REMIX! remix! ! REMIX! remix! ! ( SHALIMAR PARFUM L’INITIAL L’EAU : GUERLAIN (2012) )
Personally, though I adore extended versions of my favourite records, current or otherwise – 12″ remixed dubs with instrumental lengths you can lose yourself in: augmentations, recuttings and reshapings of the songs that can often render them fuller, more personal, with that extra space, the sense that somehow this ‘special mix’ is somehow for you and you alone – I am rarely impressed with contemporary remixes of old songs: dud, glitchy, shiny remixes made for the chart bitches and ‘gays’; those ‘club’ mixes, harsh and ravagingly in your face, which often just seem so superfluous to me with their fakely embellished, gleaming, chemical architecture; new versions, jazzed up by the latest DJ, that might yes inject new skeleton into a song, but more often than not do away with that song’s essential nature, soft tissue; its flesh and marrow, in the skinnifying, reappraising, and let’s face it, money-grabbing, commercializing, process.
The same of course goes for perfumes. While a ‘digital remaster’ of a perfume, where the internal elements of a scent are polished, strengthened, and ‘expertly reassembled’, can sometimes work out alright (think Jacques Polge and the re-editions of the Chanel classics such as Bois Des Isles and Cuir De Russie (for the Exclusifs) which, while losing a certain emblematic fluffiness, the dusky musks of the times in which they were originally created, achieved a certain shiny clarity that made them feel fresher, more ‘relevant’ – the dumber, more metallic, and watered down remixes of classics such as Arpège (Eclat D’Arpège), Joy (enJOY), Calèche (Soie De Parfum) and so on, drained; injected, infused with shit, can, to a true perfume aficionado like myself, sometimes feel quite barbarous.
Chanel N°5 Eau Première worked beautifully, and I think I in fact prefer that version to the original in some ways (my least favourite version of N°5 has always been the vintage parfum, heretic though that may be, as I just can’t take that persistent, tongue-lolling musk), but I would say that Monsieur Polge’s classy work with that one was something of a fortuitous, skillful anomaly. On the whole, these remixes (wouldn’t you say?) turn out to be just wannabe, tin-eared flops.
This post is supposed to be about Parfum Initial, anyway, and as I waxed boringly the other day, Shalimar, that deep twenties classic by the beautiful house of Guerlain, is one of my holy grails. Its final notes on me reach a kind of perfection: essential, an enwrappingly soft, smouldering of leather and vanilla that in winter or summer feels like a second skin, a perfume I go to when I am too lazy to think of anything else, when I am feeling dumb and sexy and ready for a night out somewhere, tight with myself, just ready to smell good and easy.
In all honesty though, one can tire, on occasion, of that top note structure; that heavy dose of skin-burning lemon and bergamot that is interacting, sometimes uneasily, (especially in the current versions), with the flowers and balsams and the animalic castoreum of that base, and which can leave me, on occasion, feeling a bit queasy. I do have bad Shalimar days, when I mourn what has been taken out and wonder what is ‘off’: it is ‘old fashioned’ this perfume; it does have baby powderyish elements, and it most certainly does not, to the young nose about to go out clubbing, smell in the least bit ‘contemporary’.
It is easy to understand therefore why Guerlain should want to remix it up a bit for the next generation, this perfume, to try and conserve their famous cash-cow for just a little bit longer before she runs out, finally, of cream – mais oui maman, bien sûr que je porterai Shalimar dans l’avenir quand je serai femme – and though I of course myself would never choose ‘Parfum L’Initial L’Eau’ (not exactly a catchy refrain, is it?) over the original – not in a million years – I did find myself buying a bottle of this slimmer, younger, Shalimarish incarnation for a friend of mine’s birthday recently.
Having already chosen the discontinued Shalimar Lite for herself already and worn it well, I knew this scent would work on Nicole, and was pleased to find that I was right. She usually goes for fresh, modern, florals: Pleasures, Marc Jacobs, Dô Son, but as I said, also liked Shalimar Lite – her first foray into orientals I believe – and besides, she found the Parisian frou-frou of the pale pink pom pom on the bottle’s flacon irresistible, as do I, and you know what, that is sometimes almost enough on a mindless day when you are feeling shallow or in the mood for something beguiling and pretty. And in any case, if you just substitute the lemon of Lite for an acceptably refreshing grapefruit (and add a few ‘fresh florals’,) they are not, really, those two perfumes, all that different.
What I do like about L’Eau is the fact the heart of the perfume really is Shalimar. Those sensual, oriental base notes are all there waiting in the depths of the scent, just ever so slightly attenuated, and with an extra light citrus floral head note that persists into the heart. The modern chorus, that grapefruity, sassier, floral opening (‘freesia’, ‘hyacinth’ ‘muguet’) gives hints of the modern edit, with glintier, synthetizer chords overlapping that classic refrain…….
And deep down, though I suppose I do aesthetically find the whole exercise in a way quite pointless (because….well why wreck something nice?), as remixes go, this delicately vanilla-tinged floral-lite, aeons away from my own purring Shalimar animal, is kind of interesting in its own way, if only to see how a well loved theme can have so many different variations. The instrumentation may be sharper, the graphic equalizers a bit tinny on the middle and treble, but Shalimar’s song, in this twentyish, lite-weight take, remains, essentially, almost the same.
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BEAUTIFUL POISONS: FOUR PERFUMES FROM THE EARLY 90’s : Allure, Cabotine, Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme + Tendre Poison
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DOES MICHAEL DOUGLAS WEAR PETITE CHERIE? – the secret and fascinating fragrant world of the rich and famous…..
By chance, I stumbled across a rather fascinating website the other day, an ongoing list, painstakingly assembled by its author over many years, of the signature fragrances of the rich and famous. While for the average (non perfume obsessed) person it would undoubtedly make for an astoundingly mind-numbing read, for the manic perfumista, especially one who is drawn to Hollywood, the world of music, art, and even politics, this list is absolutely required reading.
In matching up familiar names with perfumes, we learn something of the intrinsic nature of those scents: (their soul, their identity, the emotion produced by a particular perfume that draws people in empathetically); for it would seem that, despite our difference in wealth, on the whole, ‘the stars’ wear the same perfumes that we do, not only those bespoke creations made exclusively for them that can cost in the thousands.
Last night I went out to meet a friend in Yokohama drenched in Shalimar, even though it was a startlingly warm and sultry evening (it smelled fabulous, as usual), and I apparently share my unvoidable attraction to this smooching, deathless sex-bomb with Rita Hayworth, Gina Lollabridgida, Brook Shields and Joan Collins (what does this say about me?)
Yet look how Shalimar differs in its clientele from Mitsouko, that mossed enigma I could never convincingly wear myself: Diaghilev, Charlie Chaplin (!), Ingrid Bergman, Wallis Simpson….
Yes. The more arch, mysterious and dignified scents attract celebrities we tend to associate with those very qualities (both Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich are said to have worn the divine Vol De Nuit, while Dietrich also, and famously, wore Bandit, Tabac Blond, and her own bespoke fragrance by Creed, Angelique Encens), while the brasher, more obvious perfumes tend to attract their parallel brethren in the world of entertainment and media (Calvin Klein Obsession – another of my favourites, I am almost embarrassed to say – is/was worn by Bill Clinton, Liza Minelli, Jane Fonda, Whitney Houston…….)
Green Irish Tweed, a brilliant, but to me extraordinarily objectionable perfume that just seems to scream out SEX, POWER, DOMINATION, is unsurprisingly and predictably, worn by George Clooney, Russell Crowe, Robert Redford, David Beckham and Pierce Brosnan (though James Bond himself wears Floris 89…), while women who are also not afraid of a bit of attention – Ivana Trump, Courtney Love, Madonna, all seem to plump for tuberose-whore Fracas (Ms Ciccone gets the longest list of scents attributed to her, incidentally: a perfume lover extraordinaire, she buys it in bulk, from Apothia IF, to Tubereuse Indiana, to Caron Nocturnes…I love her even more now, having read this, if that were humanly possible). Other rock stars are also mentioned in the list, including the simple but seductive, scent of Elvis Presley and Jon Bon Jovi, one that beautifully captures the hip-swaying bulge of their testosterone denim: the suave and insinuating, if cheap and redneckish, Brut by Fabergé (though Elvis is also said to have worn other similar fougerès, including Dana’s Canoe and one of the cheapest perfumes ever made and a vivid scent from my own childhood, Hai Karate.)
While celebrities bizarrely find inspiration for their signature scent in many different realms, including the vegetable – Stella Mcartney is supposedly drawn to Demeter Lettuce, while RuPaul is said to wear Carrot, the analytical psychology of which I will refrain from attempting at this particular juncture – in politics, the perfumes worn by those in power speak volumes about their policies and philosophies; Hilary Clinton wears Adoration; Imelda Marcos Mad Moments, while Laura Bush, demure and lady-like, smells, naturally, of Estee Lauder’s White Linen (her mother-in-law, the great Barbara Bush, sports White Shoulders…..)
Though Jacqueline Kennedy, forseeably, selected very stylish perfumes for herself (Patou 1000, Jill Sander 4, Bal A Versailles, Joy), another First Lady, Nancy Reagan, went for Giorgio, a perfect choice for world domination (you could take out the whole of Guatemala with that one), alongside her husband Ronald’s Gendarme (also worn by Janet Jackson). His fervent ally, ‘iron lady’ Margaret Thatcher, is said to have hidden her true, grim and heartless intentions behind the decorous and bashful, prettily English facade of the Penhaligons Bluebell…
The mesmerizing list, whose sources I have no idea of, or how much it can be relied upon (the ‘Queen Of England’ is said to have worn Caron Muguet De Bonheur since 1952, while ‘Queen Elizabeth II’ apparently wears a whole barrage of perfumes from L’Heure Bleue to Fleurissimo and the vulgar Chlöé Narcisse), includes hundreds of people, from cultural giants such as Sigmund Freud (Creed Selection Verte), through to the latest teen stars such as Selena Gomez (Pink Sugar: I saw the phenomenal ‘Spring Breakers’ last week, twice actually, and this is EXACTLY how you imagine she must smell, along with all the other young nubiles in the film such as Vanessa Hudgens); we see the trends that run through the world of film: it would seem that any Oscars’ ceremony must reek of exotic, swaying island gardenias, as that green, creamy floral überhit KAI is exceedingly popular among all the leading ladies of today, from Julia Roberts to Jennifer Garner, to Mila Kunis and Charlize Theron ( you will make your own value judgments reading this list, based on how you view the celebrity; I was unsurprised to find out that the dull Ann Hathaway wears Chanel Chance (urgh!), that ‘Transformers’ totty Megan Fox likes Armani Code Sport, and that the irritating Carey Mulligan wears Marc Jacobs Lola (double urgh), but I am delighted, personally, that Black Swan beauty Natalie Portman wears the dark and exquisite Sisley Eau Du Soir…)
In America, the eighties powerhouse fragrances for men and women by Rodeo Drive designer Bijan seem to still rule supreme (Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzegger, Aretha Franklin, Jack Nicholson, Annette Bening, and Steven Spielberg among others are said to wear these creations), while Annick Goutals’ high class, taut-structured citruses, such as Eau D’Hadrien and Eau Du Sud, have a huge number of followers as well (Prince, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman (did they share it?) Tina Turner, Celine Dion, Sandra Bullock, Leonardo Di Caprio, and our own Prince Charles….)
Amusing, predictable entries can be found throughout (Zsa Zsa Gabor, bless her, scents her swimming pool water with bottles of Florence Gunnarson N°67 – now that’s what I call Hollywood Babylon), but what is also wonderful about it is the unusual choices you occasionally find, those that initially seem unlikely, but when you think about them, strangely make sense.
Freddie Mercury, for example, is said to have worn Audrey Hepburn’s L’Interdit (she herself of course wore this as well as it was created for her specifically by Givenchy, though the gamine actress is said to have worn the sublime Chamade and Ivoire by Balmain as well). On Mr Mercury, though…how interesting. His other signature scent, the civet-laden, musky, aromatic lemon leaf that is Monsieur De Givenchy, makes more obvious sense with his bare-chested stompings, but I wonder how he smelled in the powdery aldehyde L’Interdit?
Isabelle Adjani, always an interesting actress, apparently wears the mysterious and alluring Caron En Avion and Après L’Ondée; Brigitte Bardot Jicky and Vent Vert, (a lovely idea, I think), while Sophia Loren apparently enjoys the underrated and beautiful Irisia by Creed, along with Ungaro’s Diva. Yoko Ono in Ma Griffe intrigues, as does Jodie Foster in Guerlain Vetiver; and the idea of the incomparable Eartha Kitt in Givenchy Gentleman, leathery and doused in patchouli as she purrs in some smoky Parisian club, gives an inspiring olfactory portrait I could linger over all day.
Ultimately, perfume does reveal who we are, I believe, whether exteriorizing our basic inner traits, or, knowingly or unknowingly, revealing hitherto unknown facets. Who could have imagined that Billy Idol, Rebel Yell pop-punk rocker of the mid eighties, with his fixed-in snarl and peroxide do, would wear the delicate and poetic L’Ombre Dans L’Eau by Diptyque?
Or that Michael Douglas, sex-addicted star of Fatal Attraction and Black Rain, Gordon Gekko of Wall Street, and husband of the terrifying Catherine Zeta Jones (Creed Millesime Imperial, Coco), would be inexorably drawn, somehow, to the delicate, icing sugar innocence and spring time peach pear envelope that is Annick Goutal’s Petite Cherie?
http://www.celebrityfragranceguide.com
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A TEPID PERFECTION: THE FRESH, CRISP AND EXQUISITELY TAILORED PERFUMES OF ATELIER COLOGNE: featuring Trèfle Pur, Orange Sanguine, Grand Néroli, Sur Le Toit De Paris + Vétiver Fatal (2010 – 2012)
Right now in Japan the rainy season has come to an abrupt end, the sun is blazing, and the daytime temperatures are hovering around 30 – 34º F.
Lounging about the house or on the balcony I am in my element: I adore the heat and the easy deathlessness of summer, which rather than giving me a sense of depletion as it does for many people here (you should hear the complaining!) gives me fortitude, a feeling of eternity, well being and simple happiness.
Work is a different matter. In suit and tie I am sweating within seconds of leaving the front door: the walk down the hill is unthinkable in these conditions ( I used to do it up until a few years ago, but no longer want the glances of unconcealed dismay emanating from the sweatless, perfectly put-together Japanese ladies as the sweat-drenched gaijin monster boards the train); even waiting for the bus in the direct sun can leave me slightly overheating. At these times, as I am sure you can imagine, I am literally OBSESSED with how I smell.
Constantly paranoid that I stink (lots of people do in this weather: another white guy got on the bus the other day and, well, he clearly wasn’t quite obsessed enough, blimey). I want to smell fresh, I want to smell clean, and if possible I want to smell interesting, even intriguing, but at any rate, after a nice long shower and the experimenting with various shampoos and conditioners for scent-co-ordination, I want to step into my work attire and then be able to SPRITZ myself all over with scents that will be pleasant, refreshing, and if humanly possible, even touch the spirit.
The perfumes, or rather colognes absolues, of the New York-based, and very popular, Atelier Cologne would seem to fit this bill quite nicely; contemporary, crisp-as-an-iceberg lettuce; bracing, well-constructed scents that are guaranteed to make you smell nice, modern, and offend absolutely no-one around you.
They are also, for me, so….how can I put it, New York; so urban-perfected and prescribed; beautiful, in a way, but like the immaculately trimmed beards of the current homo and metrosexual mode so fixed; premeditated, approved. Not a hair out of place; not a hint of roughness or infallibility, nor even vulnerability come to think about it (the best perfumes express something profound, even uncomfortable cracks in your veneer I always think; here, all is faultless and unfaulted as a Manhattan socialite.)
For me, though I know I am thinking way too much about scents that are just supposed to be fresh n’ easy, these populist, hipster spritzes to me personally amount to almost alarming constrictions of the spirit.
While many of the scents I have tried in the range are very pleasant (sometimes extremely so: the top accord of Grand Néroli is almost paradisiacally uplifting, one of the most beautiful citrus orchestrations I have come across in a while, and the initial head notes of Orange Sanguine, innocent, light, are lovely as well: Le Toit De Paris sings of the soul-snapping vigor of a crisp, newly ironed shirt, the verifications of the shaving ritual, and the optimistic mastery of a new day), the dry downs somehow coagulate for me, snap themselves, adhering, into some kind of self-regulation I am uncomfortable with (I have always been resolutely, almost absurdly non-conformist in many ways) and as the perfumes fall into step on my skin I feel so accepted and ‘well-turned out’ that a tiny inner voice begins in a slow, irritated crescendo, to scream.
There are many ways to do citrus. The hairy, moody grapefruit that is Pamplelune; the elegant, melancholy edge of Hermès Eau D’Orange Verte with its shadowy, bosky bitter orange groves; the taut, sinuous Citron Citron or Petitgrain by Miller Harris, who really knows how to nail a rind; or the celestially bright overture of one of my very favourite citruses, Armani Privé’s Oranger Alhambra, which for me is the zenith of this type, and which Grand Néroli somewhat reminds me of. I adore the scintillating coronets of differing species of citrus doving in and out of white neroli petals, that zing of vernal freshness that cannot fail to lift the spirits, and if I could keep these beginnings (impossible, I know, those citruses will evaporate) I would hand over the spondoolas and get myself a bottle.
What comes next is always crucial with a cologne, though. As I mentioned recently, the old school Guerlain musks in the bases of their citrus colognes repel me, (as in Eau Du Coq and Eau Impériale; I once made a grave mistake in buying Santa Maria Novella’s Acqua Di Sicilia, having been seduced by the brilliance of the citruses in the top, only to recoil in horror at the musks that then evolved; you won’t believe this, but I actually poured it down the sink I hated it so much, just so I could use the lovely bottle for something else). Eau De Fleurs De Cedrat, a gorgeous evocation of citron leaves, has the grace to fade to an eiderdowny, almost imperceptible nothing, and this, to me, is the best of these old school colognes.
Regarding bases, then, Grand Néroli chooses the Route De La Banalité as far as I am concerned. A modern-musky, ‘woodsy’, pale, far too familiar accord that nevertheless outstays its welcome. I cannot walk around for the rest of my day smelling like this. The same is true of Orange Sanguine, which right from the beginning, despite its lovely oranginess, has a particular (nitrile?) musk that slightly bothers me, although trying it again today I am starting to enjoy this one a bit more: there is something airy and benign about it that is quite appealing. Even so, a bum note is a bum note, and these ‘colognes’ most certainly don’t come cheap….
Back in the 90’s for a while I wore Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme, a fresh, tarragon-laced androgynous masculine I quite liked, and I have been smelling its return recently in various fresh and soapy new releases. Le Toit Sous Paris reminds me a bit of the D + G, but lighter, brighter, crisper – a well-executed, if slightly overly chemical, violet-topped spritzer that I can imagine enjoying on someone standing next to me in the morning rush hour, even if I would never for a moment consider it for myself (I would feel as if I were trapped, uncomfortably, in a really tight-clasped, starched, top-buttoned shirt.)
The same goes I’m afraid for Trèfle Pur, which to me smells nothing whatsoever like clover, one of nature’s most adorable smells, but just something generically chemical, soapy and transparent (sorry, I can’t think of a thing to say about it). Unless ‘trèfle’ also means ‘trifle’, in which case the whole perfume suddenly begins to make sense.
Vétiver Fatal is the same; a far-reaching, multi-layered, technically excellent vetiver with character and original glints (the plum and oud), and it smells very nice with the contrast in the top of Calabrian bergamot and Sicilian lemon; not as nice as people have been saying, mind you (for a plum/citric vetiver, try the exquisite Racine by Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier instead- see my review); ultimately this very un-fatal vetiver belongs with all the other overly restrictive vetivers – Encre Noire, Vétiver Extraordinaire and so on and so on, that, for me, while sharp, chic, and just so, all, ultimately, and disappointingly, like most of the perfumes in this collection, lack balls.
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