When in
London for business, I like to take time to search out and sample any new and
exiting olfactory offerings that have appeared an array of scented flowers to
be sniffed at and maybe, just maybe find a place in my increasingly judgmental
heart.
Our
overheated and crammed head office is smack bang in the middle of Spitalfields
in London E1. A diverse and multi-cultural area, now awash with every permutation
of hipster know to man. Coffee shops and clothing boutiques mingle with
bric-a-brac shops and gentrified slum housing. The air is potent with spices,
concrete and traffic fumes. The area feels alive and vibrant if a little veneered
and tenuous in places.
It was
here a colleague introduced me to Bloom (parfumea splendiosa indeed!), a new
fragrance boutique and the scented brainchild of Oxana Polyakova, which opened
its doors a month or so ago at 4 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. It feels special
as soon as you walk in. Immaculately merchandised with quirky little displays
and visual treats designed to draw the eye. The shop feels white and softly
Scandic yet cool and welcoming. It has a Hammershoi vibe I really like; it
allows the fragrances to quietly stand out. The brands they stock are chic and
alluring and work well in the context of what is an intimate yet well thought
out space.
‘Compared
to mass-market perfume a good niche scent is what a good book is to a glossy
magazine. A book has a plot, lots of characters living through a main part, a
beginning and an ending.’
This
statement of quiet intent from their super-cute website is a good indication of
the genre of perfume Bloom sell. They have thought carefully about the luxury
of the brands. And this is not the luxury of bling, sparkle and tanned flesh on
super yachts but rather the unspoken richness of liquid cashmere, heirloom
leather and worn, rubbed wealth. The unexpected diamond glittering on a hand
covered in mud from gardening. Introverted wealth and subtlety. Sure there are
some strong elixirs but Bloom is about the journey. The destination is
important, but you need to slow down, look out of the window, adapt your
senses, count the petals, touch the pollen and smell the atoms.
The
perfumes Bloom stock include Eight &
Bob, the bizarre and moreish Blood
Concept scents, the voluptuous Nez à
Nez (Including one of my obsessive perfumes: Atelier d’Artiste….), Koju
1575, Six Scents, Vero Profumo, Pierre Guillaume’s
stunning Parfumerie Générale line and
his innovative Huitième Art
collection. The also stock fabulous candles including the decadent Cire Trudon, perhaps the most beautiful
candles in the world and candles by Jovoy
and Phaedon as well.
It is a
really elegant and thoughtful library of fragrances with truly intriguing
concepts for everyone to explore. One of the flaws with niche fragrance has
always been the disparity between price point and perceived artistic intentions
of the house or perfumer. People read marketing blurb about esoteric
inspirations, obscure references and the often-difficult world of
aromachemistry. This is fine if you are familiar with the more abstract and in-depth
aspects of perfumery but approaching to as a novice you can often be left
bewildered and vaguely patronised.
Bloom
does not feel like this at all, the atmosphere is hushed and welcming. I loved
the lived feel of things, the whiteness, the faded feel in the air. First
impressions count for so much and I felt at home straight away. The scent in
the air was subtle, temperature good; always important with fragrance shops,
just cool enough to hang the molecules in the air without wrecking their meaning. I of course approved of the fox in the fireplace and the lovely storybook-style fox on their business cards.
I have
tried some of the perfumes before. I’m a huge fan of Nez à Nez and it was
lovely to sample their incredible Immortelle
Marilyn again. I’d forgotten how damn sexy it is and how long the milky
minky musks linger across the skin. Emma, the lovely beatnik, doe-eyed girl who
helped me was clad in mohair and black and fitted the vibe of the boutique
beautifully. I mentioned the things I liked in fragrances; leather, vanilla,
powder especially powder. She pondered and carefully chose a few scents to show
me.
I was
quite unprepared for Ascent, created
by Christophe Reynaud for the latest batch of Six Scents. Inspired by memories
of couture designers including Ohne Titel, Mary Katrantzou and Alexis Mabille, this
sextet is quite breathtaking in their scope and imagination.
N4 Ascent was inspired by a memory by Rad Hourani, the
young Canadian designer of mixed Jordanian and Syrian descent. His structured
and often acutely architectural work is cited as unisex. This makes his body of
couture incredibly flexible and intensely personal to experience. The fragrance
itself was icy to the touch like a car bonnet on a frozen Edinburgh morning.
The whopping dose of powdered musks in the bas gave the scent a slipppage under
the fingers, like silk pouring through the hand. I loved it, it liquefied
across my skin, notes of pear juice, violet, rose leather and my beloved tonka
and coumarin, the first of a series of my favourite molecules I’ve just had
tattooed onto skin so I can wear them always….
It oozes
ambiguity, genderless beauty and an alien come-hither charm. It also has
silence. This I admire in perfume. An ability to enfold the wearer in careful
pause and comforting privacy. A touch of incense in the base adds a blur of
movement, something to divert the senses as you swoon. But N4 Ascent is truly ethereal and moving. It lasted for hours and as
my plane landed in Edinburgh and I strolled out into a chilly Scottish Autumnal
evening, the notes rose up off my skin as if to say this is right, this is how
you should be anointed.
The other
fragrance Emma showed me was something I’m not sure I would have picked by
myself. It was Cuir Venenum, a sweet
powerful leather based scent from Pierre Guillaume’s Parfumerie Générale line
of exceedingly complex and precise fragrances. Apparently inspired by an
African model, walking past Guillaume in a stretch leather dress. He wanted to
capture the uncomfortable harmony between desire, beauty and the memory of the
leather as a once living thing with a heartbeat and blood coursing through its
veins.
I adore a
good leather scent, especially a floral-toned leather, it makes my heart crash around
in my rib cage. Pierre Guillaume already had my heart years ago when I fell in
love with Musc Maori, one of all time
favourite dirty sexy gourmand flavours. But Cuir
Venenum is astoundingly good; a whopping note of Tunisian orange absolute
is blended with leather, Tamanu oil (a deep rich tropical oil long-prized for
its medicinal qualities), Atlas cedar, honey, musk and myrrh. Such is the
coherence and clarity of this perfume that each of these notes is detectable as
it settles onto the skin. It feels and smells very odd and the accords mingle
and coalesce into a second skin. My god is it sexy. I love orange blossom; its
indolic nature adds a creeping porno dimension to skin. Mixed here with honey,
the bloom takes on a stickier more feral vibe, perfect for restless nights and
skin games.
The range
I really wanted to sample was Huitième
Art, Pierre Guillaume’s more abstracted and futuristic collection of eaux
de parfums launched in 2010 on the 8th anniversary of Parfumerie
Générale, utilising and celebrating the beauty and wonder of the latest bio-extraction
and plant-capture techniques.
Fragrance
as the Eighth Art, after adding cinema as the seventh after the more
traditional fine arts such a architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance
and poetry/literature. The French Government elevated the status of perfumery
this year too, by creating five new Chevaliers des Arts et Des Lettres from
among the five top Fragrance and Flavour companies. While tactful, it still
finally proved the cultural importance (and money making capability) attached
to perfumery in France and therefore worldwide.
Huitième
Art perfumes are houses in very unusual white ceramic bottles with thumb
impressed ‘eyes’ as a lid. They remind me of ancient Egyptian canopic jars,
vessels designed to hold the internal organs of the dead into the afterlife. My
friend who loves the brand has a less morbid take and thinks they look like 70s
Cornish art pottery, white abstract owls, gazing blindly into the night. They
feel beautiful, smooth and cool, a pleasure to handle. A lot of brands neglect
the actual sensation of bottles, but the actual feel of the material on the
skin can be revelatory, adding another dimension to the experience of the
perfume.
Emma
explained there is an inbuilt linear quality to Huitième Art fragrances. This
is not to say however they are in any way simple. There are two or three notes,
composed of elaborate accords. These effects create vibrant and dazzlingly
results when allied with the thermal motion of skin. The one I was craving to
smell was Poudre de Riz, a seemingly
sparse explanation of an old-fashioned face powder accord, rose petals, monoï
and vanilla.
The PR
material cites Henri Barbusse, quoting a line from his 1908 novel The Inferno:
‘The air
in the closed room was heavy with a mixture of odours: soap, face powder, the
pungent scent of cologne.’
But at
Pitti recently, Pierre Guillaume described Poudre
de Riz in much more carnal terms, setting the scent in the context of a
couple in a beach bungalow, fucking
(not making love….) and then showering and then dressing their skin to go out.
He wanted to evoke the breathing sexuality of our skin, the warmth and frisson
of coital aromas mingled with the care and attentions of creams and soaps and
powders. Skin must be loved in so many ways for it to be beautiful. One of my
scented friends Mr E is quite obsessed with the scent of Vidal Sassoon’s Shine
Spray, an intoxicating whoosh of aromachemicals and heady waxen whiteness. When
I sprayed Poudre de Riz on his skin,
he inhaled and said ‘Sassoon Shine Spray……marvellous…’
The monoï
accord has been composed from Tiaré absolute, cacao and vanilla, lending the
accord a glorious melting richness which sits so beautifully on the powder. The
rose is a Robertet house specialty Rosa
damescena, full of subtlety and gentle grace. The complex and
transformative poudre de riz accord
is constructed from sandalwood, liquid orris on cedar (Robertet again….), tonka
bean, Tolu balsam and benzoin. Mane have a steamed rice molecule they used in
Ralf Schweiger’s magnificent Fils de Dieu
for Etat Libre D’Orange. It was moist and intensely weird. This Huitième Art
accord is blushingly soft and atmospheric. I have never really experienced
anything quite like it. It has a claustrophobic quality I love; I know that
sounds odd, but one’s skin smells overwhelming, clean, dusted and lavish. But
underneath the cleanliness there is a sense of harlot, of déshabille… something
a little unclean. Now I realise this, I must have it.
So please
visit Bloom if are you in London, it a stylish and heavenly little space to
experience some truly beautiful fragrances. In an increasingly screamingly
confused and histrionic world of perfumed indecision, these oases of olfactory
calm and contemplation are gold. We need them to survive.
For more information on Bloom, please click link below
Wonderful descriptions!
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