Vega by Guerlain: fragrance review (vintage vs.re-issue)

Véga was originally created in the 1930's, in 1936 to be precise, by Jacques Guerlain. It was such a loaded year: the Berlin Olympics, the Nobel for Eugene O' Neil and cinematically speaking My man Godfrey with Carole Lombard who could wear this perfume effortlessly. The recreation was undertaken by Jean Paul Guerlain for the opening of the renovated Boutique Guerlain in 2005 and bears his mark alongside the well-known Guerlinade base. It entered the Legacy collection, known under the name Il était une fois (=once upon a time). Belonging to the family of aldehydic florals that first took off with the infamous introduction of Chanel No.5 in 1921 by Ernest Beaux, Véga has the fizzying, sparkling element of the aldehydic opening, that can sometimes smell waxy or even soapy.

Vega is such a beautiful name: being the brightest star in the α Lyra constellation and the 5th brightest star we can see in the sky, it has 58 times the brilliance of the sun, although scientists tell us that they are full of cosmic dust. The name however evokes luminosity and the perspective of cosmos: In 1936 Paris was indeed the capital of Light, the chic metropolis of every emerging trend, the place to be!

The original jazzy Véga in vintage Eau de Toilette traipses along the classic school of aldehydics with a luminous, expansive quality and softly powdery rosey and iris notes that support the warmth of sweet flowers ~notably the piecingly sweet ylang- ylang~ and the familiar vanillic touch of the Guerlinade base that takes a creamy nuance: the lustre of big pearls worn at the open neckline of a soft cloak under marcelled hair to go out for a night of folly.
Perhaps that aldehydic arpeggio is a nod to the take-off in Chanel's No.22 as well. The notes sing in a beautiful choral that hums melodiously.
According to toutenparfum in 1995 or 1997 according to other sources (later which would co-incide with the 1996 LVMH takeover and therefore seems more probable), Véga was briefly re-introduced and swiftly disappeared again. The bottle was short and cylindrical with a bulby cap, resembling the original inkwell flacon shown in the above vintage print ad.

In the 2005 re-issue of Véga those diffusive soapy-powdery notes are softened, to suit modern tastes who have arguably distanced themselves from the more perfume-y tastes of yore. However that is not to the detriment of the perfume at all. Rather it emphasises the rich floral heart while the two versions are not dramatically different. The ylang ylang is the predominant note in the new composition, a jasmine-like scented flower with a somewhat fruity aspect; jasmine and orange blossom come along too from the wings as supporting players. Véga also features fleur de cassie (acacia farnesiana) with its rich smell, like cat's paws immersed in milk, a whiff of heliotrope. Although iris and rosewood are listed, they were not to be found in the re-issue, at least not in the usual earthy version I come to witness in most true iris perfumes, like Luten's Iris Silver Mist or Hiris. That sweet floral heart in combination with the Guerlain vanillic warmth and the plush vetiver-amber base reminds me of the fond of Vol de Nuit and Shalimar at the same time without the smokey den ambienace of the vintage forms of the latter. That is to say Véga definitely has an animalic musky tonality in it that would potentially drive off people not attuned to full, hazy florals. It is not a perfume for shying violets!
Although the heart and base have elements of Chanel No.5, especially in its parfum version, Véga is at once less naughty and woodier. That darker, more serious element is a great attribute of the creation and although it is only an idea of darkness really, it still manages to make the perfume rise above merely pretty. Guerlain has always had an affinity for making likeable and wearable perfumes, often taking inspiration from other compositions and "making them laugh", like Jacques Guerlain did with Shalimar and Mitsouko (inspired in part by Coty Emeraude and Chypre respectively). Guerlain's other aldehydic floral from the period between the two World Wars, Liù, was another one inspired by Chanel No.5, but in comparison to Véga the latter seems soapier and more angular. They both have a bourgeois sensibility that makes for generally very "French"-smelling perfumes; at least in what is considered French in the collective unconscious, France being a vast country embracing many different cultural stimuli. This is the case here with Véga and this aldehydic may be a wonderful alternative for people who cannot enjoy Chanel No.5 or Arpège or even the fabulous Editions des parfums Frédéric Malle Iris Poudre.

The vintage parfum circulated in the inkwell-shaped bottle, while the Eau de Toilette is to be found in the large oval bottles (as depicted) on Ebay. There seemed to be also an Eau de Parfum version which however I have not tried yet. The 2005 re-issue of Véga is currently available exclusively at boutiques Guerlain and the Bergdorf Goodman's éspace Guerlain in Eau de Toilette in a 125ml splash cylindrical bottle tied with a gold thread on the neck and the Guerlain seal flat on the cap.


Notes for Véga:
Top: aldehydes, bergamot, orange blossom
Middle: jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, fleur de cassie, rose, carnation, rosewood, iris
Bottom: sandalwood, amber, vanilla

Please read another review in French on Ambre Gris.

Pic of Vega ad courtesy of euart.com. Bottle pics through etna.borda.ru, Victoria's Own and mr.Guerlain (collector).

Ode by Guerlain: fragrance review and history

He locked the door behind him and came over and sat on her bed and put one hand firmly on the little hill that was her left breast. "Now listen, Tracy" he began, meaning to ask her at least one or two questions, find out something about this wonderful girl who did hysterical things like gambling without the money to meet her debts, driving like a potential suicide, hinting that she had had enough of life. But the girl reached up a swift hand that smelt of Guerlain's Ode and put it across his lips. "I said 'no conversation'. Take off those clothes. Make love to me. You are handsome and strong. I want to remember what it can be like. Do anything you like. And tell me what you like and what you would like from me. Be rough with me. Treat me like the lowest whore in creation. Forget everything else. No questions. Take me.”

If the above piece of prose is nudging you into an abyss of sensual surrender (and a little sideways feministic complaining as well), it's all because Ian Flemming knew a thing or two about perfumes and their secret language. Coming aboard chapter 4 in his novela "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", Ode is making an appearence as the feminine wile that seals the sentimental trap for James Bond: the one time in the old series when he falls in love.

Much like Liù is Guerlain's warmer interpretation of the aldehydic vision of Chanel's No.5, Ode is the Reconquista of the floral territory of classical luxury held by Patou's Joy. Yet it is also taking a page off the book of Arpège by Lanvin, another aldehydic floral, merging the two into an abstract creation that smells like a woman; like a woman very much of the era of its creation, I should clarify.
Jacques Guerlain created Ode, his last perfume, in 1955 with the assistance of his grandson Jean-Paul (aged 18 years at the time), heir to the family vault of formulae, passing the baton to catapult the house into the modern times: it was only a few years later that Jean Paul would write his own history with the fresh tonic Vétiver and the delicate caress of Chant d'Arômes.
Putting on Ode in extrait de parfum and contemplaing its time-frame however never fails to make me wonder how those milliners (Chanel began as one) and dressmakers played such a major part in the consciousness of even old and traditional perfumery houses such as Guerlain! And also how the platonic ~rather than the literal~ idea of flowers as transfigured into a feminine fragrance stood as the semiotics of how a woman was supposed to smell like in those times. After the roaring 1920s and 1930s with their strange and brave revolutions such as Guerlain's own Djedi , Mitsouko or Shalimar , the emancipated dukey Tabac Blond by Caron or Cuir de Russie by Chanel and the shocking evocations of Piguet's Bandit during the war, the mould would slowly fall back into traditional femininity as women eased their way out of the laboring workforce and into the homely caregivers or obedient secretaries. In 1955 a floral perfume should be more than the summation of its parts (Chanel's dictum that no woman wanted to smell like a rose bed had caught on firmly) yet also less of the animalics and sophisticated bombastics of the garçonnes' era.

Ode stands as a luminous floral in the Guerlain galaxy focusing on the luxurious rose and jasmine accord that is the pillar of classical French perfumery, yet it infuses it with gentle musk and a bit of the Guerlain vanilla which gives a warm, round feel. The rose is slightly more accentuated than jasmine to my sensibility, but perhaps this has to do with my desire to immerse myself in the indolic aroma of jasmine that makes me experience this as a void. Despite the passionate prose by Ian Flemming, Ode by Guerlain is subdued and elegant through an overture of aldehydes that nod to Arpège and a creamy, slightly powdery base of delicate iris and musks. Toned down compared to both its antecedants, it is gentle and retro feminine and it makes me feel that it wouldn't be hugely popular with today's sensibilities. In extrait de parfum it stays close to the skin as an invitation for further evaluation.

The original bottle of Ode, much like Liù, was inspired by the imposing American skyscrapers. It featured a curvilinear flacon design, partly frosted, and it was crowned with a rosebud stopper. The flacon was manufatured by both Bacarrat and Pochet et du Courval (the different manufacturer can be traced via the acid stamps on the bottom of the bottles) at different times. The design proved to be so successful that it hosted Vol de Nuit, Shalimar and Mitsouko as well in the early and mid 1950s.

Although Ode should have already been the next installment in the legacy collection Il était une fois after Véga in 2005 and Sous le Vent in 2006, no news of an upcoming launch have been issued more than a year after the supposed launch (summer of 2007) and the collection remains thus mangled. Along with Kadine (1911) and Cachet Jaune (1937) they were re-issued in 2005 for demonstration purposes for the celebration of the Paris flagship store renovation, where you can catch a whiff of those long-defunct perfumes being vaporised in the air inside the infamous "microwave oven" contraptions. Let us hope that Ode will join the legacy collection at some point and not remain a memory of things irrevocably past.

Notes for Ode: rose, jasmine, woods, musk

Pics of Ode ads through Toute en parfum and Parfum de pub.

Fleur de Feu by Guerlain: fragrance review of a rare vintage beauty

If you ever come in contact with volcanic earth you will discover that despite the sulphurous yellow emanations it is exceptionally fertile. Stationed as I am in the land of numerous volcanos silenced for years but always at the ready to burst forth their bituminous menace, I can better appreciate the inspiration behind Fleur de Feu by Guerlain: the fragile yet sturdy beauty of flowers that rise their head on an island volcano.
Created by Jaques Guerlain in 1948 (according to Le Portail des Antiquaires, while others attribute a 1949 date), Fleur de Feu, which means "fiery flower", was the first Guerlain perfume to celebrate the optimism felt after the end of WWII. Guerlain had only produced the legendary Dawamesk during those difficult years (in 1942 actually), so they were eager to turn a new leaf. Much like Christian Dior had written in his autobiography referring to Miss Dior ("Europe was tired of letting off bombs, all it wanted now was to let off firewords!"), the festivity and joie de vivre inherent in that primal force of nature, fire, has inspired perfumers with connotations of radiance, warmth and passion and Fleur de Feu was masterminded as Jacques Guerlain's generous gift to women.

Fleur de Feu is quite rare since it's been discontinued for decades and it's even rarer in extrait de parfum (pure parfum) which I am now going to review, but like I mentioned before a thesaurus (with the original Greek meaning of treasure-trove) of vintage Guerlain fragrances has ended in my lap inspiring me to write and appreciate the tastes of a bygone era: When women displayed a different interpretation of their feminine wiles and when sexuality was revealed in shapes that accentuated the female form.

The scent of Fleur de Feu is warm and inviting, a floral almost quasi-gourmand with the plush carnation heart that will be reprised in Atuana in 1952. It shares the rich note that appears in the scorching peppery whiplash of the admirable vintage Poivre by Caron at a time when the perfumer's base Dianthine (first devised in 1902 by Chuit & Naef -its formula now owned by Firmenich, same as with Cyclosia and Iralia) was supremely popular. After all, the original L'Origan by Coty also featured it.
Although Fleur de Feu bears the epithet of "fiery" however, the composition here smothers it with decadent flowers of which a rich jasmine and ylang ylang can be very clearly detected, as well as powdery tonalities of iris and vanilla, so characteristic of the Guerlinade accord (supposedly the base that appears like a signature in every vintage and several modern Guerlain fragrances). There seems to be a little benzoin wamth that paired with the butterscotch-like vanilla and a hint of tobacco flower (I might be hallucinating however as to the latter note) might allude to the delights of leisure at home, at a time when women were expected to be efficient homemakers with a roast in the oven and a bavaroise in the fridge, while simultaneously bursting out of their hourglass curvaceous attire. The slight shift in focus from the optimism of l'après guerre to the bombshell ideal of the 1950s can be witnessed in the retro print advertisements for Fleur de Feu: from the romanticism of the young woman holding a bouquet of flowers to the excited bust of a red-faced Maenad. The parfum concentration is seamless with little progression, a very feminine purring composition that radiates with warmth and stays poised on my skin melding with its intimate effluvium for hours on end.

The art deco ribbed bottle with a pedestral for Fleur de Feu was made by Bacarrat around 1948 (according to Roja Dove), breaking with the more rococo tradition and introducing simpler shapes. It was designed to resemble the gigantic American skyscrapers of that time, same as with Ode later on, according to Dulcinea Northon Smith's research. It's interesting to note that this was also the inspiration behind the old blue bottle of Je Reviens by Worth; such was the impact of the brave steel and glass architecture on the pulse of culture, at a time when everything seemed possible and affluence was slowly building!

In the beginning of 2008 Guerlain decided to use the copyrighted name on their makeup collections, much like they did with the lamentably discontinued Parure fragrance: Fleur de Feu nowadays denotes the '08 spring collection of eyeshadow palettes and Kiss Kiss Gloss limited editions. Which probably means that it won't be any time soon we see the re-issue of the glorious fragrance...

If you are persistent you might find some on Ebay or at least some Eau de Cologne concentration from the 50s/60s at Sarah's Perfumes or Eau de Toilette at The Perfumed Court.

Pics: Ad illustrations "Jeune femme avec bouquet de fleurs" for Guerlain's Fleur de Feu by Darcy 1949 and illustration by Darcy 1951, courtesy of Parfum de Pub and Vintage Perfume Publications respectively. Bottle pic uploaded by orchid74 on MUA, with many thanks.

Optical Scentsibilities: bottle design, part 2

Bottles get fairly often copied, er...*cough, cough*..."inspired" by other bottles it seems. After all we highlighted some on a previous post. Maybe the bottle designers/sculptors are just a handful (which they are, actually)and the rights for use are rather...liquid.

Witness these latest examples:



The scarce Japanese Y perfume has an elegant bottle that seems like a drop. Or a figurative swan's neck made of crystal, if you contort to a mental pretzel position for a bit.

Roughly evoking the similar bottle of bestseller Cashmere Mist by Donna Karan.
Jennifer Lopez is full of energy, producing not only twins and singing albums, but also fragrances to fill malls across America. Her latest is Deseo (desire in Spanish), which takes a novel approach of an irregular shape, bluish colour (not the usual choice for a passionate fragrance) and an offbeat cap.
Somehow I think we have seen this idea executed more competently in L by Lolita Lempicka. Another passion-potion in a blue-ish, irregularly shaped, vaguely heart-like bottle.

Balmain has Ambre Gris displayed everywhere in France. It just now made it to some online stores worldwide. Striking and hefty bottle, isn't it, with its big, sherical cap!


And guess who had made a similar bottle looooong ago? Coty for his seminar L'Origan.

Parfumerie Générale goes the way of niche: austere sturdy bottles, uniform design throughout the line, empasis on what's inside rather than frills, serious approach, emblematic labels.

Imagine one's surpise to find somethig similar enrobing the comparatively lowly Denim by Elidda Gibbs!

Then of course there is jewellers's brand Van Cleef & Arpels, who have issued many fragrances in jewel-like bottles. Féerie is their latest in an elaborate crystal flacon with silvery stems, shaped like a ripe fig.

If only Pierre Dinand hadn't already designed the lovely fig limited edition bottle for L'artisan Parfumeur's Premier Figuier...

Jessica Simpson tries hard with all the desperation of a has-been. So hard that she actually sanctions a quite pretty and expensive-looking bottle for her new perfume, Fancy (fancy that!)
Then again her target audience is 15-35 years old (nothing wrong with the upper end of the margin, plenty of wrong with the bottom end of it though: how could a modern 15-year-old get away in her entourage with anything elegant without atracting ridicule? To be answered in the hazy distant future).


Eerily reminiscent of the limited editions for the bell jars of the Serge Lutens fragrances for Le Palais Royal, like this one for Mandarine Mandarin.
Now cut it out, Jessica, please! This isn't funny!!

Pics via aedes, artcover, ausliebezumduft, ambregris, autour de serge, scentaddicts, luckyscent, parfumflacons.

Dior-Dior by Christian Dior: fragrance review

Launched by Christian Dior in 1976, four years after the triumph of Diorella and composed by the same nose, the legendary Edmond Roudnitska, Dior-Dior was an astounding commercial flop resulting in its subsequent discontinuation and its firm positioning in the Pantheon of rarities.

It's hard to speculate après le deluge what exactly went wrong. Perhaps it was due to a discrepancy between zeitgeist and the character of the fragrance. By 1976 the advent of emancipated strident chypres as well as the progression from the hippy oils of the late 60s was not simpatico to a woody floral that had pared down the aromatic chypré piquancy of Diorella. And only fairly recently have woody florals for women known a slow resurgence with L'instant Magic, Bond no.9 Andy Warhol Silver Factory, Flower Oriental by Kenzo or the new Sensuous by Lauder and Magnifique by Lancôme.

However, it might also be attributed to the emerging ethos of the fledging perfume marketing: the importance of packaging and bottle being brought to focus much more assertively, the trade aspect getting seriously revved up, perfume being more of a lifestyle object than an objet d'art and copies of copies of things getting produced at a faster rate (although nothing like the alarming avalanche of more recent launches!).
According to Edmond Roudnitska, this resulted in a «olfactive cacophony», lowering of quality and debasement of creativity:

The choice of a perfume can only rest on the competence acquired by education of olfactive taste, by intelligent curiosity and by a desire to understand the WHY and the HOW of perfume. Instead, the public was given inexactitudes and banalities. The proper role of publicity is to assist in the formation of connoisseurs, who are the only worthwhile propagandists for perfume, and it is up to the perfumers to enlighten, orient and direct the publicity agents.

~L'Intimité du Parfum (En collaboration) Olivier PERRIN Editeur, 1974 (availaible at "Sephora" on Champs-Elysées, Paris)

My small, houndstooth-patterned, vintage bottle has a very slightly bruised top note that is neverthless heavy on the indolic, intense aroma of narcissus and white florals, adding the patina of a well-worn, waxed floor with the remnants of cat pee in its cracks . Narcissus naturally extols this aspect, giving a distinctly feral impression which I personally love: from the leathery-laced Fleur de Narcisse by L'Artisan to the paperwhites note in Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker. Mohammud called its scent "bread for the soul" and I can see why: taking in its heady emanation is on the border of pain, it's so intense!

Dior-Dior also serves as a commemorative recapitualtion of a perfumer's artistic path, a simile of olfactory soliloquy: A melon note which Roudnitska put in several of his perfumes (Le Parfum de Thérèse, Diorella) is discernible, although not in the context of the aquatic fragrances of the 90s: melon in a Roudnitska composition seems to serve as a memento of summery laughs in the autumnal mistiness that the chypre base juxtaposes.
And the fresh jasmine odour of hedione/dihydrojasmonate, first copiously used by him in Eau Sauvage, leaps through, with its verdant, metallic cling-clang, puffing out small breathless sighs everytime I move my arms around; the sort of thing that would naturally mingle with the surroundings of white-washed windows and stucco-ed walls in places where iron rust feeds potted gardenias and people eat feta cheese alongside their watermelon.
The last familiar touch comes from the lily of the valley accord that Roudnitska so intently masterminded for his soliflore apotheosis, Diorissimo. (Arguably the only hommage missing is the Prunol base of Femme and the peachy core of Diorama).
Although all the above "notes" sound "clean", in Dior Dior they are neither freshly showered, nor vacuum-sealed. They breathe and deepen into a very feminine and quite urbane fragrance, far removed from Laura Ashley summer dresses, which persists on skin for hours.

For all its charm however Dior-Dior doesn't talk to me the way Roudnitska's more luminiscent creations, such as Diorella or Eau Sauvage, do. Perhaps it's just as well. Still, my bottle is poised alongside its sibling houndstoothed gems with its regal brow highly arched.

Notes: narcissus, muguet (lily of the valley), woods

Please state your interest if you want to be included in a draw for a sample of this rare fragrance.

Ad pic illustration by Rene Gruau courtesy of Fragrantica. Houndstooth bottle pic courtesy of Musée del Perfum.

Optical Scentsibilities: bottle design

Art apparently not only imitates life, but art itself as well! Here today is photographic evidence of design borrowing concerning perfume bottles.

The most classic example is of course the couturier's dummy by Schiaparelli for her legendary Shocking.

The torso has a seamstress's tape on the neck and a head of flowers. Very 30s.
While Gaultier decided to give it a corset in his take on Jean Paul Gaultier Classique. Very 90s...

Weird shapes and precarious balances also inspire. Hermes did this tipsy bottle that sits on an angle first for Eau de Merveilles and then for Elixir de Merveilles (depicted).

Missoni liked the idea and borrowed the almost on the side, ready to fall but not quite balance on their eponymous scent and later on their Aqua by Missoni.
Youth Dew is a classic by Lauder: their first fragrance. Its shape above (coming from a later design on the original bottle) is echoed though in another perfume bottle.

Madeleine Vionnet, as a couturier, made sure she had a thimble-shaped cap on her fragrance. The rest is quite similar. The sketchy filigree design by Jane Birkin's hand proved successful for the ultra pared-down, functional bottle of Miller Harris L'air de Rien.

Lostmarch opted for a slightly more nostaligic design on theirs, lifting the sparse bottle a bit. Laan-Ael it is. L'artisan Parfumeur designed new caps for all their bottles recently (Why? Completely redundant, they were perfect anyway ~OK, perhaps they needed to inject a shot of masculinity to the image of their unisex fragrances, I am hypothesizing).
Yves Saint Laurent followed with their cap for L'Homme.

Perles de Lalique has one of the most arresting bottles in their extrait de parfum, as you can see.

Until one sees the vintage parfum bottle for Arpege by Lanvin that is.... Sisley came out with a moon-cap for their Soir de Lune. After all lune does mean moon in French.
But apparently Songes, which means dreams, is also tied to moon imagery, according to Annick Goutal. Good night, sleep tight...

Pics from osmoz, amazon, artcover, doctissimo.fr, scentedsalamander blog (for soir de lune), parfumflacons, flickr, official Miller Harris and Schiaparelli sites.

Chloé: New vs Old

There are perfumes that know what they are doing and there are perfumes on an identity crisis. The latest Chloé belongs to the latter category. You're probably asking yourselves "the latest? Isn't there only one Chloé"? No, actually there are three of them simply named Chloé! Confusing, isn't it? Let's help make the disctinctions.

Michael Edwards lists five Chloé fragrances in total in his compendium: Chloé Narcisse, Chloé Innocence, Chloé Classic (presumambly the original by Karl Lagerfeld: a white floral),Chloé (Collection 2005), and one just called Chloé listed among rosy fragrances (therefore the newest one, out February 2008). The first two are easy to distinguish, the rest not as much.
But let's take matters at the top.

Jacques Lenoir and Gaby Aghion were the designers responsible for the prêt-a-porter fashion house Chloé, founded in 1952. The fashions focused on a romantic vein inspired by the art which had been prompted by the bucolic idyll of antiquity by Longus, Daphnis and Chloe. The dreamy ballet Daphnis et Chloé by French imporessionist composer Maurice Ravel, often collected in romantic compilations helped consolidate an oneiric inpterpretation of what Chloé stands for: fluid, gauzy designs, chiffon and mousseline fabrics, pastel colours.

And so in 1975, when Karl Lagerfeld was designing for them before going on to Chanel, the house came out with its own perfume, simply named Chloé by Chloé : a white floral centered on tuberose, flower of spiritual ruin, carnal, feminine and feisty.
Taking its name from the Greek, which means "green shoot" it was composed by Betty Busse. The original Chloé married the subtle green tinge of leaves and aldehydic peach on top of an avalanche of jasmine, ylang-ylang, honeysuckle and narcissus, with just a whisper of exotic coconut. The drydown of warm skin and a little dry orris powder was indeed memorable. Thus it managed to mark an era, becoming a cult item, none the less because of its weird award-winning bottle designed by Joe Messina which was depicting the stem of a calla lily on the extrait de parfum stopper. It could also be interpreted as an aorta sprouting from a heart, if one is twisted enough...

Although the original Chloé has had many ardent fans through the years I always found that warm, radiant and feminine through it undoubtedly is, it possessed a tad sticky vulgarity that announced its wearer a bit earlier than would be the height of good manners: when within an arm's length, that is! Rumours have been circulating about a reformulation in the 1990s that left something to be desired for those who were devoted to the scent of their youth.
Compared to other tuberose vignettes,the original Chloé is an amateur 9mm to Carnal Flower's 3D-Techicolor and it lacks the rubber gloves of kink that Fracas is hiding beneath its femme façade. Nevertheless it executed its message with conviction and admirable flair.

The new version after 10 years of seeming inertia, alas, does not; and on top of that it marks the discontinuation of the old, classic tuberosey Chloé. The press release by Coty promised:

"The amber floral by Michel Almairac and Amandine Marie at Robertet is meant to embody the classic modern scent. It features a bouquet of powdered florals composed of peony, lychée and freesia. Notes of rose, magnolia and lily of the valley make up the heart over an amber and cedar wood base".

Personally I would not categorise the new Chloé in the ambery floral family. In fact it starts with an hydroponic* freesia accord that reminded me of the intense aqueous opening of L'eau d'Issey as well as its fantasy woody base. The pastel fruit-jelly accord (of which lychee is officially mentioned) has a passing resemblance to the fruity floral character of Cool Water Woman. Bearing in mind that those two are fragrances which I have smelled to death in the 90s, I could do without. There is also no prominent rosiness, at least no next of kin to the noble Bulgarian attars and the whole expires in little saccharine puffs of no great consequence. The attention which had been given to the exquisite, hefty bottle showing love for the detail (the grosgrain ribbon) was sadly lacking in the production of the jus.

No less than three egeries front the new Chloé campaign: American cult icon Chloë Sevigny, model Anja Rubik and French actress Clemence Poesy — "each chosen to represent a different facet of the Chloé woman: romantic; edgy, and sexy and sensual" — they all star in the black & white ad campaign, which you can watch here.


(uploaded by carriefan8890)

It is especially interesting to note that Chloë Sevigny, notorious for her outré performance in the Brown Bunny by Vincent Gallo is from now on and for as long as her contract is valid forbidden to star in comparable projects that might harm the reputation of the fragrance and consequently its sales. "It's very flattering," said Sevigny on being picked to represent Chloé Eau de Parfum, before adding, with a laugh, "I'm concerned that the customers might be confused, though; I have the umlaut in my name while they have the accent. I'm Chloë, not Chloé."
I was also surprised by her comment that Chloé has an edible quality about it in the above clip: I certainly didn't detect anything of the sort!
No wonder Chandler Burr slain the new fragrance in his article in The New York Times.

There is yet a third Chloé fragrance that might be confused with both, usually referred to on etailers as Chloé collection 2005, from the year it launched (it was a spring edition). The info from Parfumessence states that it features

"top notes of water lily, passionfruit, and pear, with a heart of tuberose & gardenia over a base of white woods and musk".

I haven't tried it but it is worth bearing in mind, should one be before a counter on which the sales assistant is not completely in tune to the goings-on in the house of Chloé . And why would she?


{*Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions instead of soil}.

Pic of ad through Threadtrend.com, of original bottle through Amazon, of new bottle through Glam.com and of collection 2005 through Parfumessence.