.jpg)
.jpg)
Some like the metropoleis-named Paris Paris, New York New York and Milan Milan by Madeleine Vionet, the portfolio of Soeurs Callot or Guerlain's Ai Loe and Mais Oui by Bourjois are the stuff of hushed discussions among the initiés.
Kypre by Lancôme along with Tropiques, Tendres Nuits, Bocages, Conquest and Blue Seal were among the first fragrances created by Armand Petitjean, a true pioneer, in 1935, and the first five were sent in time for the Universal Exhibition of Brussels of the same year where they gained double medals of excellence. With one fell swoop Petitjean had established Lancôme as a force to be reckoned with! In 1900 the pre-eminent perfume houses in France had been Guerlain, Roger Gallet and L.T.Piver. By 1940, the only remaining true French perfume houses were Guerlain, Caron and Lancôme! It was especially clever of Petitjean to choose a French name which rolled off the tongue; also to break with the minimalism of packaging that had at the time become all the rage amongst designers who had imitated the cleaner lines of Chanel or had been inspired by the Art Deco style, with baroque presentations that evoked exotic paradises in no uncertain terms. Georges Delhomme, serving as artistic director and flacon designer, developed the glamorous bottles and boxes which make us dream even to this day. If Lancôme nevertheless is best known today for their skincare, it's due to its founder's wise words: "The perfume is prestige, the flower in the eyelet, but the beauty products are our every day bread".
Petitjean, despite his diminutive name which means Little John, was appropriately known as "The Magnificent One" ~always intent on creating an empire. As an former Coty export broker for Latin American and ardent student of François Coty's business acumen he envisioned his own house to be as successful. Reprimanding the Coty brand for eventually sacrificing quality for volume after Coty's death, Petitjean was determined to up the ante of luxury upon founding his own establishment.
The continuation was a virtual olfactory avalance: Black Label (1936), Peut-être (Maybe) and Gardenia (both 1937), Flèches (1938), Révolte/Cuir (in 1939, and re-issued as Cuir recently) and le Faune (1942). Rejected in his offer to be Minister of Propaganda of the government of Clemenceau, Petitjean worked in the training of a battalion of women ambassadors of Lancôme. The late 1940s saw Armand industrious as ever when he produced Blue Valley, Nativity, Lavender, Marrakech, Bel Automne, and Happy, while the original Magie (a rich oriental with a core of labdanum) was issued in 1950 and the original Trésor two years later, composed by Jean Hervelin. Envol (flight) and Flèches d'Or (golden arrow) came out in 1957. Several other fragrances comprised the brand's portfolio over the years such as Qui Sait, Sikkim, Climat... (space is limited here); but Winter Festival proved to be Petitjean's last. The year was 1959 and after his wife's death and his son's decision to see if pastures were greener on the other side, embarking on maquillage, Petitjean saw the financial situation of the company becoming critical by 1961. Destitute of a successor he squandered his fortune building a plant in Chevilly-Larue. When debt caught up with him, he had no choice but to negotiate a take-over. Armand Petitjean died on 29 September of 1970 having successfully sold his brainchild to conglomerate L'Oréal..jpg)
Kypre was according to some sources his favourite creation among his pleiad of scents and smelling it in hindsight it's not difficult to see how it's easy to grow fond of. Technically a soft leathery chypre, it presents a suaveness of character that is less strident than earlier leathers such as Knize Ten and less crisp or luxurious than Cuir de Russie by Chanel. Coming one year before their famous and unfortunately baptised Revolte/Cuir, it pre-empties the idea which would materialize in the latter with more conviction and more...leather! The two versions of Kypre that were handed me, one more intense in parfum, the other in diluée form and sieved through a scarf, give me the impression of a shape-sifting fragrance that provides an interesting encore just when you thought it had performed all it had to perform. The beginning surprised me with its almost aldehydic soapy and fresh embrace, copious amounts of jasmine and rose reading as a classical bouquet. Although no notes are available I detect some sweetness of violets (methyl ionones) along with the soapy, lifting the fragrance and feminizing it. While the feel of a classical chypre is firmly anchored on the juxtaposition of bergamot to oakmoss and labdanum, in Kypre the idea is fanned out on powdery, whispered tones that cede into a sort of ambery, iris and face-powdery background. Much like a neoclassical gown Kypre retains a certain allure of something that can be still admired and worn with pleasure even decades later.
Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Chypre series, Leather Series, Lancome fragrances and news
Grecian dress by madame Gres, via metmuseum.org. Pic of Kypre ad through Ebay. Pic of Kypre bottle and box presentation by Liisa, all rights reserved, used with permission. Kypre bottle with round flat stopper by allcollections.net
On the other hand dram in the fragrance and cosmetics industryhas a different measure: a unit of apothecaries' weight, equal to 60 grains, or 1/8 ounce (3.89 grams) [2]. Dramming is meant for "refueling" as in "Thierry Mugler's star-shaped Angel bottle has a dramming unit with an airtight canister that contains 16.9 oz of fragrance" (incidentally that's about 510ml)—enough to refill the 2.6-oz bottle six times".
Guerlain specifically carried the brown apothecary style bottles in both Eau de Toilette and Parfum de Toilette concentration, as depicted here in both Shalimar (in PdT) and Jardins de Bagatelle (in EdT). Some of these bottles turn up online or in auctions and garage sales. Their original use would be to fill up samples for customers or refueling splash bottles at the stores. Due to sheer volume and unfrivolous presentation they represent great value for money for the collector interested in the perfume "juice". It is however worth keeping in mind that several alcoholic products by Guerlain such as mouth hygiene products for gargling, hair oils (stilboite) and muscle rub liquids came in seemingly unadorned bottles, so as always attention is needed when purchasing or collecting. 
Other fragrance companies also use dramming units, such as for instance the Bond No. 9 New York Chinatown Dramming Unit valued at $3500. 
Yet audiences and critics don’t want to see the sculpture itself, they insist in admiring its value. It’s a monetary value, to be sure, but, more than that, a value of prestige. The work of art is exalted not merely because it is beautiful, but because it has been globally tagged as beautiful. [Of course, if you missed that day at school, art history courses are available online to discuss this in more detail.]
Usually “Kitsch [is] defined as an aesthetically impoverished object of shoddy production, meant more to identify the consumer with a newly acquired class status than to invoke a genuine aesthetic response”. [1]But in the words of Hermann Broch [2], Kitsch is not only a replica or a vulgar upstart but the entire Modern Art genre from Romanticism onwards ~the latter emphasized the need for expressive and evocative art work, you see~, since art is being made unto a purpose in itself and to be consumed as beauty. In other words, it’s being produced as a museum piece on a pedestal! Broch also accuses kitsch of not participating in the development of art, having its focus directed at the past.
“I tried it [Douce Amère by Serge Lutens] for the first time last night and it did not work for me, sadly. Am I just not far enough along in this hobby to appreciate frags like this? Will I like it later? I can tell that it's well composed and appreciate it-- but I don't like the way that it smells”. [3]And why blind tests between a cheaply produced perfume sur-mesure and a real expensive one do not always play out as one would have expected!
Virginia Woolf captured these problematics in her famous "middlebrow" discussion. [4]Whereas low-brows like that they like, crude as it might be or not (Emannuel Kant describes the direct appeal to the senses as "barbaric" which might be a wonderful reference when experiencing Dioressence, formally introduced as “le parfum barbare”! Think about it!), high-brows like what their elitist stance manifests into creating. Which leaves middle-brows: On the whole they are educated people who aspire into bettering themselves through the appreciation of art.“He is the hero of that peculiar creature of our times -the wannabe, the pseudo, the pretend-intellectual who finds the incomprehensible to be profound, the obscure to be enlightening and the disgusting to be ennobling”.Yet, editor Russell Lynes satirized Virginia Woolf’s concept in the article "Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow" [6], attributing the distinctions to a means of upholding cultural superiority and subtly lauded middlebrows in their zeal. His parodying of the highbrow claim that the products a person uses distinguishes his/her level of cultural worth, by satirically identifying the products tied to a middlebrow person, has a real and tangible significance in the world of perfume use. Are we better, more educated, more discerning, and more “in the know” because we appreciate an obscure niche scent such as By Kilian Liaisons Dangereuses? Is the effect even more pronounced and pointed as an external attribute because it costs a lot of money too? Does the trend of high-end exclusive lines within mainstream brands (Prada and Armani boutique exclusives, Guerlain Les Parisiennes, Chanel Les Exclusifs etc.), constitute an aesthetic middlebrow manifestation apart from a marketing technique?
“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch”May we all remember that when faced with a revered perfume!
.bmp)
The initial presentation of Diorissimo, created by Edmond Roudnitska in 1956, came in what is known as the amphora bottle. A flacon of Baccarat crystal designed in the shape of an ancient amphora with curved body and a bronze bouquet of flowers sprouting off its top. That presentation held the parfum and is extremely rare and expensive nowadays. Basically it's a museum piece, therefore it shouldn't concern you when buying online yourself; I am including it for the sheer plush of its coffret and its reclining beauty.
The amphora shape in rather simplified form became the design for Diorissimo later on. Some of these bottles rise their heads from time to time, at costly prices. The stopper has a bulbous shape. The same design was recently used for the Collection Particuliere Passagere..jpg)
In the interim, today's bottle design was first conceived and introduced in the 1960s. This 1965 ad with the design by René Gruau shows two designs for Diorissimo: a tall cylinder of leveled glass with a wide, round silver cap with the name in a band across its breadth; and a smaller flask-shaped flacon with a transparent round cap and the name on a thick-paper insert on the front of the bottle, crowned by the characteristic little bow of parfums Dior..jpg)
The classic houndstooth design established itself in the end of the 1960s, the 70s, all through the early 80s. The juice appears darker than it was in real time, because of oxidation due to the passage of time. The versions circulating included Eau de Toilette and Eau de Cologne, lighter concentrations than extrait de parfum, but bearing all the radiance and beauty of the original formula. These are the bottles I recall on my grandmother's vanity as a small child. .jpg)
They were splash bottles, a usual design for the era, but there was also the option of attaching a spray mechanism, as depicted in this photo..jpg)
.jpg)
Up till fairly recently the Diorissimo bottles circulating were these: pink box, Diorissimo tag in white oval. The bottle was shaped as usual, the letters cursive and on the glass itself, no sticker. This is the version that Luca Turin granted 4 stars in his "Perfumes, the Guide", saying"today's Diorissimo is unquestionably different from the older version although still a thing of great beauty". The colour of the juice was straw-like and lighter than before, although not as clear as present juice.
.jpg)
The change is subtle and very cunning: while right now the packaging can be an indicator of batches, the introduction of a different colour schema is an optical blurring, ready for further –and final- chopping off! The consumer will never be able to realise without minutely examining the allergens list, which -let’s face it- is not what most people do.
.jpg)
