How Far Can One's Allegiance to a Brand Go? (vis a vis the Galliano Incident)

Last week's fashion news involved drunken stupor, brawl fights and a surprising revival of what we had deemed long forgotten past in the form of a "I Love Hitler" video captured on cell phone. The protagonist of all was fashion designer and formerly head designer for Dior, John Galliano who hurled anti-Semitic slurs on a Parisian outing, obviously under the influence of heavy liquor. The news traveled with the speed of lightning, Dior (LVMH actually) fired him and Galliano issued a non-apology apology.


Like reported on RealBeauty.com "Newsworthy events like these can, for better or worse, impact the way people view brands and celebrities. Many were impressed with the haste with which these songbirds and Galliano’s business partners distanced themselves from their entangled alliances". (Interesting correlation made, go read it)

Sidney Toledano, himself Jewish, opened the anticipated Dior Fall 2011 show with the following statement:

“Since its founding by Monsieur Dior, the House of Christian Dior has lived an extraordinary and wonderful story and has had the honor of embodying France’s image, and its values, all around the world. What has happened over the last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal to us all. It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer, however brilliant he may be. Such statements are intolerable because of our collective duty to never forget the Holocaust and its victims, and because of the respect for human dignity that is owed to each person and to all peoples. These statements have deeply shocked and saddened all at Dior who give body and soul to their work, and it is particularly painful that they came from someone so admired for his remarkable creative talent.”

I hate to break this to them, but there is some sketchy past in the house of Dior...

The crux of the matter remains: Where does that thin line between artist and public figure begin and end? When Woody Allen rocked the celebrity circuit and raised outcry with his admitting of being in love with Soon Yi Previn, things were different: Not only was Soon Yi not his adopted daughter (the adoption papers were in Mia Farrow's name), what most people missed was the fact that the two didn't even live in the same house! Woody and Mia never really shared apartments, instead choosing to each having their own. Plus the motive was love.
Art redeems, or rather, the artist can be brilliant in his art, although flawed in his human being comportment: When homosexuality was considered a "flaw" how many nowadays revered artists (from the Great Masters of painting down to classical music) would be outcasts in their societies?
Racial slur and hate however is something completely different. Different because it perpetuates that which art is supposed to suppress and man-handle: the beast in us.

Even Jean Paul Guerlain, an old guard veteran, rocked waters a little while ago, when his quote on working on the Guerlain classic Samsara, apparently hinted at his not believing in blacks slavery being that harsh. (catch that discussion on this link). His quote was qualitatively different because the offensive part in the press relied on a fundamental mistranslation: the N word was never actually uttered. LVMH summarily severed all ties from Jean Paul (we're not supposed to ever hear again his name in mystical relation to the creation of another new Guerlain launch...) and he publicly apologized. The incident was considered comparatively mild and put behind for digestion.

With Galliano, things are on a distinctly different path. Not only is he much younger than grandpa Jean Paul Guerlain, thus not able to claim age-related haziness, he's also in the midst of the cultural milieu that involves all races and religions of the world, all erotic persuasions and all possible human variables: fashion! If Jean Paul Gaultier, an equally formidable designer in his own right, says that Galliano's work never exhibited racism, then why is Galliano showing such an attitude in his words? And where do words end and opus begins? Where does the "do I as I say and not as I do" get in the way and mix up things? How can anyone endorse his fashions or eponymous beauty products and fragrances now without a twitch of guilt and self-loathing?
What is especially vexing is that Galliano used those epithets alongside a tirade against "ugliness" and (allegedly) bad taste in a manner that shows that the worst enemy of equality and dignity is one who has been raised on the wrong side of opportunity and who got a break thanks to his many talents. A serious pity...

What's your take?

Scent Used as a Political Weapon?

"Republican Van Tran, the upstart challenger to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), is betting on voters sniffing out his opponent's struggles -- literally. " Thus begins a small article on the National Journal which describes how the politician is sending out direct mail which targets Sanchez with its scratch-and-sniff which emanates a horrible odour comprised of the combination of some of the worst possible odours imaginable (according to a GOP source). The mailer says "Open for a fragrance sample of "Loretta, The Scent Of Washington." while on the inside the text reads "Something smells rotten about Loretta. It's the stench of Washington." Below that is the actual scratch and sniff panel.

I guess after scent being used to lure customers in and make them feel relaxed enough to make more purchases, digital scents carried through nanotechnology and scent being used to attract potential mates, it was time someone thought about it in reverse and used it as a powerful weapon of all the wrong associations...It remains to be seen what the voters will do.

Check it out at this link.

The Politics of Perfumery: Jean Paul Guerlain Makes a Faux-Pas?

Perfumery is a minefield. It's not only perilous to make an olfactory mistake and distance your core audience, a communication faux pas might even trigger a campaign of boycotting your product. That faux pas can take many guises, but none is more "sensitive" than a random comment which can hint of racism. Jean Paul Guerlain, apparently unintentionally, just committed just that cardinal sin.
The whole incident took place in an interview to Elise Lucet concerning his work at maison Guerlain, where he created many masterpieces, Samsara among them. Concerning the latter, Jean Paul commented: "For once, I worked like a negro. I don't know if negroes have worked that much, but anyway..."

The word used in French was negro, but the translation is edgily close to the subversive nigger word (of which there is no French comparable).

The quote also inelegantly suggests that there might be laziness involved too. SOS Racisme and Cran have complained about this statement on France 2 this past Friday 15th October. (You can read the news and the original quote on this link) The reasons given for the outcry are mostly pedagogical, as they renounce the colonial cliches which are thus being perpetuated through such statements. Of course it's argued that these statements go against the values of LVMH and Guerlain in general, and action of distancing was demanded from LVMH, to which the behemoth company replied with a direct apology by Jean Paul himself on AFP via mail. In it Jean Paul Guerlain clarified that he is sorry for the statement and that it does not reflect his deeper thoughts. He also mentioned that he is not a representative of the company since 1996 and is not salaried since 2002, "taking full responsibility [for the faux pas], not wanting to hurt the company and its employees". His current position is of advisory to the head perfumer Thierry Wasser.

That was of course in response to the wildfire criticism which erupted on Twitter and blogs as well as perfume community fora (such as this one or that one) with proposals of boycotting the brand. It even reached CNN!.

As usual on Perfume Shrine, we dissect things to get to the bottom of it.

First of all, the first part of Jean Paul's statement is simple enough: "Work like a negro" is -unfortunately, but there you have it- a common idiom in many European languages (French being one of them, Greek also among them) in which it simply means "work very, very hard". Undoubtedly the French have it one better than us, having intimate knowledge of just how hard negroes might have worked because they have been colonialists for centuries, but I digress. The thing is very often the phrase springs up with no intent of offense; it's just an ingrained "memory" or "hearsay" (for those of us who never had any blacks in a colonial past working for our wealth). And anything can be interpreted the way one wants it to. The Holy Bible is filled with racism if you're willing to seek it from an objective point of view.

Blacks/Negroes have worked in plantations for many years as slaves, as recently as the previous century. This is deeply shameful, there is no other way around it. But certainly not to black people! Rather the ones who owned them and perpetuated this practice at a time in history when such a practice was not necessitated by ANY means (It's an agreed fact that slavery in antiquity falls under completely different parameters and not within our scope here). There even exist wonderful French patisserie creations that reference negroes, certainly through no desire to offend them.

The unfortunate correlation is that the word negro can be twisted into translation into the offending "nigger" word, which is undoubtedly derogatory. Which is exactly what happened on American media. This reminds me of the instance when Gérard Depardieu was a nominee for an Academy Award for Cyrano in 1990 which he eventually lost through a mass campaign smearing his name as "juvenille rapist". What had happened? He was giving an interview in French, recounting his troubled formative years in which he was seeing things on the streets. He mentioned, in way of example, witnessing a rape. His misfortune was the French verb "assister" which he had used was mistranslated out of context as "assisted" in the US press. From witness, he became accessory to the crime! Outcry ensued and Academy Award voters took the matter to heart...and decided to give a pedagogical lesson by denying him the votes. The trajectory followed was down-spiral...and the award went to Jeremy Irons for Reversal of Fortune (In no way am I intending to diminish his exceptional performance which I love myself). Thankfully Depardieu has remained unscathed since and the gossiping tongues claim the campaign was not so innocent to begin with, aiming to deny a non-English speaker an Academy Award for Leading role in a non-English speaking film. This is of course merely conjecture.

So far so good and this should be a lesson to us all on how to pick our words in a multi-cultural society such as the global one we're living in. And I wouldn't be giving any extended commentary, should the second part of the Jean Paul Guerlain quote not exist.

But the second part does exist, alas. Weirdly too, because Jean Paul is well-known for his good rapport and friendship with the inhabitants of the island of Mayotte, where Guerlain keeps ylang ylang plantations. Maybe his progressing age doesn't help too much in general?

That second part of the quote inelegantly attaches the stigma of laziness where none exists (and by association the "plight" some of the countries inhabited mainly by negroes is attributed to a fault of their own). Speaking with personal national experience, where critical geopolitical and precarious financial games are played on our backs by the superpowers, I can assure M.Guerlain (and everyone) that very seldom in politics anything is "through one's own fault". It's not school exams, you know. There's got to be someone assisting someone else's plight; someone else who is actually gaining something out of it. In this instance, it is colonialism and the wealth it accumulated for colonials. Too bad that France is still struggling to come to terms with accepting that heritage. Whatever... nevertheless a little more compassion to people who are not wholly responsible for what happened to them goes a long way.

And, before I forget, oh, I wish I could have forgotten about another unfortunate quote concerning other less privileged groups which I had critiqued on these pages back in 2008.

Because, come to think of it, what purpose is perfume accomplishing -refining us, giving us a veneer of sophistication and allure- if we forget to show basic human understanding for the misfortune of others? Let's refresh our Aimé Césaire readings.

For purposes of injecting a semi-relevant & controversial viewpoint on racial matters, France and the US, please read this blog post. Food for thought, and why not, comment!

NB: The pics are (clearly I hope?) ironic. The hypocrisy of white colonialism at its very highest.

Breaking the BONDs

I was fully prepared to write a long post about the latest business practices of Bond No.9 (i.e.opposing the selling of decants of their fragrances through the reliable services of The Perfume Court) after a long hiatus on the brand's news due to the somewhat non-diplomatic (for lack of a harsher word) handling of internet fragrance-camaraderie-politics on the whole (see their handling of the name "Peace"). But thankfully State of the [Car]nation beat me to the punchline with his great post BONDage and Dominance, which is highly recommended reading!

For what is worth, I have given every benefit of a doubt to businesses such as this one in the past, maintaining that they are within their rights to oppose all sales that might pose a threat to the integrity of their wares even inadvertedly ~and if we're all maintaining that perfumery is an art, then how can reselling it piece by piece not lessen that, even if it suits our pocketbook? Same is true for any perfume company (see the ceasing of decant selling on Ebay) and I can see their point. Yet somehow it's the MANNER something is handled that makes all the difference in the world: "Cease and desist" via Twitter messaging somehow appears like a calculated risk that a three-women-operated internet business (all decent ladies as far as I know) would rather drop the line off their stock instead of having to hire a costly attorney and take the case to court for years to come. So not cool!
Maybe we should all become fans of this cinematic reference "Piss on your peace..." instead? What do you think?



Brilliant (and highly educational) dialogue courtesy of the classic film The Lion in Winter with Peter O'Toole as Henry II of England and Timothy Dalton as King Phillip II of France (and Anthony Hopkins as Richard the Lionheart).

Is perfume political? You bet!

In times such as ours every single matter that entails a minimum of two people has to make it through the media circuit and perfume is not an issue that has been left off the equation either.
It might seem rather heavy and ominous to title my post “is perfume political?”, because what reference does perfume have to political parties or administrations and so on and so forth? Let me explain myself.

In ancient Greek the term “polis” referred to the city states of classical antiquity. In those the voting system was not representational, but direct and frequent, due to such factors as lack of manual labour that would consume hours (slaves were doing it), closeness of people to the voting centre (the whole state was just the city), small percentage of active voting population anyway. Hence decisions were made on everything by “polites”, aka free citizens directly (the word derives from the Latin “civitas” which also means city). That entailed whether ships would get built for merchandising, who would be the committee to decide on theatrical competitions or whether the city would go to war with another city-state; and then indeed voting on such seemingly trivialities as whether they should allow preening or depilation to slave women (apparently not and it was a sore point for them).
You see my point. Everything becomes political in that sense. An active citizen who is considered an integral part of society (and they were adamant on the participation in decision-making on penalty of exile) has to take a stance on a wide diversity of matters pertaining to that society. This is a theoretical position of admirable conscientiousness. If only people were that active today instead of apathetic to what is happening around them…..

However that notion can get hued in sinister nuances still. And it has to do with that most ephemeral yet subconsciously influential matter of all: the olfactory stimulus.
Witness the case of a woman in Calgary, Canada, as reported by the Globe and Mail.com, who was asked by not one, but two different bus drivers to abandon the bus if they were to go on with their routes, because of her “offending” perfume.
Although I am tempted to give a good break down on said perfume (it was Very Irresistible by Givenchy) and why it would have such a dramatic effect, I feel that the core of the issue is more complex than just attributing it to overapplication or dislike of that specific composition by the bus drivers.
Reading the article and seeing the photo of Natalie Kuhn, a 25 year old chiropractic assistant I saw a pleasantly turned out black woman who seems tidy, professional and groomed and would be unlikely to wear such copious amounts of any fragrance, especially since her fellow bus passengers did not complain. Although the quote that making her sit at the back of the bus made her feel like “a modern day Rosa Parks” might seem a little excessive (hopefully we’re past such despicable lows in human dignity) it does seem that the repetition of the incident with a different driver was humiliating and a little suspect in itself, especially so as the first occurrence had already been publicized.

The matter takes on another political nuance as it is linked to the invasion of other people’s privacy as witnessed by the perfume ban on all municipal buildings at Halifax. The rhetoric behind this is that “with rising rates of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, irritants in the air can have a greater effect”. Of course health is a very serious matter and it is true that there has been an increasing percentage of asthma and pulmonary afflictions that are triggered by irritants in the air in the western world. However one would have good cause to pause for thought and wonder whether those irritants are mainly comprised of chemical substances in exhaust fumes, toxic substances in cleaning products and the ubiquity of artificially scented matter all around us in a consumerist world that uses the olfactory to sell more product inundating our perception and leaving us unable to take it anymore. Does everything from bleach to erasers to stationary to dry-cleaners’ bags has to be scented, I wonder?
Would cutting down on those, offer a palate free to enjoy an occasional whiff of a nice perfume on somebody? I think that it would.

There is also the issue of modern day perfumes being comprised almost in their entirety of synthetic aroma-chemicals (and it is sadly obvious that Very Irresistible is one of them), not much different than those used in the cleaning products industry which contribute to a catch in the throat reaction for many people who have obviously reached their limit and are justifiably (according to them, at least) embarking on Philippics against perfume en masse. Nevertheless the issue of re-introducing natural essences is neither economically viable in a market that is in to make as much as possible in the here and now domain nor practically doable with all the recent developments of which I have blogged about in the recent past.

The following comment cited in The Globe and Mail article made an impression of irrelevancy to me and I am sure I am not the only one: “Roedy Green, who said he has “a very keen sense of smell,” believes people often don't realize how much perfume they're putting on. The worst offenders are older people whose sense of smell has faded, he said, leading them to pour on perfume until they match the way they remember smelling as a youth”. Surely that does not apply to this specific case of Natalie Kuhn who is only 25 years of age and probably in full functional capacity of her olfactory abilities? Or is this a general bash against people who like to put on perfume perhaps a little more enthusiastically (to put it politely)? It seems so.
The accompanying comments from lots of readers who are almost all of them condemning the wearing of perfume is very revealing and just a bit foreboding on the direction the public is getting their opinion shaped.

On the other hand there is the opposite field of perfume enthusiasts who are not eager to back off their habit and sometimes provocatively insist in crude terms to carry on with impunity offending colleagues, fellow public transport passengers, and close friends and family, oblivious to the fact that toning it down a bit would result in a greater leniency from those perfume haters and thus would guarantee the continuation of the noble practice of perfuming. Ms. Natalie Kuhn did display such an obstinate stance, in my opinion, perhaps on the premise that it was her right to wear what she likes and assured in the knowledge that no policy allows drivers to refuse passengers because of their scent. Nevertheless the repercussions of such an incident might tilt the balance not in her favour and to the detriment of all of us perfume lovers. Is it far off the day when a general perfume ban would be introduced on all public transport, thereby practically eradicating our right to scenting ourselves lest we have a private vehicle (and it shouldn’t be a convertible missy, mind you!!)? We have to stop and wonder: if smokers -who have been also practically exiled from civilised society in recent years due to their habit- had been a little more considerate and less headstrong about their right to light up whenever and wherever and all present company be damned, would we have reached a point where they are the outcast of society? I think not.

For that reason and with that reasoning, I would pray for a little compromise on both sides of the argument.

Painting is "Demosthenes practising oratory" by Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ, courtesy of Wikipedia.