Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue

Last week I rediscovered some Bond No9 fragrances at Sephora Champs Elysées ... too short because today they were no more there. But meanwhile I received the press release for the new fragrance. Andy Warhol is again the theme - this time the relation between the woman, her fragrance and the shoes - "See a shoe and Pick it up and all day long you’ll have Good Luck" as once said the artist.

My last project (and most difficult) at ISIPCA was something similar to this idea - a lipstick fragrance inspired by the 50's glamour and the emotion shared by a women when she opens a box with a pair of new pumps - red of course.

But now the new Bond No9 fragrance inspired by Andy Warhol universe (after Silver Factory & Union Square):

From the press release

The Inspiration & the fragrance:

"With fanciful shoes the most directional fashion story in recent years, we found our theme when we discovered the rich lode of phantasmagorical shoes Warhol created on paper fifty years ahead of their time. And we relished the idea of sharing Warhol’s early career with our fragrance-sniffing clientele. The eau de parfum we concocted is a floral woody chypre with highly coveted contemporary gourmand notes—a brew of peony, orris, patchouli, sandalwood, cardamom, fennel, almonds, cumin, and even crème brulee. A seductive and intoxicating autumn-winter fragrance, Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue is the perfume equivalent of that rarity, an outrageously luxurious pair of stiletto heels that fit as comfortably as a glove. Wearing the scent, like wearing the shoes, will turn a woman’s walk into a sinuous glide."

The story:

"As a young artist, camped out furniture-less at 242 Lexington Avenue, above a bar called Florence’s Pin-Up, Warhol needed to make a living. Along came I. Miller, the legendary shoe establishment holding court at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, which chose Warhol to update its image with illustrations for ads that would appear on a regular basis in the New York Times and the Herald Tribune. He complied with what one of his ads called “the Daringest new way to sell shoes”: whimsical displays of the Mod new pointy-toe, spike-heel pumps; he even devised gold-leaf Crazy Golden Slippers for a range of celebrities that included Zsa Zsa Gabor and James Dean. So seriously did Warhol take his shoe illustrations that in 1956 he submitted one of them as a gift to the Museum of Modern Art. (It was rejected.) The I. Miller illustrations hinted at Warhol’s future. A decade before Pop Art emerged, he was already advancing consumer goods as a worthy subject—perhaps the new subject—of art. What’s more, in these shoe ads he began using repetition to emphasize the product’s allure. "

Launch date: September 2008

Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue is available in two sizes: 100ml and 50ml

more info on http://www.bondno9.com/

I'm just very curious how a similar theme was seen by another perfumer.

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Roudnitska's raspberry

Now it's hot & humid in Paris and it seems that some fragrances smell different. In other words different notes start to appear from the shadow. I'm obsessed now by Diorama and Le Parfum de Thérèse where a "new" note is more obvious than ever - the raspberry/strawberry touch. It's a very characteristic note with shades of rose and litchi, contrasted from top to drydown. A raspberry effect can appear when a full rose is near an orris note and you have some other characteristic notes like Frambinone (raspberry ketone) or C16 pseudo-aldehyde (strawberry aldehyde) and of course some vanilla. Roudnitska's "red fruit" is built in my opinion around a note that was already in Diorissimo and important in the accord - the citronellil acetate (citronellol is a main component of rose, it smells rosy) with its rosy-fruity-litchi note. But on the very top note of both fragrances the raspberry appears near the cumin - it's something like C20 aldehyde with its bubblegum raspberry candy note.
I know that everyone is aware about the melon note in Le parfum de Thérèse but ... can you also detect the raspberry candy note (the sparkling soda effect)?
We know that Roudnitska loved honeysuckle, jasmin, aromatics, cumin, spices … but did he also enjoy raspberry desserts? He never wrote anything on that :)

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Makila (Jean Patou)

This perfume from 1961 (the picture) was a composition around white flowers and most interesting around Jasmin Sambac - a type of jasmin with a particular note. It was sold only in the 60's and is not often seen on ebay. That was the preHedione era, with jasmine notes composed à l'ancienne, but still good and with a lot of naturals.

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Stages in fragrance discovery

In this post I will try to give you some tips to better understand and "disclose" a fragrance.
I have the feeling that today with so many launches we give too much space to novelty and to the act of "please, next one" - otherwise we do the job of buzz - a marketing technique more and more used in cosmetic industry.
We all have a good idea of good fragrances but how much do we know them, how deep do we really know them?
The first stage is getting known with the fragrance. Wear it or smell it several times just for pleasure and forget any olfactive pyramid or cultural review. Just you and the smell until you can recognize it.
Then get familiar with the most characteristic notes. A fragrance pyramid despite its epithets is not always a silly marketing compilation. Be sure what you read you actually smell. It is not compulsory to be familiar with a perfumer's organ. Having an enough perfumery culture (perfumes smelled) can do the job for you by mental exercise.
Smell the perfume on the very top and put it away. Smell it after several hours and put it away. Smell the drydown after several days.
Smell by contrast different stages of evaporation. You will see that different facets will appear.
Smell the perfume under several conditions - right from the bottle, dipped and vaporized. Every time, if you are familiar with it, something different will appear.
Smell the perfume under stress condition - in a humid room, in the kitchen when eating. There is no such as "the perfumer smells in a special area and under special condition protected from outside world". A real and good perfumer smells everywhere and under all circumstances can give an opinion. I smell my fragrances in Sephora, in my lab, in the garden, on me, everywhere.
The skin test. There is a slight difference between smelling on the skin (own skin) and wearing a perfume. Try both just to see what's inside.
Compare the perfume with other fragrances from the same family. Because of the similarities what is different will come out with a great force. Sometime unseen aspects will appear.

It is vital to note with your own words what you smell (once you are familiar with the perfume). There is no stupid description and most important forget about all fragrance notes you read (they serve only in the beginning, after they could alter your perception).

A real and great perfume is work of creation and not of "copy and paste" formulas and I believe that beyond personal taste, any perfumista can tell when a perfume is more than a mixture.

A next step (after this small exercises) is to rethink the perfume. Today every perfume, even before its birth, is put in a certain family and I hope to have time to write on "the truth of taxonomy in perfumery". From SFP to Michael Edwards and press releases we have all possible families for a given creation. Once you know them by heart and by scent … forget them! Forget that Miss Dior is a green chypre and No5 is a floral aldehydic. Once you are able to do that a new horizon will open for some very famous perfumes.
The last stage (in a future post) is rediscovering vintages. Not because they would be more beautiful but because they were constructed in a different manner. Knowing some of them deeply will change the perception of contemporary perfumery. Not in terms of taste but more in terms of artistic quality.

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Construction

Minimalism is a tricky matter in contemporary perfumery. Between the perceived minimalist aesthetics of a fragrance and its actual formula there might be a long distance. While the formulas of Jean Claude Ellena are short and this could be confirmed by the nose … I think that it would not be so easy to imagine that some perfumes of Isabelle Doyen, Dominique Ropion or Pierre Bourdon are also very short. There are some with less than 20 ingredients but their opulent and rich smell hides quite well this "secret". The same applies for some Jacques Guerlain perfumes - the formula is less than a page but you would never guess it.
But minimalism in terms of contemporary perfumery brought us with the quest of simplicity the "graal of sins" - many fragrances today are bad formulated.
If you smell a composition done by Jean Carles / Edmond Roudnitska / André Fraysse you may not be pleased by the fragrance but you cannot say anything about how it was done.
More and more in 2007 and 2008 with the plethora of launches I found bad fragrances not in terms of idea/aesthetics/originality but in terms of orchestration.
After 2 days I smell on the blotter - IsoESuper, Hedione, Ambroxan, patchouli, vanilla and so on but not in fragrances where that kind of note would be the main theme. In fact, many modern perfumes, after 1 day on the blotter, are "decomposing" because they do not have a solid structure or to quote Roudnitska, "they are not built". In the worst case they decompose into the accord / base used (and created many years before or picked up from another fragrance) that is stronger than the perfumer.
Many perfumes today are a "collage", a mix from other fragrance ideas plus a strong ingredient / accord used to make the impact and difference. This would not be a problem if the stories would stay together and didn't go in all directions after 2 days on the blotter.
The problem of many contemporary perfumes is that you are in trouble to recognize them after 1 day on the blotter.
The explosion of niche brands brought us many ideas difficult to use before in major launches … but it didn't bring in many cases a better perfume in terms of construction/structure.
A good perfume is not only a pleasing/original composition but also one that is well done.
I have a bad feeling that in 2-3 years the Niche will become a copy of selective/mass market in all terms (good and bad) and I'm not pleased to see the same vetiver or amber idea done in a similar way. Fragrance business is more and more similar with an Alien - it replicates itself with a great speed and on all levels and that's not good news. At least 30 years ago things were more honest (Avon used to copy perfumes but everyone knew that they could get a luxury perfume at a good price. And the perfumes were well done. Today the relation price-quality-originality-good construction is very confusing for the consumer).
Perfumeshrine and Graindemusc have today a very interesting post on originality today in the fragrance world!

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Fragrance names

It is often said that the names of Belle Epoque perfumes had something hilarious or ridicule or that they were to narrative. This story was often said in contrast with No5 abstraction (Edmonde Charles Roux) and a long name (or too poetic) was considered not modern.
But most writers newer said why perfumes were named like that.
I read now some magazines for theatre / opera / ballet between 1910-1914 in Paris. I was amazed not only by the great amount of dramatic litterature that I've never heard before but for the fact that in 70% of the titles from "season 1910" I found names of famous perfumes. The very tight relation between theatre and perfume is completely lost because those plays are known today maybe only by historians, not by the public. A famous example is "La Vierge Folle" - perfume by Gabilla, another Chatenclerc by Caron.
It's hard to say that names are silly or stupid when they reflect the intelectual tastes of a certain historic period. Maybe they sound stupid today because we have other tastes. Sometime through fragrance an entire history of XXth century can be revealed.
Today we speak about celeb fragrances and ads. But this is not new. Early 1910 opera singers or famous names of the stage often gave name or were used in the presentation of a perfume. Perfumer Gellé, an extinct brand now, advertised with almost all stars and I conserved more than 20 celeb ads of the era. Rigaud named some perfumes after opera singers. Other "elegance arbiters" gave their opinion on fragrances and the most cited name was Guerlain.

btway, Chanteclerc and Mode are the few perfumes I've never smelled from Caron. Any idea about them?

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Shocking rediscovery

When Vol de Nuit was launched in 1933 it had a big success and for many years it was a bestseller for Guerlain. But Vol de Nuit was also an important moment in the history of the perfumery. It took the chypre accord to a next level with at least 3 important modifications - galbanum, orris (Iralia) and a sweet oriental base. While many see it as an Oriental I see it more as a chypre because it's more "corsé" than sweet vanillic.
In 1935 a new important perfume was launched - Shocking by Schiaparelli, a Parisian couturier known not only for its extravagant dresses with a surreal approach but also for her very tailored and elegant day suits. Shocking was done at Roure under the guidance of Jean Carles (but not by him). Shocking took Vol de Nuit idea in a new direction. It developed an important floral green heart (with rose-lily of the valley-gardenia) and added an animalic honey drydown with civet (and some notes already present in Tabu by Dana from 1931). Above all that stand a glorious aldehydic bouquet with a green gardenia note (acetate stiralyl) an idea that have already been used in a previous great success - Crêpe de Chine (Millot 1925). Then the war came and right after 2 other original creations appeared from the same Roure - the floral Vent Vert from Balmain (with galbanum overdose and a strong rose-muguet heart) and Ma Griffe from Carven (with a strong aldehydic and green gardenia note). It didn't take longer and a marvelous creation appeared - Miss Dior a green chypre but also an animalic chypre.
Inside we have:
the green gardenia note (stiralyl acetate)
an aldehydic note ( C11-C10)
an aromatic lavender-neroli note,
a floral heart rose-muguet-jasmine,
galbanum
a chypre note (patchouli, iralia, animalic notes like in Vol de nuit)
a sweet coumarine-tonka-vanilla aspect
plus many other notes that made it so special and complex
Michael Edwards tells an interesting story about the paternity of Miss Dior and the help of Jean Carles.
The missing link between Vol de Nuit and Miss Dior is in my opinion Shocking.
While smelling Shocking it's impossible not to think Miss Dior without the aromatic top and with less patchouli.
I also have the feeling that the muguet note (+ the gardenia) is the same in both.
Shocking is a very good and interesting perfume but the history forgot it. When Dior was the king of fashion in Paris the star of Elsa Schiaparelli didn't shine anymore and very soon she will close her house. The history remembered only Miss Dior.
Miss Dior is descendant of Vol de Nuit with some very new ideas, all already experimented at Roure. In my opinion the spiritual father of Miss Dior is Jean Carles.

The perfume was relaunched for a short period in the end 70's. The ad is from 1979 Officiel.

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Un jardin après le mousson

Chandler Burr gives a long review and interpretation of Un jardin après le mousson (Hermès), a fragrance of only one star and a failure according to him, on NYTimes blog.
That's a perfume that I expected a lot but I was ... quite dissapointed. It's one of the new fragrances (in the past 6 months) that I smelled the most, as many times I could. I tryed to convince myself not that I like it ... but that there is something to "look" at. Too bad, I failed. I don't like KellyCaleche either, but in that case I found many interesting and almost brillant ideas inside. For Un Jardin après le mousson ... I simply don't get it and it's hard for me to accept that Ellena could do something not good or not well. I put my nose on a "rehab" program with strong doses of First (Van Cleef&Arpels) and Angeliques sous la pluie.

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Symrise in India

The latest issue of Symrise magazine is dedicated to the olfactory paradise of India. A recent trip of their perfumers and some interviews with them about the new inspiring smells they found.

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Blog, Buzzmarketing, Beauty

An article found in NYTimes (january) about beauty blogs & samples:

"The same bloggers who once begged for samples are now being sent the latest lip glosses and perfumes, all the free makeup they want and, in some cases, what many beauty editors commonly refer to as swag — luxurious presents to keep them happy, like designer purses or all-expenses-paid trips to Paris...."

and a recent opinion expressed on Cosmetoblog (in french) about this new tool used by brands and the relation with the traditional media.
I don't know how it works for perfumes ... but thanks to Sephora in Paris everyone can get a free fragrance sample (well, not before the launch).

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Guerlain usine

Fragrance manufacturing at the Guerlain Usine in 1963. Very traditional compared to how the factory looks today. In one picture you can see the device for the preparation of absolute from concrete by alcohol extraction. They were called "batteuses". Because Guerlain used to prepare / treat some raw materials - absolutes, tinctures, animalic extracts... and so on. Even distilation used for the preparation of Eau de Cologne in the old manner.

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Best perfume

It's amazing how simple mixtures can give amazing smells. I work now on a floral perfume and it's just wonderful how some very simple proportions of jasmine absolute (egypt), rose absolute (turkey), rose oil (marocco) and 3 other simple notes.... smell incredible on blotter and skin. The accord jasmin-rose, so basic, is in fact so rich and could resume almost the entire feminine history of perfumery. Joy, Arpege, Ode, First and so on....

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Death of a myth - Miss Dior

A great classic, a best seller of Dior before Poison … now another ghost. The fragrance was relaunched in 1992 and reformulated but ironicaly the french magazine Parfums Cosmétique Aromes (Nr. 107) noted at that time "relancé - sans toucher à la formule". In fact, nobody said in France that Miss Dior is not "very Miss Dior" nowadays. Of course the oakmoss, the bases inside and many other ingredients made the current version on the market a ghost of the past. The real Miss Dior from 1947, a fragrance that inspired many other perfumers, was both a green chypre and an animalic chypre. Like Nijinsky on stage it did a great bond on classifications going from the very green aldehydic top note (with C11, galbanum, stiralil acetate) to the deep ambery animalic notes that surrounded the chypre theme. Now the green and floral part are dominant, less soft, less refined with a big accent on the soapy aspect. Miss Dior in extrait was simply divine but Miss Dior in Eau de Cologne was also a very good formula and a very good masculine fragrance (!!!). I used to wear this version because I found it more refined and less harsh than 70's and 80's masculine chypre.
Belonging to a classic method of composition, Miss Dior was an intelligent balance between almost all notes from the spectrum. Take one out and the building will become fragile, even unstable.

Another LVMH sacrifice.

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Death of a myth - Fidji

A small bottle on a shelf, a poor packaging, no other perfumes from the brand. The first signs of the agony. Guy Laroche was not a great French couturier and in the early 60's was known for its very Chanel like collections. But in 1966 he did a successful move (and later another one with Drakkar Noir). The ad said "La femme est une île, Fidji est son parfum" - the woman is an island, Fidji is her perfume. The design was inspired by Tropiques (Lancôme).
Fidji done by Josephine Catapano would become a best seller. A green floral perfume for the new woman. It was directly inspired by l'Air du Temps bringing new notes and modern raw materials that took the classic structure in a new direction (green hyacinth). Lyral, Vertofix, Vertenex, cis 3 hexenyl salycilate, Ambrettolide and other notes of the day gave a breath of fresh green air. Small quantities of precious naturals were added.
Similar fragrance ideas are in Norell, Charlie, Anais Anais and with a strong gardenia in Beyond paradise. Today it smells soapy and poor hyacinth. Like a black&white photocopy with low resolution of a very green picture.

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Le Jardin de Mon Curé

The first creation of Jacques Guerlain (1895) is still modern today and has all the elements to take Guerlain in a new direction.
This perfume can be seen as a symbol of the old french catholic tradition that today is just history (Garden of my parish priest). The name reflected a type of garden (near churches) that provided food, medicinal herbs, flowers, wine, etc and supplied the small church with everything needed for life in a republican country that eliminated all eclesiastic privileges.
Jacques Guerlain creation is, if a remember well, 100% natural, with a very pleasant smell (floral and aromatic citrus) and with a lot of medieval symbols that I will not detail now. It could be the first organic, natural, bio … luxury and Guerlain fragrance that is not a marketing invention and response to trends … but a true creation from the past, rich in meanings and charming in smell. In France (where the bio trend is quite important) this perfume could bring authenticity in a world where everybody wants to be bio. Le jardin de mon curé is a symbol of the past,of a simple and natural life (the other name is "jardin des simples") but spiritual in the european tradition (today by spiritual people tend to understand far east traditions - from yoga to Zen and even Feng Shui). In terms of inspiration I think we looked too much on other continents. It is also true that a global company like Guerlain will think twice before relaunching a fragrance with such Christian connotation. Just as an anecdote Christian Dior (LVMH) is called now just Dior because they sell in other cultures too.
I smelled this fragrance several times when it was recomposed by Jean Paul Guerlain and I liked its simple yet complex smell that has already most of the artistic elements used later by Jacques.
As an anecdote, the perfume was launched in France one year after the Dreyfus affair.

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Fragrance and art critics

If fragrance is art or not is still a debate (in terms of intellectual property - sew how French High considers fragrance), fragrance criticism, at its first days, is far away from art criticism. Or at least it has a big problem that is not yet solved. Because fragrance cannot be recorded as music/painting, etc … the written opinion on it has troubles to survive over the years. Not to say that fragrances are reformulated and after 4 years the reader of a certain piece of criticism could smell a different thing. It seems that now fragrance criticism shares the same ephemeral character as the perfume with a role closer to that of guiding the consumer. Or even criticism is in a process of reinvention?

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Karl Lagerfeld Kapsule & Art Deco

Karl Lagerfeld is a well known fan of 1920's Art Deco movement and one of its promoters in the early 70's. He also had a big collection of art sold years ago in the auction. The latest perfume collection presented in WWD and developed by Coty has a design inspired by the books (that's the official story) ...But the truth is different. They were inspired by a famous bottle from the 1920' - the perfume Mon âme by Ybry (1925).

"Kapsule's fragrance bottle design, conceived with Luz Herrmann, embodies Lagerfeld's love of geometry. "There's the square and the circle, my two favorite things in geometric patterns," he said, referring to the linear bottle and its round label. Lagerfeld's signature is etched on the bottom of each flacon, which has a different hue according to the scent it contains."I love colored glass," he said."The difficult challenge we had was to create something neither too feminine nor too masculine," added Mariez. Kapsule's fragrance boxes are reminiscent of books. "We said: 'How can people get in one second that there are three different fragrances?'" said Mariez. "He had the idea of calling it volume one, two and three."

When we now the real inspiration al this design all the talk about design process sounds quite funny!

The original Ybry perfume existed in many colours (Baccarat - green, purple, turquoise, red, orange, caramel) and even this idea was kept in the Kapsule concept.

the photos: wwd and ragoarts

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USA Top Fragrances ... in 1975

A photo from l'Officiel 1975 - the special USA issue with an article about american tastes in perfumes.

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Gabriel Guerlain

Gabriel Guerlain, brother of Aimé and father of Jacques Guerlain, in the lab.

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Kadine

Kadine, a rare and beautiful Guerlain (spicy floral) is on ebay. I haven't seen it for a long time.

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Arden & Babani

Babani, the second Parisian couturier to introduce perfumes after Poiret and before Chanel was known for its oriental creations. All perfumes were named and inspired by a different exotic country - from Arabia to Korea. In USA the distributor was Elizabeth Arden and the perfumes were available a much longer period than in France. Sometime few perfumes of Elizabeth Arden were advertised under Babani and vice versa. This is an ad from Harper's Bazaar 1924. Around the same period Elizabeth Arden started to produce her fragrances.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

June Honeysuckle

For several weeks I've been in Romania inspecting my floral collection - honeysuckle, gardenias and silk mimosas. The hot climate (Paris seems eternal spring) has a noticeable impact on floral smells and I was able to compare some flowers I have in Paris with their exact botanical "replica" living in Romania.
The honeysuckle I "analyzed" is plain "Loniceria caprifolium". As many other white flowers the honeysuckle has different smells during daytime and nighttime and also between fresh and fading flowers. In Paris their morning smell is very "exotic" with a touch of frangipani/tiaré (a mix between coconut and ylang). It's also very jasmine, not like the flower but more like the molecules found in the jasmine - all cyclopentane molecules with fresh white shades from Hedione to cis jasmone. Maybe the closest in smell to Paris honeysuckle is jasmolactone, a molecule that I adore and that is used a lot in modern gardenias. During the night or when the flower fades (it becomes yellow) the intoxicating smell of indole is more present. The flower starts to smell like night jasmine, Diorissimo drydown (!!!) and hot female skin in the sun.
In Romania the flower is a different story. First none of the exotic jasmolactone variation but … a full orange flower. Think a branch of orange flower without it's "decoration" and contrasts! But the biggest surprise is indole. At certain hours the flowers smells like the purest dilution of supreme indol. It has no fecal note, no jasmine connotation - as if the flower was built only around this molecule. 100% floral while indole in Paris is more animal. All the notes in orange flower GC are present, from ocymene, terpenes and green notes to the characteristic methyl anthranilate and indole. To exaggerate the differences between honeysuckle smells in the 2 countries I would say the virgin and the women or, as Napoleon once said, "come to Paris and become a woman!" Anyway, what a difference with the spring honeysuckle (lemon sorbet, green rosy and hedione, slight ionone)!
The most famous honeysuckle in the world is without doubt that one living in Cabris. It's Roudnitska's honeysuckle, the flower that inspired some famous perfumes and accords.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art

Tocade

This is Tocade from 1968 - not Rochas but Coryse Salomé, a well known fragrance house in the 60's, now extinct. The bottle reminds me that one used by Givenchy for their limited editions of Organza/Amarige/Very Irresistible.

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Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art