Vintage Advertising Champions: In the Trenches

Today's vintage advertisement comes equipped with the romanticism that has become expected from one of the classic perfumes by the historical house of Guerlain, L'heure bleue. The pictorial representation takes on the approach of fragrance as a "memory maker", a concept very popular with the fragrance industry because it seems to allow for the manipulation of someone else's emotional response; or so the thinking goes…(whether it is successful or not you'll be the judge of that, I'm sure you have many related experiences to relay in the comments).

The text for the Guerlain advertisement reads:

"1914, a fragrance creates deep, deep memories.
Guerlain introduced a perfume named for the twilight, L'Heure Bleue. No the skies darken and the western world is swept into the forces of the Great war…
A weary French officers finds a moment of peace. He pulls a letter from his tunic and inhales the fragrance lingering in the worn pages. 
It is the fragrance she wore the last night they spent together. L'Heure Bleue, named for that moment hen the sky has lost the sun but not yet found the stars. 
He reads the letter for the hundredth time…."

The advertisement is of course destined for the American (and English speaking) market as clearly shown by the choice of language, the capitalization of the name's initials (in French it's L'heure bleue) and the emphasis on the nationality of the officer (so you know for sure it's French!) But the really interesting part is that this ad, although an older advertisement, isn't that old as could be imagined. It's not a print ad from a 1920s magazine, nor even from the 1930s, or the 1940s….Can you guess?? It's a print ad clipping from a ……1974 magazine!!!! The Great war is irrelevant for all practical purposes by then, the "deep deep memories" echoing the trenches in which soldiers fought all over Europe are but a subconscious bond of "perfume as Proustian madeleine", a notion that is the bread & butter of any aspiring beauty editor experiencing writer's block. In this particular case it comes sheathed with seduction purposes too; desire and connection through language, orchestrated with Lacanian skill. The emotional bond with the product is part of what makes for repeat purchases. It also creates brand awareness.

But the mythology of Guerlain is firmly in place (yes, even by the mid-70s). The genius concept of presenting two of their legendary ~and commercially successful, let's not forget~ perfumes, L'heure bleue (1912) and Mitsouko (1918), as bookends to the first world war, is already gaining momentum. The reality is different: L'heure bleue, conceived to represent the love of its perfumer for Impressionist paintings is destined for the blondes shopping at his Parisian boutique, whereas Mitsouko, paying homage to the orientalia rising at the time of its creation and into the 1920s, is meant for the brunettes.

But you can clearly see where this is going: that which begins as a brilliant advertising campaign very soon becomes perpetuated into history guides, into fragrant lore, into our very perception of how things  are supposed to be….

Drapeau Tricolore: 12 Quintessentially French Fragrances

"How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?" General Charles de Gaulle had infamously querried. Growing up one of my best friends was French. Her name was Marianne (coincidence?) and she was living in a Paris banlieu: We met in the summers vacationing, we exchanged cards and film-stars-stickers in the wintertime. She brought our family gorgeous stinky cheeses that cemented my life-long appreciation for them, we brought them handmade olive oil soaps and mastic liqueur; and between summer siestas and hot days skulking we came to know each other's culture in passing. I learned that the French are a sensual more than sexual people: They buy their fruits and vegetables every day (fondling them, like us); they like to satisfy their eyes, but also their touch and their tastebuds in everything they do. The cliché wants them to be dirty and if the Paris metro is anything to go by one can't blame that notion, yet much as they have legends of The Great Unwashed (Napoleon's note to Josephine "I am returning in three days; don't wash!") they also have recipes to aromatize said juices! (The tisane recipe of orange, rosewater and mint the French lover hands down to his American young mistress in bed in "Le Divorce" by James Ivory: "That's something you would never have found out in Santa Barbara" he tells her naughtily).
But what constitutes Frenchiness? In the mind of the American it has always stood as sophistication, but this really only stands for Parisians. And not as expected: French women often go for a thrift thrill at Zara and gloat on finding the perfect little outfit for less than 100 euros! They wear mainstream and high-street brands unapologetically and shop at department stores.
My own culture has been very influenced in the political and intellectual fields by France. Yet France is as much the Breton seaside with the matelot tops and its mussells as well as the Gitanes-smoking existentialists and the urinous paths of the clochards in Paris; the sole meunière with its bland ~to my Greek buds~ taste and the tangy blackberries growing on each side of the Loire valley. It's Midi and the characteristic familiar Mediterranean herbs (thyme, oregano, rosemary) picked by hearty housewives cooking a mean coq au vin, but also the Route des Vins d'Alsace (the Wine Route)!

Compiling a list of perfumes viewed as French-smelling, I had to eliminate many classics. Surely Paul Parquet's Fougère Royale for Houbigant (1882) and Jicky by Guerlain (issued in the same year as the Exposition Universelle and the Eiffel Tower, 1889) are beacons in the history of perfumery, but they were not as popular with the French themselves as other scents. The French are an elfin people, small, usually brown-haired and quirky, not blond and athletic, so anything Wagnerian can be safely left behind; nor are they Joan Crawford shoulder-padded and hollowed cheekboned; therefore Mitsouko and its Japonesque homage was out. By the same token the pale sunlight of Après L'Ondée (1906) reminds me more of northern climates. Miss Dior and Cabochard have now changed to the worse... And although France has traditionally been a very advanced country in the intellectual stakes, it is also conservative in its mentality, much like many of the older nations in Europe: People want to feel special, but not to be too different from the other respectable society!
Paris by Yves Saint Laurent seems like an obvious choice, yet its rosy embullient appeal transcends cultures. Same with Soir de Paris by Bourjois, especially popular with American women, and Narcisse Noir by Caron (initially a US hit before establishing Daltroff's knack). In the end I went for an arguably idiosyncratic list of French perfumes which satisfy my inner exploration of what "smells French".
Here it is for your enjoyment.

Amoureuse by Parfums DelRae
Technically an Anglosaxon fragrance (inspired by the Victorian boxwood trees on San Francisco), but executed by a masterful French hand (Michel Roudnitska, son of Edmond and responsible for Noir épices & most of the Del Rae line), Amoureuse is a sublime indolic, "dirty" floral (jasmine and a little tuberose) touched by honeyed sweetness and a ginger zing, that you can picture on someone as fortuitously vulnerable as Jeanne Morreau. It oozes femininity, frank sexuality and inner power like few other modern florals (Manoumalia perhaps?).

Bal à Versailles by Jean Desprez
If there was a void of great French orientals that didn't took you to the gardens of India in the manner of Shalimar, but kept you within terra franca, Bal a Versailles (Ball in Versailles) would be it. Unusually for the second half of the 20th century (1962) issued by the perfumer himself, Bal smells like afterglow ~spent, content and animalic, its citrus opening cascading into a cadenza of rich florals, fanned on opulent resins and golden balsams.

Bel Ami by Hermes
The citrusy leather modern classic of 1986 is often overlooked in its unusual pepperiness and floralcy under the smoky woods (cedar and sandalwood) and the animalic vanilla, which make it raunchy and assertive at first, refined later on. Named after a novel by Guy de Maupassant chronicling the rise to power of a manipulative journalist, Bel Ami has always striken me as the perfect masculine choice for a genuine French lover. Someone like Michel Piccoli of Le Mépris, Belle de Jour and The discreet charm of bourgeoisie. Can you think of anything more French?

Cologne à La Française (Institut Très Bien)
Small children in France ~and all along the Mediterannean~ often have their hands "washed" and their clothes sprinkled with Eau de Cologne. This cherished memory I have has undoubtedly contributed to my appreciating fine fragrances later on. This particular ~recently discontinued~ cologne by Pierre Bourdon bears its nationality proudly as a crest and its lemony goodness is akin to the optimism felt on a bright summer's day. I like to think that it smells like the one (American born) Jean Seberg casually splashes on her nape in Godart's A Bout de Souffle under Belmondo's watchful eye.

Hypnotic Poison by Christian Dior
Annick Ménardo went for the gourmand idea inaugurated by Angel, yet proposed a novel approach: the plummy, bitter almond heart poised on coumarin radiates like a poisonous apple of temptation (cyanide smells of almond) while the heliotropin is a distant wink to Après L'Ondée . Although Angel can be smelled everywhere in Paris, so it can in several other metropoleis (London, Athens, Miami...). Hypnotic Poison (1998) is just this side of being subversive without straying too much.

L'Air du Temps by Nina Ricci
Paris was liberated and hope was brimming in the air; the world was ready for light-hearted optimism after the austerity of the WWII ravages. Francis Fabron was thus commissioned to create the first Nina Ricci perfume in 1948 capturing exactly the "air of the times". The Lalique doves almost kissing on the top of the cap (designed in 1951) symbolised the romanticism that Paris has always stood for in the collective unconscious, preparing us for the olfactory equivalent of delicate Chantilly lace. The scent's tender clovey-carnation and peachy heart seems strung by fairies (especially in the vintage version), given a boost by benzyl salicylate, effectuating one of the most memorable scents of my own childhood.

L'Heure Bleue by Guerlain
From the Impressionist paintings that Jacques Guerlain was inspired of, to the elaborate pattiserie tradition that the French have been going to extremes for (see Vatel), everything in L'Heure Bleue (1912) is redolent of French Belle Epoque: the orange blossoms of the South, the Meditarranean herbs with the spicy anise overlay of rustic bread and the woody violets flanking it, as well as the paradigmatic sillage left behind it, enforce L'Heure Bleue as one of the masterpieces of French perfumery. Its wistful contemplativeness feels very Parisian to me.

Musks Kublaï Khan by Serge Lutens
Named after the bloodthirsty warrior of the steppes and created by Christopher Sheldrake in 1998, the shocking reality is this purring cougar smells soft, luminously warm and inviting in a special, "dirty" way, thanks to intense cistus labdanum, castoreum (rude hide) and civet essences. It shares the barnyard quality with the otherwise mossy musk of L'air de Rien by Miller Harris and several parfums fourrure. Despite its reputation of "the armpit of an unwashed camel driver" (perhaps due to the dirty hair note of costus), my personal perception of it is highly erotic, a view which the many French pilgrims of Les Salons du Palais Royal, where it's exclusively sold, seem to share.

No.5 by Chanel
Is No.5 French-smelling? Does the Pope wear a hat? No list would be complete without Chanel's icon of 1921 by Ernest Beaux, simply because it is emblematic for the perception of French perfume throughout the globe. The image of the little black dress with a single strand of pearls and two drops of No.5 is not especially francophone (it's more of a WASP image nowadays), nor is the touristy "baguette under the arm and tilted beret" cartoonish notion. Yet whether you like its soapy aldehydic bouqeut of intense ylang-ylang and jasmine over a musky trail or not, No.5 has accomplished what the Eiffel Tower has as well: to be considered an instantly recognisable French hallmark!

Nuit de Noël by Caron
The mysterious Mousse de Saxe (Saxon moss) base, with its cool and dark, animalic edge rich in musky and vanillic aromata (it's said to include geranium, licorice, leather, iodine and vanillin), and its jarring 6-isobutylquinoline (leathernote) produce a rosy-woody-powdery fragrance with a raw undercurrent that stood apart even in an era filled with outstanding perfumes (1922). Guy Robert praised it thus: "If a woman were to enter [a crowded theatre] wearing Nuit de Noël, all the other women would become invisible".

Une Fleur de Cassie by Editions des Parfums Frédéric Malle
I recall seeing farmers collecting gum from the cassie tree (acacia farnesiana) for use as gum arabic substitute in Australia, their agile hands working effortlessly. Known as Cassier du Levant in the South of France, the scent of cassie is rich in benzaldehyde, anisic aldehyde, and a violet-smelling ketone, rendering the essence sensuous and shadowy fleshy like the contours of a soft feminine body through gauzy garments. Cassie has been harnessed in several renditions from Caron's Farnesiana to Coty's La Jacée through Creed's Aubepine Acacia, but nowhere is the flesh-like honeyed richness, from bark to thorny stem to sugary-spun blossom, best interpreted than in Dominique Ropion's masterpiece Une Fleur de Cassie.

Vétiver by Guerlain
Simply put the scent of the French bourgeoisie, a classic that smells respectable and always pleasant in all situations; the passe partout that opens all doors! It seems there's nary a banker, broker, lawyer or well-to-do doctor in France who hasn't got a bottle of this citrus woody with refreshing vetiver notes of Jean Paul Guerlain in their bathroom. Although Eau de Guerlain with its provencal herbs accord is just as French, Vétiver (1961) caught on more, due to its erstwhile virile profile. A bit hacknayed thus if you're actually French and in France, it stands along with Dior's Eau Sauvage as the classic of classics in the great masculines pantheon. Its feminine counterpart is exceptional too!


Please add your own suggestions on French-smelling perfumes!

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Stars & Stripes ~10 Quintessentially American Fragrances

Painting "La Liberté guidant le peuple" by Eugène Delacroix (technically commemorating the July Revolution of 1830) via Wikimedia Commons. Jeanne Morreau in Les Amants via cinemoi.tv, J.P.Belmondo via artscatter.com, L'Heure Bleue photo via Tangled up in L'heure Bleue

How much more gorgeous can you go?

Seek and you shall find: it is these biblical words that come to mind upon seeing the gorgeous advertisements of the year 1972 by Guerlain.
I was seeking an ad that would depict a red-haired beauty for Mitsouko in a futile search for the entertaining although completely frivolous concept of perfumes for certain haircolours,; a concept that had been in practice however at the start of the 20th century when houses would produce indeed fragrances aimed at different types of women, as classified per haircolour. Patou was one of them. Guerlain also had created Mitsouko for darker women and L'heure bleue for blondes, as I had read in a perfumer's confession to a journalist acquaintance.
And then I stumbled upon these. And a vista of beautiful possibilities opened up...

Shalimar for a raven-haired seductress


Mitsouko for a redhead introspect

L'heure bleue for a wistful, enigmatic dark blonde

Jicky for a dynamic, sizzling blonde



and finally, the pièce de resistance:
Vol de Nuit for a regal auburn-shaded brunette




Never mind that it looks like it's the same model on all the above ads. Ah...the perfume lover can dream, can't she?




all pics courtesy of okadi

The Agony and the Ecstasy part2: control and surrender in fragrance

Continuing from yesterday’s post, today we occupy ourselves with the matter of control versus surrender as manifested in matters of relationships as well as sensual escapades that pertain to olfaction.

The amount of control we exercise in indulging our fragrant desires is not proportionate to the pleasure thus derived. On the contrary it varies according to the occasion and circumstances. Although usually control is assumed to be a desirable quality and one that is highly regarded, especially in western society with its competitive background, it is often that it also acts as a binding force that ties us to refusal of sensuous pleasure. The latter could be best arrived at through surrender to stimuli that have or have not been chosen by us in the first place. Imagine the surprising whiff of baking goods when walking past a bakery or the intoxication of smelling a familiar aroma on a stranger passing us on the street. Those are instances in which our degree of control of what we perceive is close to nil. Yet we derive pleasure from them.
Of course one could very well argue that the reverse is also within the sphere of probability. A close encounter with a smell that has foul associations in our mind makes the proximity with the vessel that perpetuates it insufferable, a true torture. In those instances we would dearly wish that we could exercise control over what we actually smell.
Surrender also has a somewhat fatalist tone to it, as if there is some predestined course of events, a kismet that accounts for our experiences instead of us shaping our present and future. The matter quickly becomes philosophical, which is perhaps beyond the scope of this post.

If we were to investigate cinematic examples of this conflict we revert to the 1960s classic by Spanish master director Luis Buñuel “Belle de jour”.
In it Catherine Deneuve stars as Séverine, the repressed wife of Pierre, an upper class doctor; sexually frigid with him, yet harbouring fantasies of a sadomasochistic nature which lead her to become a day-time high class prostitute in a posh brothel run by a knowledgeable French woman. There her fantasies take shape and form, although often following alternative avenues that include Chinese sex toys, assimilated necrophilia and voyeurism. However, although Séverine would like to act out her fantasies with her husband whom she loves, she capitulates to men to whom she is indifferent to in a surrender of the senses that satisfies some inner need that cannot be met in her bourgeois existence. Her rencontre with a criminal youth and also with an acquaintance who exerts control over her in daring tones –as he is intrigued by her iciness which he hopes to shatter- in her regular impeachable life will forever alter her cosmos and make her the victim or the culprit of fate.
As the director himself said:

"All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence."

The whole layout of the film exploits many ideas that pertain to youth (the distinct innocence of youth preyed on by the older, more experienced man played by Michel Picolli); to class and elegance of a bourgeois aesthetic (the impeccably decked in Yves Saint Laurent couture Séverine wearing Roger Vivier classic buckle low pumps is a fashion plate for eternity); to fantasy vs reality (what is true and what happens inside Séverine’s head? The end is particularly ambiguous). The viewer is left to decide for themselves interpreting clues any way they choose. This is especially evident in the scene in which a client at the brothel brings a Chinese box to use, upon perusing which all the other girls shudder except for Séverine who remains fascinated. Asked on what the box included the director was quick to comment that there was no point in it containing anything in particular, as the scene was meant to signify the vast difference of mentality between the heroine and the other girls.

One particularly brilliant moment that pertains to perfume and our issue is the scene in the bathroom when Séverine accidentally smashes a big bottle of Mitsouko by Guerlain before she sets out to spend the afternoon at the brothel. (It can be seen in the trailer attached below, clicking on the screen). The bottle is in the big round style with the pyramid stopper that was quite popular all through the Sixties.


Mitsouko is a perfect example of a scent that is implicated in sex and the issues of control vs surrender. Much like the literary heroine that inspired its name (the Japanese girl in the novel “La Bataille”) it has a rich heart and sensual base that extol an animalic presence of labdanum and the earthiness of oakmoss and vetiver which combine to give the more ethereal elements of floral notes a subversive mantle. Although Mitsouko has all the pedigree of a well brought up upper-class lady, this is only the surface which one could easily scrape to find a ferocious needy sensuality about to manifest itself in surprising throes.

Another one of Catherine Deneuve’s brilliant roles in a film by the same director is “Tristana”, a different take on the issues of control vs surrender. The setting in this one is quite different than the rich upscale Parisian apartment of Séverine that makes us dream of an idle pampered existence that is laced with naughty fantasies. Instead Tristana is a poor orphan girl in a Spanish village trust into the care of an older gentleman, the respected due to his honorable nature (despite his socialistic views about business and religion) Don Lope. Nevertheless the one flaw of Don Lope is his weakness towards women and he seduces Tristana, all the while saying that she is as free as he is. He will have to face the consequences though, when she in turn acts on this freedom, when -upon becoming his wife- she tortures and humiliates the husband she despises.
The subjects of fascism vs socialism, old age, Catholicism and sex are relentlessly explored and in the end the innocent girl becomes a cynical wile woman who believes in nothing any more while the worldly Don Lope played by Fernando Ray becomes rather belatedly the father figure that Tristana needed in the first place. As he reaches the peace he was pursuing all along he exclaims 'It's snowing so hard outside, but in this house, I'm nice and warm. What's there not to be happy about?' It is poignant that he recognizes only too late that acceptance, surrender to the course of life is a surer way to inner peace than struggling to impose one’s will.

Watch the "Tristana" trailer clicking on the screen.


Because to my mind there is an inherent melancholic touch to what I interpret as the loss of innocence, the perfume that I would choose to anoint the beautiful Tristana with is none other than L’Heure Bleue by Guerlain. One of their great classics, issued in 1912, it was inspired by “the blue hour”, that magical moment when the sun has set, but the sky hasn’t yet found its stars, when the odour of flowers intensifies.
Wearing L'Heure Bleue is like partaking in a secret rite of passage that an innocent soul goes through to meet their unintended destiny, just like Tristana in her quest for true love. The bittersweet smell of aniseed is the poignant thread that travels through the journey of life, full of experiences, full of disappointments that make the heart strings ache. Cloves and powdery heliotrope providing the backdrop of a darker theme, while the heady damascene rose and jasmine shine as the memorable sweet moments of happiness found adrift an existence that exerts no control over facts. As the scent of L'heure bleue unfolds, you are left with an impression of rejection, of refusal, of an idealism that is crashed by the vagaries of life that makes me inwardly sigh for all the lost causes and dreams that might have been.
It is also one of Catherine Deneuve's personal choices of perfume in her vast wardrobe of fragrances and I can very well see how she might be partial to its soft caress that whispers of times past.

Next post will persist in this genre with more perfume references. Stay tuned!


Pics from film Belle de Jour courtesy of toutsurdeneuve. Portrait of Deneuve by Raymond Darollet courtesy of Toutsurdeneuve. Clips from Youtube