How does the latest Serge Noire by Serge Lutens smell like?

Serge Noire, the export fragrance of Lutens for this summer (July 2008) derives its lineage from history: In the 19th and early 20th century, the name (la serge, feminine hence the "e" in the adjective "noire") designated a type of textile, twill of diagonal lines or ridges on both sides, made with a two-up, two-down weave, that was quite popular: a delicate variety was used for finer garments, while a stronger yarn was chosen for military clothes. The etymology derives from Greek σηρικος (σηρος means silk worm, for clothes), which gave rise to the Latin serica and the old French serge.
The interesting thing is that serge has been implicated through the British textile trade monopoly via Calais and the Netherlands in wars between European nations, especially religious ones: in 1567 Calvinist refugees from the Low Countries included many skilled serge weavers, while Huguenot refugees in the early eighteenth century included many silk and linen weavers.

With that at the back of our minds we might start deciphering the enigma of Serge Noire and its reputation of an ascetic incense, according to my confidante Elisabeth. Quite taken with it, she discussed it at length with Serge, who explained that it is very different from Encens et Lavande, the previous sumptuous and fantastically deep frankincense take in the exclusive Palais Royal line.
Since there is often a double interpretation of the same material in both exclusive and export lines, it is not unheard of that there would be an incense scent in the latter. After all there is indeed a lavender one to match Encens et Lavande, Gris Clair, so why not one to address the other constituent of the fragrance as well?

Frankincense came into the scene of niche cults with the "Incense series" by Comme des Garcons and Passage d'Enfer by L'artisan parfumeur years ago and although it seemed it languished for a while, incense knew a resurgence last summer with Andy Warhol Silver Factory by Bond No.9, an arguably interesting take and with Andy Tauer's wonderful duo of Incense Extrême and Incense Rosé this autumn.

Serge Noire comes to offer an architecture of incense that is pure and balanced with nothing in excess, yet not classical. Rather an orientalised grey, which in itself is a play on his previous Gris Clair. It has a ritualistic element, without the cold, dark church associations we have come to expect from the genre. It is on the contrary reminiscent of fireworks and powdery dry, laced with spices which will dare our conventional beliefs on incense fragrances.

My French blogger friend Six, on Ambre Gris, equally ecstatic, talks about resinous, warm and slightly sweet, vanillic benzoin joining the proceedings, giving a feminine element to the masculine character, while she notes that pepper and a camphoreous note open up the intriguing composition of dry and bitter japanese-like incense with smoky and mineral tonalities echoing Chinese ink, flanked with a little cinnamon. Elements that have caught the imagination of Lutens and Sheldrake in the past (the camphor in Tubéreuse Criminelle, the ink in Sarrasins, the incense of Encens et Lavande) are merging here in what seems to be a personal declaration of faith.
Elisabeth confirmed that Serge Noire is near and dear to Serge's heart, name nothwithstanding, as he professed it to be his favorite; feeding thus the rumor that it has been in the works for 10 years and hinting that those who have professed it one of the best Lutens in recent years must be right.

So to recapitulate notes for your ease: camphor and pepper, dry incense and ashes, fireworks and gunpowder, sweet benzoin, cistus labdanum, castoreum and a little cinnamon. Got it? Sounds fantastic!

Lutens himself in a lyrical description consistent with his previous cryptic "poems" about his fragrances states concerning Serge Noire:

"An ether of ashes, it's about serge. A way of creating for myself a bad reputation with added value" [...]"A phoenix, the mythical bird of legend burns at the height of its splendour before emerging triumphant, reborn from the ashes in a choreography of flame, conjuring the shapes of yesterday in a dance of ashes. The swirls of oriental grey enrich the twilight with depth and intensity while windswept memories hint at the beauty of transformation. An ode to everlasting beauty under the cover of night's rich plumage"

There is some discrepancy between English and French press release which is intriguing to contemplate: In the French text there is the addition of a controversial affirmation of the fragrance creating a visual contrast between white skin and black cloth, intended for ethereal beauties ("Pour vous belles éthérées! Peaux blanches et serge noire...")
Political correcteness never fit well with Lutens and the phrase despite its connotations cannot be taken at face value, I reckon: I am sure he was focused on the aesthetic choice of chromatic antithesis and not on any racial slur hinted. To me it is more evocative of "The Pillow Book", black calligraphy on light-toned skin, tragically romantic in its unattainable ideal.

The Lutensian feminine ideal is japonified, lean and ascetic in her black garb, a woman of neither here nor there, of no time and no place; she almost becomes inhuman in the attenuation of her form and features to the point she becomes pure art. However every one of his creations bears inside the sperm of this ideal, which caresses our dreams and imprints our thoughts.
Black takes the emblematic scheme of a non-color: it serves as protection and amunition. But also as the symbolic anonymity of the monastic cloth which invokes an inner transformation, a metamorphosis of the spirit and which imparts its truth to those who opt for it.
Serge Noire will be the darling fragrance of everyone seeking to embrace their inner anchorite. Count me in!

Serge Noire comes in Eau de Parfum Haute Concentration at the standard 50 ml/1.7oz oblong flacon with optional spray attachement and costs to buy 95 €

Pic from Shiseido ad courtesy of Autour de Serge

How does the latest El Attarine by Serge Lutens smell like?

The perfume community has been complaining lately. But let's finally admit it: Serge Lutens is the Pope of cult fragrances and Chris Sheldrake has been the archbishop to aid his vision come into fruition. And since, despite Sheldrake's new position under the aegis of Chanel, he can still work with Lutens, we have apparently not seen the last of the duo's creativity. Indeed two new fragrances have been announced: El Attarine and Serge Noire to be launched at the end of summer and July respectively. Anticipation is building. Ad copy is scrutinized for clues. But what do these really smell like? It is Perfume Shrine's privilege to reveal a few facets of that olfactory identity for you today.

One of the advantages of writing and academia is communicating with other people who write and participate in academia as well. And it is more pleasurable and infinitely intriguing when those people share the same passion: fragrance! Perfume historian, professor at the Versailles school of perfumery and writer Elisabeth de Feydeau, who we're honoured to count among the readers of Perfume Shrine, had the opportunity to experience the new Lutens fragrances and asked us to share her impressions for the English-reading public on this venue. Honoured and flattered we agreed with enthusiasm.

But how were these fragrance conceived? According to Lutens regarding El Attarine: "Today, I offer you gold, sun-drenched topaz, everlasting flowers and saps". Admittedly an image evocative of the riches of Arabia and Morocco, eternal inspiration in the Lutens universe.
The olfactory focus and main notes of this solar composition seem to be immortelle/helychrisum, more commonly known as everlasting flower, aimed at offering a new interpretation that will set a new frontier in fragrance history.
Elisabeth described El Attarine to me as intensely about immortelle after a soft opening, with copious lashings of spicy, sweaty cumin and honey notes; this might indicate that they have explored both facets of the material, essence and absolute. With a complex odour profile, immortelle is a fascinating note with a herbaceous, honey-like aroma in the essential oil and recalling the unique odour of spicy fenugreek (Trigonella Foenum Graecum) in the absolute, imparting amazing lasting power and evoking maple syrup for many. {It has been featured in the following scents: Sables and Eau de Monsieur by Goutal, Eau Noire Dior, L de Lolita Lempicka, Calypso Gardenia, Guerlain Cuir Beluga, Cologne du 68 and Coriolan, Chene by Lutens, Balmain Ambre Gris, Rosine Ecume de Rose, Amouage Jubilation XXV, Divine L'Homme Sage, Diptyque Opone, Comme des Garcons Kyoto from the Incense series and Woodcoffee from the Sweet Series, Parfumerie Generale Corps et Ames}.
However in El Attarine imorrtelle is flanked by another warm and sweet essence that is a favourite of Lutens and a staple of Middle-eastern and Mediterranean tradition: jasmine. Its intoxicating lushness appears along with pronounced woods to polish El Attarine off.

Perhaps in a more prosaic description Lutens goes on to say that: "In Arab countries, “attarin” means sweet-smelling, and refers to everything within the realm of the “atar”: fragrance, heart, flavour and essence". Attars recall the mysteries of the east, its people and the rituals in which they engage. The mingling of smell and taste is not unheard of in the Lutens/Sheldrake cosmos, as both Douce Amèreand Mandarine Mandarin are impressions of gustatory speciments (absinthe and mandarin respectively) that reveal side panels of aromas like in a Byzantine triptych ~"Attarine is not a closed door. You cannot make a perfume with only your nose".
El Attarine is also the name of a regal, elite Koranic school in Fez, thus the fragrance is another homage to the Arabic culture that has been providing Lutens with inspiration for the last 2 decades at least.
In a Parthian Shot, Serge leaves us with this: "It is an accord born out of a disagreement in the first person. From my attarinian solitude, the fruits of my imagination were abundant". Make of it what you will and we shall return as soon as it is released!

El Attarine is priced at € 110 for the standard bell jar containing 75 ml, available exclusively at the Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido (August 2008). There is the option of shipping within Europe.

Next post will focus on Serge Noire: stay tuned!

Pics courtesy of Palais Royal and Wikipedia.
You can read an interview with Lutens on Scented Salamander.

Patou Ma Collection: part 6 ~Colony, L'Heure Attendue, Caline reviews

“The exotic image of the deepest jungle, lush vegetation, powerful spices borne over amethyst seas and strange girls in distant sun-kissed ports.” Thus is described Colony in the booklet which accompanies Patou’s Ma Collection.

In 1938, amid the threat of impending war, Jean Patou chose Colony to evoke the tropics and to suggest a carefree, more prosperous time. A fetid and round fruity chypre, Patou’s Colony is comprised of succulent and non-sweet pineapple as well as heady ylang ylang from Nossi-Be starting on an almost herbal, boozy accord pinching your nose, which needs humidity and the warmth of skin to open up. Under the thick netting covering fruits one can feel unfolding earthy tonalities juxtaposed with what seems like leather and musk in a game of chiaroscuro.

The languorous Colony prowls like Lauren Bacall did in "To Have and Have Not", as Marie "Slim" Browning, a resistance sympathizer and a sassy singer in a Martinique club; the perfect “strange girl in distant sun-kissed ports”. Curvaceous clothes cinched at the waist hold her graceful gazelle form as she leans her long neck to give a sideways aloof look at those who catch her attention.
And she knows full well how to entice Steve: “You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow”.



Colony by Patou possesses that same husky and nostalgic voice which beckons you to whistle invitingly.
Notes for Colony: fruits, pineapple, ylang ylang, iris, carnation, oakmoss, vetiver and spices.

On the other hand, L'heure Attendue is more like the wistful Ilsa played by Ingrid Bergman in "Casablanca". When the Nazi occupation of Paris came indeed at an end, Jean Patou celebrated with “the longed-for hour”, L’heure Attendue; a soft, rather sweet, powdery and woody perfume with creamy taste, embodying elegance, restraint and dutiful sacrifice; it speaks in the melodious tones of a warm-hearted woman.

With shades of Almeras's style in the heart, L'Heure Attendue is sober yet sparkling, all big expressive eyes, smiling yet with a melancholy of realising what all this entailed. The flowers, interweaved into an inseparable posy, are creamy and tender unfolding into a spicy/woodsy drydown which epitomizes classic elegance. One can imagine it worn with the perfect classic tailleur or trench coat, a broad-brimmed hat perched on smooth hair atop softly arched eyebrows. Inside its core a warm, loving heart will forever be pulsating in the beat of happy days spent in Paris.

Notes for L’Heure Attendue: lily of the valley, geranium, lilac; ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, opopanax; Mysore sandalwood, vanilla, patchouli.

Câline, composed by then in-house perfumer Henri Giboulet, was released by Jean Patou in 1964 as “the first perfume dedicated to teenage girls”. Which means it is unfathomable on anyone who is considered so today! This unblushing aphorism might provoke a flood of inner dialogue in which two sides of consience passionately argue about older and younger mores and how times have irrevocably changed. But the epoch from which Câline hails was by all accounts the era in which young girls aspired to become mature ladies pretty soon, not pigtailed 50-year-olds who carry Hello Kitty bags. There was validation in becoming a grown-up, an antithetical mood to the hysteria of the youth cult which catapulted itself into our consiousness after the 60s. There was nothing apologetic about being older, like there wasn’t either about being younger. Angst and ennui were notions that were just beginning to morph in a world which had healed at long last its WWII scars and envisioned a prosperous future full of the latest technological advancements.

The greenly fresh aldehydic sophistication and malleable primness of Patou’s Câline remind me of Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, after her European trip in which she becomes a proper “lady”, almost unrecognizable to those who knew her as merely the chauffer’s daughter to the rich family. That je ne sais quoi, which her stay in Paris to amend her broken heart polished her with, is reflected in the refined and discreet trail that Câline leaves behind like a reminder of decorum; or the murmur of enchanting and yet bounded femininity expressed in shadowy iris and insouciant orange blossom, underscored by earthy mossy tones which simultaneously recall shades of Ma Griffe and Ivoire. The piquancy of a basil spicy-like note along with coriander put the finishing touch in its image: It’s poised, ladylike in her kitten-heels and too eager to don the classic pearl necklace with a desire that borders on the ironically saucy.

Not to be confused with Gres Caline from 2005 (nor its flankers, Caline Night and Caline Sweet Appeal)

Notes for Câline: green citrus, spices, jasmin, ylang-ylang, cedarwood, moss, musk.

Clip originally uploaded by zegoar on Youtube. Lauren Bacall and Casablanca pic via Wikipedia. Audrey Hepburn pic via Audrey1. Bottle pics courtesy of Basenotes.

Patou Ma Collection: part 5 ~Vacances review

This painting of Marc Chagall, Lovers in the Lilacs, has always striken me as the quintessential mark of an unanswered question which both love and flowers wear like a corona: how can the ephemeral be coaxed to last?
Lilacs especially live and die for all too brief a season, creating the yearning that short-lived pleasures know how to taunt us with, reminding us of our own mortality.
Vacances by Patou, a fragrance which tries to make them last, was composed by Henri Alméras in 1936 to celebrate the first paid vacations in France (“vacances” in French). Coincidentally it was the same year that Jean Patou himself died of apoplexy at the young age of 49, immersed in business worries and anxious for the future of his house. It seems that his touch on the pulse of trends wasn’t as firmly set in the 1930s as it had been in the 1920s. Luckily the house was saved by Raymond Barbas, his brother-in-law, who would persist and would be commisioning other fragrances to his in-house perfumers Henri Alméras and Henri Giboulet: Colony in 1938, then L’heure Attendue in 1946, and Câline in 1964, as well as other less-known ones such as the 1956 Lasso, Makila, Délices…

Patou himself would have loved to see the deep appreciation lilac and hyacinth lovers feel for his wonderful fragrance, however. Vacances is the best showcase for the simultaneously green, oily and metallic aspects of hyacinth, but also for the richest lilac note one could wish for in a fragrance this side of respectable. And I am saying this because lilac blossoms are profoundly dirty-smelling really, but with such beauty, such wistfulness and such abandon that they know how to play with my heartstrings.

The elusiveness of lilac is due to its resistance to yielding a sufficient essence for use in perfumery, making it the par excellence recreated note, which so often recalls housecleaning products or air-fresheners (the molecule hydroxycitronellal which is also used to recreate muguet/lily of the valley is often the culprit, as well as Terpineol) The IFF Lyral base has also been used in lilac perfumes. On some occasions, perfumers go for an unexpected combination to provide a needed counterpoint, like the aqueous note along with yeast for En Passant by Olivia Giacobetti for F.Malle; or the modern dusty take of Ineke in After my Own Heart.

But immerse your soul into Vacances and you will understand that the message of the lilac panicles is more fulsome, beckoning you to oblivion. The rays of spring sun fall on flowers as if for the first time. But despite its allegiance to spring it can be worn year round.
The starkly green opening of galbanum in Patou's Vacances is the frame to the opaque jade and peppery spice of hyacinth, with its wet green stems smashed. And then the full force of oily-sweet indolic lilac, pretty and dirty like puce-pink knickers dusted with pollen, worn for a day too long and a shower too short. The golden muskiness that remains is subtle yet definitely there, posing a gigantic question mark seeking an answer that will never come.

Notes for Vacances: galbanum, hyacinth, hawthorn, lilac, mimosa, musk, woods

Although Vacances outlived Patou himself, it got to know a hiatus until 1984 when it was re-issued as part of Ma Collection by then in-house perfumer Jean Kerléo. In a coup of inexplicable tragedy, all the scents in Ma Collection however have been discontinued and are quite hard to find. Let’s fervently pray the masterminds at Patou ~and P&G who own them~ bring it back from the dead into the realm of the living where it so passionately belongs.

"Lovers in the Lilacs" by Marc Chagall, courtesy of abcgallery.com. Bottle pic by Frances Ann Ade via Basenotes.

New Frederic Malle fragrance!

Because we like to keep abreast of things and congratulate a smart girl when she gets a great scoop, please visit The Non-Blonde for the news on a new Frederic Malle scent, Dans tes Bras (in your arms) by nose Maurice Roucel (of Musc Ravageur fame). Exciting!!!