Memo is
a discreet and luxurious brand, a word of mouth success, the scents suggested carefully
to like-minded connoisseurs, skin savoured in pleasured appreciation. There is
something rarified and apart about
the alluring strangeness of the oeuvre. The fragrances feel expensive,
finished, honed and polished, notes open like choral mouths, rolling and
blossoming across welcome skin.
I have
loved the brand quietly for years, wearing Siwa
constantly and sometimes the heady holographic charms of Lalibela. Siwa’s
plasticky warm blend of cereals, whiskey lactones, cinnamon leaf, popcorn,
narcissus and vanilla wears like silicone on my skin. I smell like an
replicant. I loved it from the very first moment I tried it and have never
tired of its alien melted beauty. Lalibela
is another one of my obsessive rose scents. It takes it name from Lalibela, a
sacred place in Ethiopia where it is said angels came down to build twelve
churches, all hewn from solid rock. The fragrance reeks of transcendental rose,
joyous and fevered. Orchid and jasmine hold to the skin white-hot intensity as
the rose seems to smoulder, ably abetted by really rich labdanum, tobacco,
vanilla and frankincense notes. Everything smells offered up, sacrificial and sacred.
Memo
(short for memory)is Clara and John Molloy. He is Irish, raised around horses
in Tipperary, she is Andalusian, but raised in Paris. They are based now in
Geneva after many years in Paris. They met apparently on a ski lift, suspended
between earth and sky. I like this image of love blossoming mid-air, rootless,
under a nurturing vault of blue.
John Molloy
is the businessman, with a background at LVMH and L’Oréal. Beautiful Clara is
the dreamer, explorer and creative director. In the 90’s she worked in editing
and the world of magazine supplements and then in 2007 decided to write a book
entitled 22 Perfumers where she
interviewed many of the worlds most influential noses. This infected her with
the perfume bug. So together with talented IFF nose Aliénor Massenet, one of
the 22 perfumers, globe-trotting Clara set out to create a unique body of
olfactive work inspired by her journeys. As the motto of the brand says… ‘The
journey is the destination’. This is something many perfume noses forget in
their scramble for our dollar; the inherent joy in travelling with a scent,
living the notes, seeing places, smelling trees, mountains, rivers, feeling the
sun and rain on skin, sand and snow underfoot.
The fragrances
romance and distill experience. There is subtlety and beauty expressed in
formulae of great tenderness and complexity. Each of the Memo fragrances is a
reflection of a specific place and Clara’s reaction to it, filtered through the
persuasive perfumed lens of Massenet. Clara uses scrapbooks as she travels to
record her thoughts and experiences, noting sensations and emotions linked to
places. It was this attention to traveling detail that first attracted me to
Memo fragrances. I had read an article in a French magazine about the creation
of Siwa, the scent-sation of an oasis
night, described by Clara Molloy as feeling like a sort of cover, fur, something comforting. And it’s true
I wear to to bed or when I am sad, it cradles me.
This
fascinated me, this attempt to translate an emotional response to a time and
place into notes, facets and accords. It is very hard to do with any degree of
grace and harmony. Fragrances of this ilk are often sledgehammer subtle,
deliberately using dull unimaginative scent, spice, floral combinations to
suggest building blocks not the overall picture. What Clara Molloy and Aliénor
Massenet have done is provide a series of poignantly charged scentscapes that
allows us to see the world through olfactory constructs and personal vision.
The
original Memo collection was entitled Les
Echappées, meaning escapes or more colloquially – getaways, suggesting each of the scents opened a door to the
possibility of evasion, of not to Inlé, Siwa, Granada, Luxor etc, at least one
might imagine or inhale a perception of it.
The
range is quite varied with stylised twists in florals, chyprés, creamy
orientals and spiky strange citrus notes. Two ouds, Shams Oud and Luxor Oud
have been added recently and while I understand the desire to have a oud scent
in collections, these two oddly cold and unleavened scents barely raise a
flicker of emotion in me. Perhaps I am just over the oud thing, I am terribly
bored of it, the only one I have never tired of is Bertrand Duchoufour’s
sticky, dirtysexy date-tinted Al Oudh
for L’Artisan Parfumeur.(My dear friend Mr E seems to suit this salacious thing
so much I feel I can no longer wear it, he has made it so much his own!)
Inlé has shimmering grace and beauty, lying on the
skin with steadfast delicacy. The fine rendering of osmanthus is balanced so
gently with maté, jasmine and sweet vernal grass, it seems to hang in the mind
like morning mist. I was very taken with Manoa,
rich and golden, befitting a scent inspired by the Inca legend of El Dorado, with a fabulous oppoponax
thread, tied to ginger and vanilla. Quartier
Latin, Memo’s love letter to the near mythical heart of artistic Paris is a
real surprise. I have smelt it before but forgotten how it dances off the skin
with such recondite allure. Hypnotic tonka and woods segue blissfully into
amber and a provocative clove note. This
perfume shouldn’t really work, at times it barely hangs together, but damn it
smells so free and sexy.
Two
leather scents have joined the collection and mark the beginning of a new
direction or mini-œuvre subtitled Cuirs
Nomades, Nomadic Leathers. The first, Irish
Leather, was released last. The wild running horse in the striking campaign
was a rather large clue to the fragrance’s inspiration – John Molloy and his
beloved Irish heritage.
One of
the most interesting aspects of leather as object is its general classlessness.
From humble country farm harnesses to the elitist accouterments of upper class
traditional hunting; leather travels, telling many quixotic stories. The
finish, quality, treatment and handling will impart olfaction and personality. Irish Leather smells very personal to
me, marking quite a shift in direction and one I think that is beautifully
achieved. The leather effect has been created using amongst things styrax, iris
concrete and musks.The result smells alive and verdant.
The
Echappées collection does have olfactive motifs running through it, fetish notes
and facets that lend the Memo fragrances a distinctive character. These include
myrrh, liatrix or deer-tongue and a very plush and luxurious vanilla bean note.
There is an sense of simple luxury, the idea that one could achieve tremendous
sensual perfection by utilising just a few of the finest possible materials.
There
are echoes of this luxury, these signature scent markers in Irish Leather, but it is a very
different beast, blood beating beneath skin. As I mentioned earlier, this scent
is for John Molloy and his equine heritage, playing with an inspirational idea
of horse riding through green, wild Irish countryside. Hooves kicking up clods
of loamy earth, insects feeding, grasses crushed and the horse heart thundering
in its noble chest. Using notes of green mate, clary sage, juniper, sweet
vernal grass over the alchemical leather and amber base, Irish Leather smells wild and oddly smothering at the same time. I
smell a weird hot soapiness as the top notes ease off mixed with a medicinal
acuity from a rather bleak birch note rising from the base. It goes very odd on
my skin, the leather exudes a sweatiness which on my friend Murray smelt really
very sexy, on me smelt out of place and metallic. I really admire the assembly
of this scent though, the vegetation meets steed effect is brave and very well
executed.
When I
wrote my piece on Maggie Magnan’s beautiful Galway-based Cloon Keen Atelier
fragrance ‘Castana’, I was very aware of the subtle and delicate handling of
the Irishness of the brand. Living in Scotland’s capital city I am more than
aware of the pitfalls of cultural stereotyping. Edinburgh is dotted about with
tartan at most times of the year, some good, most of it bad. The main shopping
thoroughfare Princes Street is scarred with ugly pop-up shops flogging the most
awful variety of tartan souvenirs while blaring distorted bagpipe music out
into the city’s air. Ambassadors like 21st
Kilts run by the cheeky and talented Howie Nicholsby and Anta founded by Annie and Lachlan
Stewart are mixing things up a little, marrying tradition with modern living
and wearability. So I am always a little concerned by fragrances with
distinctive cultural references, it can often be shorthand for lazy perfumery.
What I
liked so much in Irish Leather was
the careful handling of a near mythic Ireland, just on the right side of misty
holiday brochure manipulation but robust enough to imagine the horse beneath
the thigh, hot and alive. Taking on leather thematics through scents is quite an
undertaking actually, it’s a volatile subjective note. One man’s leather is
another’s sweat and avoidance. Leather is intriguing due to the endless
possibilities in interpretation. Softness, colour, texture, suede, smoky
animalic, white and futuristic. Horse, riding crop, carriage, car, fetish. So
much scope for inventive perfumery.
I have
three favourite leather scents, two modern, one classic vintage - Bertrand
Duchaufour’s masterly Cuir de Nacre for
Ann Gerard, all white supple leather with styrax and iris, Dzing! By Olivia Giacobetti for L’Artisan Parfumeur, a Lynchian
roar in the carnival night and Chanel’s Cuir
de Russie (extrait) still one of the most sublime and emotive perfumes of
all time. My good friend Mr E very kindly gave me a bottle that I treasure like
my own blood. It is a stoppered bottle and applying the tinted juice to my
wrists is a ritual that slows time.
This
year saw the launch of the second fragrance in the Cuir Nomades series called Italian Leather. This was love at first
whipcrack. A leather milkshake was my first impression, I almost laughed out
loud. So much vanilla bean, very disconcerting. Then the pieces start to
coalesce and my goodness this is truly fantastic scent-making. I could have
sworn I heard my skin thank me for applying it! So different in style from the
green heat and aromatic umber tones of Irish
Leather. This luxuriant gourmand take on the leather note is utterly
joyful, rich and rounded, sensual and virile. The most striking aspect is the sweetness,
as if a beloved pair of driving gloves have been treated with vanilla absolute
and massaged and loved to exhaustion. I have often scented my own gloves in the
past with vanilla or ylang essential oils, working drops of precious unguent
into the leather and then manipulating the gloves as I wear them. Last year Mr
E drenched his black (serial killer) gloves in the most fabulous tobacco-like
jasmine oil from Neal’s Yard. The scent was intoxicating, a little disturbing
at times but nonetheless quite the winter silage.
This
weird dizzying gourmand opening to Italian
Leather is quite startling. The leather note sits in the top too so unfolds
on the skin with tremendous warmth and golden charm. I sense an urgency in the
scent too, an exhilaration, something which comes from the adroit way a
delicious rubbed tomato leaf note has been worked into the mix. Blended with
clary sage, cistus, loamy galbanum and orris the leather feels so opulent and
Euro-riche. The base is tolu and myrhh, oppoponax, benzoin, more leather and
musks all rolling back and forth like melted chocolate in a rhythmic heated
bowl.
I am not
generally a fan of tomato leaf in perfumes, Sisley’s Eau de Campagne is a scent I really dislike, the note is toxic and
high and goes straight for my migraines. Annick Goutal’s Fovaril from 1981 was very French in design, airy and swamped in
good taste. Penhaligon’s re-orchestration of Esprit de Roi by Bertrand Duchaufour is excellent however, one of
the rare times the brands has managed to create a sense of something genuinely
unique in a fragrance. It stands head and shoulders above any of the other
Anthology or archive scents the house has released over the past number of
years. Esprit de Roi uses mint and
raspberry leaf to compliment the tomato note and then wraps everything kin
jasmine and woods. The scent reeks of overgrown greenhouses and ephemeral
summer gardens.
So I am
again surprised by this witty rendering of tomato leaf in Memo’s Italian Leather. It is the savory
counterpart to the incredibly rich vanilla note that gives the scent so much
staying power and robustness. The verdancy balances the vanillic sweetness beautifully,
using the sugared drift to gently coat the more alluvial elements of the juice.
There is a strong sense of ribald fun in this most sensual of fragrances, of
abandonment, naughtiness and freedom. The Memo PR blurb hints at cars driving
through the Italian countryside and I think this is pretty apt.
I
imagine a vintage Italian sports car, top down, spattered with dust tearing
through lush abundant countryside, vineyards, olive trees, the heated air
tossed with the scent of leaves, car interiors and heady alluring scent. The
girl or boy in the passenger seat is a random pouting stranger, laughter lost
to the wind. The city is disappearing in the mirrors, hot and crowded. Summer
has burnished the sky and the blue is almost blinding. Eighties electronica
fills the air, loud and insistently emotional, ice cold contrast to the
flickering desires on the rise as the car grips hairpin bends and toys with
edges. The steering wheel is scarlet leather, worn and twisted with grip and
concentration, stiches frayed a little like the gloves holding the wheel. For a
divine moment, everything merges together; the luxurious scent of hide, a flood
of emerald flora, earth and land, skin, perfume, laughter, the promise of sex
and warm bronzed skin. This is Memo’s
Italian Leather, a journey of textures, emotion and memory. Resolutely
epicurean, this a fragrance for all lovers of skin, skin dressed in the finest
perfumes and little else in fact.
For more information on Memo Fragrances, please follow link below:
No comments:
Post a Comment