‘I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.’
From ‘The
Thought-Fox’ by Ted Hughes
I don’t normally do
lists. Even on a day-to-day personal level. They corral and panic me. I realise
rationally they assist in the organising of the mind, but I’ve never been one
for rules and increasingly my mind has a mind of its own. Age has made me more
wary of lists than ever.
I get asked a lot as
an olfactive writer about my favourites and not so favourite fragrances. I have
always been quite strict with myself about publicly disliking things – I try where I can, not to do it. But
sometimes I am obliged to and it hurts. Whatever I may think in private, I
prefer to review only on the perfumes I like and admire and usually buy. If I
like it the scent enough to buy it, I hope you will too. There are enough
vitriolic perfume bloggers out there willing to slash and burn work; I don’t
want to do that. At the end of the day, all perfume is subjective and someone
somewhere has made it and someone else will wear it. I’m not entirely sure I
have the right to be that judgemental.
Of course I come
across so much scented stuff I don’t like and wouldn’t wear, but other people
will and do. My tastes are reasonably eclectic, I’m no snob, Gucci, Gorilla and Balenciaga sit alongside Mona
di Orio, Technique Indiscrète and
Oriza L. Legrand. It’s all about how
you feel and what you want from life and scent.
2014 has been rich
and sensual with a wonderfully diverse and intriguing raft of fragrant
launches. I have been writing extensively and carefully as usual for my own
Silver Fox blog and posting on my Foxy Facebook page but was also introduced in
early 2014 by a mutual friend to Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief at Cafleurebon and she has been incredibly supportive, inviting me to write regularly for the
site and providing me with an intriguing and eclectic array of international
perfumes to write on. The schedule is demanding but I enjoy the tightness of
the writing challenge and diverse collection of fragrances I have had an
opportunity to write about. The community of writers is quite special and the
feedback and variety of comments I get on my writing from CFB readers is like
nothing else. Michelyn does not censor or dictate, we share an obsessive
passion for beautiful scent. She is classic to my indie. She has impeccable
taste and ferocious drive.
I am particularly
proud of a piece I wrote for the dapper and handsome Helder Suffenplan at Scentury called Les Feux d'Automne. I had wanted to write something for his lovely site
for ages, it is one of my go-to blogs for unusual perfumed reading. He gallantly
gave me carte blanche on content and has always been very supportive and kind
about my foxy writing over the years. So I chose to describe my beloved dark
city of Edinburgh and the scents I wear in the autumn streets to match the
city’s finest, most haunted season.
My piece for Liam
Moore’s wonderfully evolving ODOU magazine (Issue 3, The Interview Edition), The Consolation of Dependency, was one
of the best things I have written in a while, an essay ostensibly reviewing Junky
by Anais Biguine’s Jardins d’Ecrivains, a unsettling scent inspired by William
Burroughs’s cult biographical book. But I also wanted to explore deeper
preoccupations with addiction, damage and obsession on a personal level and the
odd way many perfume lovers interact with scent. It was not an easy write for
me, but I needed to look some demons in the milky unblinking eye.
Writing is an
inherently lonely business, reflective and selfish, reliant mostly on one’s own
wavering and beleaguered views. I bounce off my friend and muse Mr E, someone
who understands the beauty and majesty of scent but is also unafraid to
confront the bullshit of obfuscation, reformulation and PR gloss that continues
to be thrown over so much of today’s perfume launches. I thought I might get bored of writing on
scent, but the sensuality and beauty aroused by some of the work I encounter
continues to intrigue and astound me.
One of the things I
love most about writing on niche and artisan perfumery is the relationship I
have made with brands, creative directors, perfumers and other writers. Many of
these wonderful and supportive people I can now call friends and this matters
to me more than I really express.
So, I am going to
pull together some thoughts on my favourites from 2014, from mainstream, niche
and indie houses. I did find one or two really special things this year that
burned like supernovas and re-discovered some old favourites again that I had
to gather like precious blooms and hide away in my oh so quiet scented foxy
study. I hope you like.
Part I is all
about the loveliness in the so-called mainstream market. Interestingly Estée
Lauder bought up Linda Rodin, Frédéric Malle and Le Labo this year, not so
silently acknowledging the growing influence and trend-setting power of certain
key niche luxury houses.
In this list are are two of my favourite re-launches of the year. Both French, one a return of a modern classic, the other an intricately reconstructed vintage scent from a stunning antique archive.
I do love mainstream
scents, I don’t stray too far from the brightly lit counters and department
store halls. Anyone who does is a fool and a snob. You miss so much good stuff,
occasional magic, trends being set and the death throes of old giants. I still
adore the work of Dior, the Chanel exclusives still wield delicious influence and
brands like Parfums Mugler, Chloe, Balenciaga, Cartier and Hermes are creating shimmering
olfaction that allow many people a reasonably priced access point into luxurious
and intriguing launches.
This year I loved
the glowing restraint of Bottega Veneta’s Knot, signed off by the subtle hand
of Daniela Roche Andrier. Her diaphanous, iris-based work at Prada, applied here
to orange blossom over a white rose and lavender heart was stunning. The rose
seemed to murmur vows of celibacy as it sank, satiated into a warm embrace of
tonka and trailing musks. The more I wore it the more I noticed the rather
fuzzy opaque laundry aroma of just open tumble dryers in the gaps between the
floral notes and Andrier’s use of ripe clementine and Italian citrus elements.
This oh-so subtle collision of warm machine and bright flooded blossom is
beautifully achieved and demonstrates how incredibly rich and diverse so-called
high street scent can be in the talented technical hands of perfumers like
Andrier. Oh and the flacon is gorgeous too, the name referring of course to the
iconic bag and clutch fastening…
Then there was My
Burberry. This was a big shock. I have never really paid much attention
to Burberry’s schlocky duty free fodder fragrances. I just can’t get my head
around a brand with so much money to invest in luxury scent and great noses and
yet their output is resolutely generic and unadventurous. The solution. Get
Francis Kurkdjian on board - his recent work for Carven and Elie Saab was
divine…. Shoot a campaign with Testino, Moss, Delevigne and use the iconic
Burberry trench as inspiration for a gorgeous off-white floral centred on
rain-soaked sweet peas, freesia and an imagined quince effect. This is perfume
that oozes joy and playfulness, a head thrown back in rain kinda insouciance.
Kurkdjian really knows his way around white flowers, moulding them into
diaphanous and often unexpected shapes to catch the senses unaware. His delicious
offbeat work for big name brands IMHO is far better than his own somewhat
static line. My Burberry shimmers with dewy dreamy rose as it settles
on warm skin, so easy to wear but very forthright and stylish, with echoes of
vintage Chanel and Lancôme thrown in or good measure. Another fabulous flacon
too, oversize faux horn button lid and a piece of Castleford gabardine tied at
the neck of the bottle. A modern classic.
I loved the scented Balenciaga
launches under the artistic directorship of Nicholas Ghesquière. Paris, Paris Essence and the wonderfully curious Florabotanica all sit in my collection and I wear them regularly. B
Balenciaga
was the first new fragrance launch for Balenciaga under the tenure of
American designer Alexander Wang. B Balenciaga is a strike
out in a more modern, brutalist way as much as high street perfumery can. The
violet note of Paris and Paris Essence echoes through this too,
but in much greener, snapped vegetal way. Domitille Bertier of IFF has used an
edamame pea effect in the top that stays leafy and delicately alien as the
notes settle down into the more traditional musky, cashmeran base. A breath of
orris blows through the later stages, bringing soft dust and a sigh of glassy
light. I like the odd growl of ambrette in the base; just enough to avoid the
usual dull fade-off familiar to so many mainstream florals. A risky and perhaps
chilly launch for a big name house to be honest, but one of structured charm
and difference. Another lovely bottle too, frosted and odd in the hand,
inspired by the marble floor in the flagship Balenciaga showroom at 10 Avenue
George V in Paris.
It’s no secret to
friends and followers alike how much I love Mugler and the inventive way they
flanker their touchstone quartet of Angel,
Alien, Womanity and A*Men. Each
year sees innovative twists and unctuous interpretations of the original
formulations, allowing devotees the indulgent illusion of novelty while not
straying too far from the classic structures. Using leather, liqueur, gustatory
enhancements and cask notes, Parfums Mugler have sought to enhance re-define
the boundaries of flankering within an established big name house. This summer
saw the release of the carnivalesque Angel Eau Sucrée, signed off by Dorothée
Piot, author of Chambre Noire for Olfactive
Studio and Amouge Memoir Woman. This playful
sorbet portrait of the original mega gourmand smells of frosted red berries,
rolled in shattered caramel dusted meringue. There’s a lovely neon macaroon ice
cream thing going on that I just adore. It’s as camp as a unicorn’s coming out
party with Abba t-shirts and glow-sticks. It’s sometime hard to explain a love
of Mugler fragrances; so many people hate them. I’ve given up trying; I’ve
decided it’s a twisted addiction. Each to their own, my skin fucking loves the
power of maltol and that’s all that matters.
Valentino Uomo by Valentino was one of the only
mainstream masculine launches I liked this year. Accompanied by an elegantly
shot campaign starring one of my favourite French actors Louis Garrell, star of
Ma Mère, Les Chansons d’Amours and The Dreamers. Created by Olivier Polge
of Dior Homme fame, I had high(ish)
hopes from this and while it didn’t quite reach the same rarefied heights as
DH’s haunting dusty androgyny, Valentino Uomo is still beautifully
made juice. Essentially a discreet coffee-laced gourmand with woods and amber,
it is set apart by Polge’s use of a giuanduja (hazelnut/cocoa) effect in the
mix, this is elegantly done, warm and mellow without any of the usual
aromachemical sleaziness you often get in men’s sweeter scented offerings. I
like the overall smoothness of the scent, the hint of supple leather, some
glittering bergamot and weird plasticised cedar. Lovely heavy cut-glass bottle,
echoing jewel-cut whisky tumblers, the juice is tinted a pale shimmering golden
tea tone, adding to the overall dram in a glass effect. I found the longevity
very good although others disagreed. A refined and graceful scent that stood
out like blood on snow in the generic saturation of today’s sweaty, dull and
interchangeable male scent launches.
I had two favourite
re-launches in 2014; one was Jour de Fête, an adorable, comforting
essay in amandine brilliance by Olivia Giacobetti originally released by
L’Artisan Parfumeur in 1993. This new version smells very similar, perhaps a
little sweeter and less milky in the drydown, but still perhaps the most
pellucid and gauzy rendering of almonds in the business. I was thrilled to bits
it came back. The mix of wedding, patisserie and cyanide fascinates me and
Giacobetti’s blending of these complexities with wheat and powdered iris is
beguiling and soothing. I like the fragility and soft glow of this moreish
scent. Olivia Giacobetti’s work (Hotel
Costes, Dzing!, Safran Troublant, Sexy Angélique) has a certain transparent
sensibility that makes them deeply alluring to wear. Hush is vastly underrated
as an olfactory attribute, but it is one I am becoming more inclined towards.
This surreptitious scent of marzipan, frangipane, almond milk, patisserie and
apple seed is a welcome re-launch from a troubled house. The more I wear it,
the more I recognise genius in these soft, watchful L’Artisan scents like Jour
de Fête, Bois Farine, Safran
Troublant and La Haie Fleurie de
Hameau. I hope they stay and soothe for a while.
A late surprise and
another riff on violet was Simply Jil Sander by Christophe
Raynaud. I saw this pop up on the informative Scent and Chemistry Facebook page
and got hooked in by the reference to the echo of vintage Fahrenheit. This will be Jil’s swan song (yes I know she’s bowed
out before…) as she finally retires from the fashion house she set up in the
late seventies. I have worn and loved a number of her peculiar scents over the
years, hard to find and oddly obsessive. Sun
and Jil Sander No 4 were my favourites, I went through bottles and bottles
of Sun. Simply is simply a
wonderful echo of Jean-Louis Sieuzac’s exalted Fahrenheit from 1988 a scent that permeated every sullen fibre and
flicked fringe of my pop-drenched 80s’ teenage years. The version kicking about
now is a piss poor shadow of the towering violet drenched in a rumoured 14% of MHC
(methyl heptyne carboxylate) and the multiple flankers have been occasionally
interesting but flicker dully in the fiery glow of the original. But this skilfully
assembled scent from Jil Sander offers up a damn fine facsimile of that
neutered classic. A little more metallic and brassy in the heart perhaps, but
the contemporary violet is veiled in a rather austere leather effect that
nonetheless manages to allow an elegant smooth vanillic trace to emerge in the
final, mauve moments of drydown. Buy it if you can, it is a bizarre and
fascinating perfume.
Part II, coming soon will be musings
on my favourite niche and indie scents and the themes that embroidered them throughout
the year.
31 December 2014
©TheSilverFox
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