Serge Lutens La Vierge de Fer: the Iron Maiden Referencing New Fragrance

She walks on through the night
Her circumstances slight
Are only helping her to fail
And though she feels she's right
She tries with all her might
And makes the deepest peril pale
Oh, but she is unreal
Oh, but she doesn't feel
Oh, but she is unreal

She chooses who to love
And then unlike a dove
She takes the laughter from their smile
She wears a velvet glove
Her friends may find it rough
It is a gauntlet all the while

via laparousiedejesus

Could Serge Lutens have been listening to the 1970 Iron Maiden song by Barclay James Harvest (one of my long favorites[1]) and thinking of his own mother, who entrusted his keeping to the hands of relatives as a small child? We'll never know.

What we do know is that this hard-as-nails recollection is mixed: the fragrance pays tribute to Serge's own mother, poignant, since the anthropomorphic torture device know to us from the Inquisition days and the heavy metal band replicates the iconography of Mary, mother of Jesus. Aside from any notions (and involuntary misunderstandings) of grandeur, the concept of tending to fragility, to past traumas for the semi-abandonded Serge (much like a device of torture would reference), is at art's core and thus drives creation. And his fixation with 19th century romanticism (De Profundis or Vitriol d'Oeillet) and its darker side (Douce Amere), all the way through to German Expressionism (La Fille de Berlin) continues...

Vierge de Fer, the latest perfume to adorn the sumptuous Lutens line means Iron Maiden (also referenced as "Virgin of Nuremberg") and recalls the Inquisition dungeons we have come to associate with heavy metal bands, gothic tales and heavy SM tones.



The fragrance focuses on lily (a flower highlighted in Lutens's Un Lys previously) with a mineral, hard and cold aspect, that recalls the hardness of iron, and incense. According to Lutens himself: "The lily in Vierge de Fer is more glorious than in Un Lys. That one was fresher, more lily-like actually. It played on the whiteness of lily. This one [Vierge de Fer] plays on the heady aspect. It's a lily whose pollen hasn't been dusted off, it has kept its stamens and anthers. This is a lily which affronts, once again."[2]

Vierge de Fer has just been presented and will be widely available in September at Les Salons du Palais Royal in the beautiful bell jars of 75ml eau de parfum concentration and on the official Lutens e-boutique.

[1] For some reason or other, I first loved it as a teenager. Must have been the glorious bass line, as I loved following songs with strong bass lines.
[2]quote via Nicoals Olczyk translated from the French