Guerlain Chamade (1969) Fragrance Review Series Part 4: Separating the Myths

Morsels of legends, however interesting, may not necessarily be true within the sea of civilization.

―By guest writer AlbertCAN

Upon discovering Chamade yours truly was told that master perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain conducted over 1,100 fragrance trials. While there is a grain of truth in this story-since all memorable vintage Guerlain fragrances were the results of meticulous modifications- the title of the most fine-tuned within the Guerlain realm officially belongs to Nahema (1979). Guerlain Chamade was developed for years before coming to light, but whether it took over 1000 tries is another debate of itself.

Chamade bottles via estellana.com

pic via Basenotes.net

And then there's the bottle: even Guerlain the company can't agree on the same story. Officially it's a heart upside-down, pierced by the arrow stopper, but its creator Raymond Guerlain begs to differ. His actual muse? See below.

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, complete with the giant clam shell as the bottle and the young goddess as the stopper. Interesting how life works sometimes.

For a fragrance review of Guerlain Chamade refer to this link. For Part 1 Introduction to Chamade and Part 2 Guerlain's Chamade and its Muses refer to these links.

 

Photos: Detail of The Birth of Venus from Google; Guerlain Chamade bottle from Etsy

Guerlain Chamade (1969) Fragrance Review Series Part 3: The Fragrance

"Perfume is made mainly so that one remembers the woman who wears it. I like to call it the elevator effect. This is the man who goes to meet his lover—whether it be his fiancée, his wife, or his mistress—who has entered a building before him. She is wearing perfume, and he smells it. Suddenly his heart beats faster and the blood rushes to his head."

—Jean-Paul Guerlain via “Perfume Legends: French Feminine Fragrances” by Michael Edwards (1996)

~by guest writer AlbertCAN

[For Part 1 Introduction to the Myth and Part 2 The Muses refer to the links]

Of all the approaches to fragrance criticism I’m most dreary of the revisionist approach, pulling a scent out of the context of its time and aiming at regurgitating an ill-advised paradigm. Somehow the critic’s bias shines through more than anything else. Of course, fragrance masterpieces deserve to be respected—and insincere efforts need to be chided—but a fragrance ultimately needs to be judged based on its genre and its cultural context. It’s not a fragrance critic’s job to ignore the innovations set forth by a classic fragrance, nor forgetting to mention the classicism within a new launch. They are simply two sides of the same coin in perfumery.

After more than four decades Guerlain Chamade is of course deservedly termed a grand classic, but to assume that a classic-smelling French fragrance lacks an ounce of rebellion is not a correct notion, either.

Perhaps the biggest misconception about Chamade is its doyenne status. There lies the paradox: sure, the definition of youth has changed dramatically, but back in 1969 Chamade’s opening would be considered quite interesting. Hedione. Blackcurrant. All then new materials and not widely used. Of course Edmond Roudnitska employed hedione brilliantly in Eau Sauvage (1966), but the chemical hadn’t been widely dared in women’s fragrances. Nowadays the blackcurrant note has been used to a fault, but Chamade was arguably the first to have done so. Again, one shouldn’t fault the early adaptor, even if the innovation becomes commonly accepted.

But I’m really ahead of myself. The trembling of the heart really starts with two key players: the interplay of galbanum and hyacinth. Both are quite polarizing, having a refreshing but strong-willed diffusion—hyacinth, having an unapologetically white floral scent with a slightly bitter edge; galbanum, emitting an all-out, almost knife-sharp verdancy. The chills, when set on the typical Guerlain warmth, surprisingly pulsate and mimic the intrigue upon feeling "the mad ache". (Doesn’t one often feel a moment of clarity even when falling madly in love with the wrong person? The interplay of fire and ice can be so cruel sometimes.) Had the opening act been allowed to dominate the fragrance would have been reduced to a bony, postmodern solarium, but all this feels like the opening clash of the battlefield surrender signal.

The undulation between the cold and the warmth really creates a dual effect when narcissus and vanilla add to the tension. Within the context of ylang ylang and blackcurrant the narcissus feels opulent and insolent at the same time, yet there’s a certain ambiguity about the shapelessness of it all, as if the character of Sagan’s heroine Lucile comes to life. Chamade the fragrance would have been the necessary luxury she craves, yet like the fragrance she doesn’t fully give in when facing her feelings, essentially not out of defiance, but actually coming from an undulating ambivalence. Do not be mistaken by the gauzy, silken aura with a slight golden sheen: Deneuve has that the necessary indirectness down pat—the confusion is essentially self-serving and really the destination, not the process.

Come to think of it Chamade’s legendary development curve adds a beguiling interplay to the theme of Sagan’s novel as well: this has never been a forthcoming, no-barred-hold type of wild attraction story at heart, but more of an exquisite torture. The pang of the hyacinth and galbanum really hold fort for a good while before the drydown of the narcissus-amber sets in. In fact it’s exactly this character that makes exposes the problem of testing fragrances on paper blotters: testing a multi-dimensional olfactory sculpture on a two-dimensional medium is an act in futility in itself.

On a personal note I was determined not to make that sampling mistake when presenting Chamade to my godmother Jeannie, instead testing the scent directly on her skin. Surely enough the golden gauze envelopes her upon first spray; after decades of using L’Air du Temps, Chamade became her signature, no doubt in part because my beloved godfather was hooked from the get go!


Photo: Guerlain Chamade fragrance advertisement from the 80s, via Google

Guerlain Chamade (1969) Fragrance Review Series Part 2: The Muses

~by guest writer AlbertCAN

The idea of la chamade floated wide in the Parisian psyche years before the Guerlain creation. Françoise Sagan (1935–2004), a French author best known for works revolving around the romantic lives of wealthy but disillusioned bourgeois characters, first published her novel “La chamade” in 1963. Set in high-society Paris in the mid-1960’s, the plot reads like an anti-fairy tale romance as the novel tells the story of Lucile, torn between Charles—twenty years her senior but rich enough to keep her comfortable—and Antoine, the more age-appropriate but broody young man she is attracted to. Classic Jane Austen romance would give Lucile a more determined heart, but alas, true to Sagan’s heroines she has a flighty soul:

“Life mostly made sense to me until I left my parents' home. I wanted to get a degree in Paris . But it was all a pipe dream. Ever since I've been looking everywhere for parents, in my lovers, in my friends, and it's all right with me to have nothing of my own—not any plans and not any worries. I like this kind of life, it's terrible but true.”*

Over the years Charles had a steady supply of mistresses at a salon he frequented, hosted by Claire. The arrangements would usually last a year or two, but Lucile turns out to be different as Charles doesn’t exactly have a trivial relationship with her:

What he couldn't say to Lucile was this: "All I care about is you. I spend hours and hours trying to fathom your psyche, I'm hounded by one single idea. And I, too, am frightened, just as you were saying, frightened of losing what I have. I, too, live in that perpetual state of despair and yearning you described."†

Antoine, a typical French 'intellectual' romantic hero of film and fiction, is kept by an older woman as he falls for Lucile. Thus begins a delicate social dance: people within this small circle are all aware of this attraction, even be pushing them towards it, but Lucile and Antoine do try not to betray those who love them. As Lucile notes, Charles "might be able to accept my sleeping with Antoine, but not my laughing with him". She eventually gives passion a shot, but life in the garret doesn't suit her one bit; worse luck, she finds herself pregnant but unfit to be a mother. Lucile’s solution to life thus requires funds, leaving no choice but to return to Charles, still loving Antoine but no longer loved loving him...

The imperfect love story might pale in dramatic intensity compared to Sagan’s magnum opus “Bonjour Tristesse” (1954), but Catherine Deneuve eventually gave her blessing in 1968 as she starred in the cinematic adaptation, continuing her wardrobe collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent along the way. Now here’s that movie in its entirety, complete in its original dialogues: I couldn’t negotiate English subtitles so unfortunately some would have to read between the lines.



Thus what exactly is this French word chamade? Unfortunately there isn’t a comprehensive English equivalent to capture all of its French nuances. Sure, the English dictionary recognizes its antique military usage, denoting a distinct beat in battlefields that signals the surrender of the troops, most notably used during the Napoleonic age. (La chamade would have been played prominently when Napoleon lost the decisive battle of Waterloo .) Now not many people have actually heard of the actual drum beat so here’s an enriched sample below.



Yet the French also have another usage of the word, the expression un coeur qui bat la chamade, a double entendre to our wild heartbeats when surrendering to the latest object of affection. It is this second meaning that plays a huge influence to the Guerlain fragrance―but to be precise, all of the influences above have contributed to the character of this fragrance, which I shall explore in detail in Part 3.

Photo: Still from the film La Chamade (1968)

* Unless otherwise noted all English excerpts are from “The Mad Ache”, the 2009 translation by Douglas Hofstadter

† The original text uses the French formal “vous” and the second person pronoun; normally a more intimate “tu” is applied in this context.

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Guerlain Chamade (1969) Fragrance Review Series Part 1: An Introduction

‘Now come’, thought Lucile, ‘he’s only holding my hand as we cross the park. It’s spring, no need to worry. I’m not sixteen any more’. But her heart beat wildly. She felt the blood drain from her face and her hands, and rush to her throat, choking her ... Son Coeur bat la chamade.

―Françoise Sagan, “La chamade” (1965), excerpt taken from “Perfume Legends: French Feminine Fragrances” by Michael Edwards (1999)

~By guest writer AlbertCAN

chamade [ʃə’mɑːd]

n

 

(Military) A signal or an army’s surrender during battle, usually by drum or trumpet

―coeur qui bat la chamade: French expression for heart beating wildly due to strong emotions (literally “heart who beats the chamade”)

[from French, from Portuguese chamada, from chamar to call, from Latin clamāre]


The heart perhaps is the most impossible of all. The untamed is virtually untouchable by a sound mind, marching to its drum beat, questing for only its desires. Logics and perspectives may temporarily girdle its mad gallop, only to let it rampant again once passion reigns supreme. Often mankind speaks of progress and civilization, how the likes of smallpox or polio are either eradicated or nearly so from the face of the earth. Yet no modern physician can ever cure a broken heart―and the latest gamut of anti-depressants only address the brain’s chemical balance―nor any vaccine can successfully prevent one from falling in love with the wrong person. Caesars and czars may come and go, inciting awes and fears with the might of the day, but the hardest thing to govern, as shown time after time, is still the heart.

Nowadays one need not to venture far to see the modern casualties of the heart: tabloid newspapers or gossip standards shall be evident of our fascination of its unpredictability, ranging from the latest indiscretion of the Hollywood stars du jour to the myriad of advice columnists dispensing hope to the unrequited. Or the plain crimes of passion, a plead of temporary insanity that allows one to walk away even from murder. The brain may be our largest organ, yet we speak from the heart when feeling amorous; when emotions run rampant we wear out hearts on our sleeves. We make a promise to our love by crossing out heart, and our hearts go out to anyone who loses their significant others. And when we know what we want? We set our hearts on it. Our intelligence may set us apart from a Darwinian point of view, yet it is our heartbeats that set us in motion, navigating through the illogics of it all.

The heart of Paris at the end of the Sixties was certainly beating wildly: a flourish of intellectual and artistic new waves, combined with a sound economic welfare, marked a full turn from the sobriety of the Fifties. Yet that few years of gaiety were "killed" by the 1968 Paris uprising: urban trenches were erected in the heart of Paris as street cobblestones were turned into medieval artilleries. Order, calm, harmony all gave way in that heated moment as everyone’s heart beat la chamade. It’s under this mixture of simultaneous cultural boom and bust, this combination of light and darkness that perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain put his finishing touches on Chamade (1969), one of Guerlain’s fragrance masterpieces.

That’s the simple version of this story.

True to any Guerlain crown jewels cultural icons endorsing one another in Chamade, drawing upon references of different époques and interlocking them all in the most fascinating ways. Literature, cinema, military history all play part in its development; even a beloved Italian Renaissance masterpiece painting is involved.

In the next episode I shall explore the immediate cultural muses to Guerlain Chamade and answer an all-important question―What exactly does French novelist Françoise Sagan, cinematic icon Catherine Deneuve and Napoleon have in common?

Photo, from left: Guerlain Chamade poster and fragrance editions, via Google