there flows the blood; scarlet, young, full of life, spent to join Nergal.

Today we know better than to sacrifice our flesh on the altar of Sun almighty in order to achieve the bronze looks and feel of powdered warmth the sun gives us. Yet as author Naomi Wolf notes in her controversial book, "The Beauty Myth", in 1991

"the discovery of photo-aging has created a phobia of the sun entirely unrelated to the risk of skin cancer [...]turning nature into a fearsome enemy from the male tradition's point of view [...]which stimulates women's fears of looking
older in order to drive us in the opposite direction: indoors once more...the
proper place for women in every culture that most oppresses us."

Worth pondering on...
In the meantime slip out a bottle of Chaldée, immerse yourself into its golden nectar and imagine yourself a bloodless Sun-offer.

Notes for Chaldee: orange blossom, hyacinth, jasmine, daffodil, lily of the valley, vanilla, opopanax, amber.

Pic of carnelian stamp seal, Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, about 700-550 BC from Babylon, southern Iraq, courtesy of the British Museum. Pic of Chaldee courtesy of fragranceglobe.com

Patou Ma Collection: part 1 ~Amour Amour,Que Sais Je, Adieu Sagesse reviews

With poetic and mischievous names such as Adieu Sagesse (goodbye wisdom) or Divine Folie (divine folly) the twelve fragrances comprising Jean Patou’s “Ma Collection” pose their own little enigmas for the modern perfumphile to decipher. “Ma Collection” consists of twelve perfumes originally launched between 1925 and 1964, then re-released in 1984 under the wing of Jean Kérleo, then in-house perfumer at Patou (1967-1997) and now president of L’Osmothèque.
The formulae were reputedly reproduced faithfully to the degree that it was realistically possible, making them fascinating facets of their era in more ways than one, but earning them alas the misfortune of ultimately getting discontinued.
Despite Patou’s fame for perennial Joy, the house’s history mainly stood upon his amazing grasp of the mood of the times, translating into fashion visions, a trait also eminently apparent in “Ma Collection”. Many of the "Ma Collection" perfumes along with other 20s fragrances share an aromatic base which threads common tonalities among them. Although olfactory gems, these are scents very much embedded in their time frame. A vast ocean of difference divides them from today's fragrances.

Born in 1887 in Normandy and dead in 1936, Jean Patou was the son of a tanner and nephew of a fur-maker, joining the latter in 1907. In a few years he had moved to Paris at the small Maison Parry where he became a dressmaker earning the loyalty of a devoted clientele and opening his own house in 1914. After a stint as Captain of Zouaves during WWI, he launched his first couture collection under his own name in 1919. Success prompted him to open a New York office to cater to the demand of his numerous American clients. Impressed by the long legs of the Americans, he brought back with him 6 models (after auditioning 500), causing uproar in the French press. Later he expanded into a Coin des Sports in 1925 (with a separate space for each sport), as well as shops in the resorts of Deauville and Biarritz.

Understanding the 1920s ideal, youthful and physically fit, and admiring the American simple cuts and architectural seam lines, he was the first to introduce the casual elegance of sportswear for women and complementary accessories with his JP monogram outlined on pockets. Suzanne Lenglen, tennis Wimbledon star, wore Patou clothes on and off the court, while Ruth Elder, the American aviator, was another client. Women everywhere suddenly wanted to emulate the new lank look. But his flamboyant interpretation of contemporary art movements, such as Cubism, was the headstart for imaginative creations such as the iconic cubist sweaters. His younger sister Madeleine, an active, modern woman, also provided inspiration. His rivalry with iconoclast Chanel was of epic proportions, becoming a legend, yet it was Patou who dropped the hemline and raised the waistline, with Coco following suit.

Patou like Chanel was also among the first couturiers to include perfumes as part of a collection, a vehicle to instigate a sense of coherence to fashion houses, founding the fragrance division in 1923. He introduced his first three together in 1925, with the help of Paul Poiret's perfumer, Henri Alméras. According to Jean de Moüy, Patou’s great-nephew, they were inspired by the stages of a love affair and interestingly each was conceived for a woman of specific hair colour: Amour Amour, symbolizing the whirlwind start when heart first beats, was created for blondes; Que sais je? (What do I know?), intended for brunettes, represents the questioning whether to act upon one’s feelings; while Adieu Sagesse (goodbye wisdom), fit for redheads, signals the decision of abandonement into eros.
The bottles were designed by architect Louis Süe who also created the bottle of Joy while illustrations were by André Mare.

Upon encountering the romantic nature of Patou's Amour Amour one realises that it serves as the precursor of the floral symphony in Joy. The similarity is more pronounced at the start, with the dominance of sweet jasmine and delicate rose, while later on Amour flies into brighter, soapier arpegios of lily of the valley with a slight touch of Hesperides and salty ambergris recalling a striking gouache in sunny colours.
Although it was allegedly claimed by Marcel Billot, its true creators are Alméras and also Marius Reboul from Givaudan who contributed with the 30% inclusion of one of his bases*.
Notes for Amour Amour: bergamot, strawberry, lemon, ylang-ylang, rose, lily, carnation, heliotrope, vetiver, civet, honey, ambergris.

Que sais je? would be my choice out of this magnificent trio by Patou and not only for chromatically matching reasons; a decadent chypre with a peachy-plummy opening and a nutty aspect. Discreet touches of gourmand delights err on the side of honey and spices with a heart of generous orange blossom seguing into mossy and animalic notes which hint at some naughty affair. Resembling liquid citrines or ambery topaz mounted in gold, Que sais-je is a luxury that should be savoured in measured quantities like exquisite jewels that exhibit themselves best on black velvet.
Luca Turin likens it to Gianduja, a type of nutty chocolate candy first prepared by Pierre Paul Caffarel and recommends it for those who dislike the vanilla in Shalimar. However it is mostly reminiscent of Femme, especially the reformulated version with its sexier character including sweaty cumin. Was Olivier Cresp, responsible for the latter, inwardly influenced by Que Sais-je? I can also see it being a distant inspiration for the playful hazelnut accord in Deci Delà by Nina Ricci.
Notes for Que sais-je?: peach, honey, hazelnut wood

Dabbing a little Adieu Sagesse is akin to forgetting my everyday existence and imagining myself as a heroine in "Tender is the Night", replete with villa at the South of France and a disturbing yet intriguing background story. A crisp floral centered on the headiness of narcissus with a generous spicy eugenol accord recalling cloves and carnations and warm powdery notes due to opoponax, Patou's Adieu Sagesse shares a mysterious quality with the other two fragrances and dries into a sexy odour like a fur stole that has been kept at a carnation-filled boudoir.
Notes for Adieu Sagesse: bergamot, blackcurrant, daffodil, neroli, lily, jonquil, lily of the valley, carnation, tuberose, rose, jasmine, vetiver, musk, civet.

The "Ma Collection" fragrances are now sadly discontinued, but some of them appear online from time to time (such as on Fragrance Globe), or in shops with overstock. Eaux de Toilette come in splash or spray. The Parfum comes in 30 ml/1oz. flacon wrapped in a silk pochette. All twelve of the fragrances are sold together as collectible Eaux de Toilette minis.

Readers who will comment on the posts of the Patou “Ma Collection” Series enter the draw for a complete set of samples of all 12 fragrances.

To be continued...

Pics from ebay,1st perfume, perfumeshop.com and fragranceglobe.com.
*Info & ad provided by Octavian Coiffan

Optical Scentsibilities: Guerlain Vintage Ads

Perfume Shrine has always been greatly interested in the visualisation of fragrance and the aesthetics which dictate the delivery of any fragrance's message. In that regard one of the most intriguing houses is that of Guerlain, both for its historical scope which allows to monitor the progression of social and artistic expectations of what a perfume advertisment should entail and for its use of talented illustrators such as Vassi, Leonard, E.Darcy, Charnotet, Mik and Nikasinovich.
A great collection of mainly 1930s Guerlain advertising is collected in this wonderful link via L'express.fr, with the inclusion of the magnificent and coherent "Are you her type?" 1935 series by Elise Darcy for each of the great feminins of the time.
And those that were missing from that, well, we added ourselves!
Click here for a slideshow of precious, vintage Guerlain advertisements.

Pics through femina.fr , beautyandthedirt.co.uk and mr.guerlain