“Brenda lay on the dais. Her tray was beside her and the quilt was littered with envelopes, letters, and the daily papers. Her head was propped against a very small blue pillow; clean of make-up her face was almost colourless rose pearl…….a nereid emerging from fathomless depths of clear water…”
On the cusp of embarking on a desperate, pointless and finally unfulfilling affair with a handsome cad down in London, Evelyn Waugh’s beautiful but bored Lady of Hetton Manor (in his 1934 novel ‘A Handful Of Dust’), would have sat in a spring-scented, flower-filled room perfumed like this: breathy, on-the-brink hyacinths; roses, lilies, and honeysuckles, strewn decadently over tender balsams and the faintest memory of vanilla.
A romantic homage to Chamade (but less powdery, animalic, and ultimately less tragic), Grand Amour has effortless grace and classicism, but still, at its heart, a slightly wilted reminiscence – a sigh, like a chamber of beauteous hyacinths on the point of dying.
I wore Grand Amour some years ago. I loved it. It makes sense, I love Chamade. I.should probably buy it again before it disappears like Eau de Camille.
All those gorgeous Goutals!
What are they doing to them? I love Grand Amour as well, and anything that even slightly resembles Chamade.
Me too. 🙂
I still have Grand Amour. And if I wanted to list my favorite Goutal’s, they would never be anyone else’s favorites IMMHO. Mine would be Eau de Ciel,
Eau de Camille and the more recent Ninfeo mio.
I don’t know Eau de Ciel – what is it like?
Ninfeo Mio I liked in its opening stages but then got a bit bored with the dry down. I guess I am just a sucker for anything with a hyacinth note. I LOVE hyacinths! And Eau de Camille on a hot summer’s morning……DIVINE.
Eau de Ciel was the AG I bought on my first trip to Paris which was where I discovered AG….it is linden and rosewood….it was discontinued (perhaps due to the difficulty in obtaining rosewood) and resurrected as reformulation quite recently….Eau de Camille is also discontinued…I am down to 1/2 ml of that one….why oh why do they discontinue the ones I really love?
Tell me about it. I didn’t know they had scrapped Camille…..that is genuinely very sad.
Ode de Ciel is bright and beautiful…perhaps a little heartbreaking but not as serious as Eau de Camille–more like it’s little sister. (But that’s only my take on it.)
Love the sound of it, but don’t think I have seen it in Japan. Next time I am in Ginza…
Oops autocorrect changed my Eau to Ode…but maybe it was just giving me its opinion!
No autocorrect is an asshole and drives me BANANAS
Beautiful description of Grand Amour. This is one of my favorite Annick Goutal scents and it definitely pays homage to Chamade. It is truly a shame that AG is discontinuing so many of their classic scents, I am still lucky enough to have Eau de Ciel; which can only be described as a watery floral bathed in hazy sunlight, a truly happy scent.