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| Isle de Fasianes/Isla de los Faisanes |
In 1659, the Ile des Fasaines or Isla de los Faisanes, a narrow
strip of land in the Bisadoa river in the Pyrenees witnessed the by proxy
marriage of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa, the Infanta of Spain. A
series of rigourous etiquettes, theatricals, political manoeuvring and esoteric
court discourse had led the two courts to the point they were they were meeting
on an obscure if highly symbolic condominium to seal the marital fate of two
royal personages.
Pheasant Island is not much to look at to be honest, but as a
condominium, an area of joint sovereignty, it still holds an oddly charged
symbolic power, jointly controlled by Irun in Spain and Hendayé in France. At
he time of the historic meeting, it would have been elaborately dressed like a
stage set, bridges constructed to link the island to either side of the river,
pavilions built to house the various royal entourages. These would have been
lavish and dazzling to behold, each court aware of the importance of such
visual array. The invisible line between the to camps would mark the Infanta’s
crossing from Spain to France, a deeply symbolic movement away from the gloomy
customs, mores, dress codes of the Spanish Hapsburg court into the convoluted
and comparatively frivolous French Bourbon court concentrated at Versailles.
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| Arquiste hero images: Infanta en Flor (top) & Fleur de Louis (bottom) |
It is this moment of duty and elaborate rencontre that Arquiste have chosen to examine from opposite and
complimentary viewpoints in two exquisite floral compositions, Infanta en Flor by Yann Vasnier and Fleur de Louis by Rodrigo Flores-Roux.
Yann, a Frenchman takes on the Infanta’s delicate worries and Rodrigo, the
Latin, tackles the confident French floral strut of Louis and his courtly
demands. The formulae echo each other yet differ in beautiful and elegantly
contrived ways.
Yann’s vision of the Infanta is immensely charming, a virginal
apparition of feminine delicate toilette and soft soapiness rising gently from
the lovely breath of bergamot. The cistus and immortelle lend a sense of island
fauna backdrop to the notes and the heart and base unfold. There is a slightly
unsettling whiff of unwashed hair, unclean skin as the indoles of orange
blossom and jasmine bruise into the leather facet. To my mind this suggests the
classic peau d’espagne note, a
swirling and intoxicating animalic whiff of tanned hide that can both enchant and
repel, used to scent skin, paper, leather and swooning senses.
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| Gloves & tanning pits |
There is also a whiff
of les gants parfumés, echoing the
tradition of soaking fine kidskin in perfumed oils such as neroli to mask the leather’s
potent journey through the tang of tanneries. This suggestive throw of initial
notes is very inventive; the rose that follows is oddly carnal for a very brief
blooming moment, a flash forward perhaps of wedding night consummation. The
musk/benzoin mix hangs hazy like a neurotic miasma.
There is a steely modesty to the floral construction of Vasnier’s
work in Infanta en Flor, his palette
of deliberately curvaceous blooms effusing suggestion into tense and decorative
air. There is tension in the benzoin/resin vs. immortelle top. It feels like
storm rain about to break. I love the controlled femininity of Infanta en Flor, the shift between sweet
cossetted androgyny and acceptance of change as the Infanta literally looks her
future in the face and sees her past receding into the distance.
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| Maria Theresa, Infanta of Spain Louis VIV of France |
Rodrigo Flores-Roux has been charged with creating the
reflective response. Fleur de Louis
is the scented reply imagined for Louis XIV as he waits for Maria Theresa. There
are echoes of Infanta en Flor in the
mirrored use of bergamot, jasmine, orange blossom, rose and cistus however
Fleur de Louis initially opens on a higher pitched scrubbed tone, pushed
upwards by the recognisable burnt sugar/marmalade tonality of neroli. I am not
normally a neroli fan; it is one of the few notes in perfumery (along with slap
dash doses of heliotrope and Norlimbanol) that can trigger my full-blown aura
migraine attacks. I’m a cold-blooded northerner. I like the darkness, chill,
rain and claustrophobia of winter. My relationship with citrus scents is
fraught to say the least. I know some guys (and gals) smell just fabulous in
them. I do not. But as ever with Arquiste, Carlos and his olfactive architects
find inventive and persuasive ways to present classic materials.
The oddly metallic pomander hit of rose, jasmine and clove at
the heart of Fleur de Louis is
presented with a dandified panache. Only after this wonderful effect brakes
across the skin does the cypress from the opening clutch of notes begin its
minty, breathy decent, carousing charmingly over the indolic petals of jasmine
and orange blossom on it way down. There is a certain unpredictability and
swagger to Fleur de Louis, a princely
radiance of bloom and sunny citric essence that is different each time I wear
it. The punning Fleur de Louis (Lys) has a lovely redolent base of milky
woods, vetiver, transparent amber and a very nicely turned out cistus that
serves to draw out the solar aspects of the blooms above.
If I had to choose, I think I prefer the Infanta en Flor, the subtle flashes of skank that rise and fall delight
me all the more because they are subtly buried beneath soft leathery shadows of
fleur d’oranger and shivery cistus. I
find Fleur de Louis a tad less
complex to my mind, the soapiness too insistent and that’s just not my thing at
the end of the day.
As a duo, the two perfumes present a fascinating concept; king and
bride-to-be caught up in the inherited spectacle of elaborate courtly ritual,
surrounded by the extraordinary pomp and expectations of their empires. To try
and encapsulate the human aspect of that elaborate singular day on the Ile des
Faisans in olfactory form is a tall, and potentially pretentious order, but
Team Arquiste have gathered memory, history, skill, technique, verve and
flourish in this pair of remarkable fragrances.
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| Foxy marigiolds |
Flor y
Canto is another of Rodrigo’s persuasive masterclasses in floral
combining, layering petal on petal, indole on indole, and decadence on
virginity. The name is simple, Flower
& Song, and the scent is deceptively nebulous, an olfactive song of
ceremony, inspired by Cempoalxchitl
(a Nahutal or Aztec name), better known to us as wild marigold, a flower sacred
to the Aztec people and still today a hugely important part of Day of the Dead
rituals in Modern day Central America. The brightly coloured flowers and petals
are scattered on altars and used to create pathways to guide spirits to sacred
tombs and ancestral resting places. Tapestries, patterns and images are woven
from the differing tones of red, gold and ochre blooms. This explosion of
colour has an aroma too; marigolds have a distinctive scent of bitter, smudged
green herbiness and a cold geranium like astringency. There is a sweetness too
if you rub the petals gently between your fingers, but there are most odd
blooms.
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| Foxy marigolds II |
Rodrigo sets Flor y Canto
in 1400 in Tenochititlan, the legendary Aztec capital, founded in 1325 on an
island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. I was partly home-schooled
as a child, travelling abroad so much; I’m not sure the boarding school concept
idea appealed that much to my parents. My mum taught me stuff that fascinated
her, so I had the luxury of indulging in Plantagenet bloodlines, obscure entomology,
British poetry, Russian revolutionary history, the Romanovs, Etruscan art and
of course Mayan and Aztec culture. I was I think a bloodthirsty child, inordinately
mesmerised by tales of endless sacrifices atop the towering stepped pyramids; beating
hearts cut out with glinting obsidian blades from slippery chests to appease a
solar God they feared might not rise unless rivers of blood tumbled down the
stone steps. Older, I realise much of the sacrificial figures are of course the
work of the Spanish storytellers, conquerors and re-shapers of history.
But Tenochititlan was much more than repository of fears; it was
a city of architectural wonder, built on islets on forcibly reclaimed swampy,
insect-infested land. Modern day Mexico City now stands on the site of the
original Lake Texcoco site and at its peak, experts estimate perhaps 800,000
people lived in Tenochititlan. Aztec art dazzles, gold work, the
anthropomorphic animals, grimacing jaguars, undulating serpents and the sacred
eagle, symbol of the sun god Hiutzilopochtli. Death was part of life, rituals
emphasised this. They believed in reincarnation, the spirit returning in some
form that reflected the way a person had lived. Over a thousand gods crowded
the Aztec psyche, so calendar life was marked by devotions.
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| La Muerte, hat & gown trimmed in marigolds. From 'Book of Life' directed by Jorge Gutierrez |
Concerns with death and ancestor worship have echoed down
through time into the vibrant, commercial but nonetheless important seismology
of this powerful Aztec or Nuhatl heritage. Flor
y Canto is an olfactive song of kindness and solace, overtly pretty and
pensive. The fluttering heart of plumeria or frangipani is gorgeous, soft and
petalled, drifting in and out of the delicious mimosa flooded top. There are
some aquatic acrobatics in the early stages, as the flowers unfurl. Tuberose is
tricky, and pitched quite high in absolute under the joyous top rush. It lends
opacity and a rather unusual sense of laundered bitterness as it settles.
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| Mark Rothko - No 14/No10 (1953) |
Everything is laid down in tones of yellows and whites..mimosa,
magnolia, vanilla. An auric sunburst of marigold, a ghostly magnolia, canary
bursts of mimosa and moreish Mexican vanilla that has more of a rougher frayed
edge to it than the classic Madagascan Bourbon variety. The marigold effect
fluctuates in and out of the more showpiece aromatic and indolic heart notes
but it is there, an odd oily green presence, pompom petals smeared with dirty
pollen. Marigolds remind me of my African childhood and thunderstorms that tore
the skies apart. Our garden in Jos, Nigeria was a sea of mustard and marmalade
coloured marigold varieties. The sudden downpours smashed leaves and petals to
the muddy, turbulent ground, releasing a particularly vegetal and almost
antiseptic aroma into the humid aftermath of clinging electric air.
There was always going to be one or two of the Arquiste line
that didn’t really do it for me. Flor y
Canto was the one I’m afraid, much as I liked parts of it. My on/off issue
with it is its troubled vacancy as the scent wears on. There is no foundation
or progression after that bounty of top notes and affectionate gift of
frangipani. Everything seems to dissolve too fast in the descent. It may be my
senses and skin; I’m not the best tuberose wrangler. There is a shaky hold to Flor y Canto and I’m not entirely
convinced by its finish or build, it feels incomplete, dashed off, the only one
for me of the line hat doesn’t quite match up to its inspiration and
ambition.
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| Foxy's bottle (with Mr E's Sobranies..) |
Finally, Architects Club,
glorious, drunk on headlong rule-breaking love, giddy with chic design and just
so damn sexy. It made so many best of
lists in 2014 including mine, it’s a vanilla to drown, fuck and just luxuriate
in. It feels personal, an olfactive abstraction of Carlos and his obsession for
dapper detail and joyful sensuality. The nose is Yann Vasnier, a man with
glacial eyes who knows a thing or two about the world of the bright young
things.
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| Stephen Tennant, The Bright Young Thing |
Architects
Club is a homage to the hedonistic excess of 1930s London, that
unique period after the utter horror of The Great War where no one ever
believed such things could be ever visited upon the world again. Frivolity and
dissipation became art and the wealthy, for it was a time of money, danced,
smoked, dazzled and fornicated to the sound of jazz. A new generation of bright
young things, luminescent in their desire to shock and fritter away time and
talent focussed their attentions on London, dancing, carousing amid the city’s
sudden interest in modernism, art and commerce. As a teenager I was obsessed by
the involving hawkish novels of Evelyn Waugh and Brideshead Revisited is a novel I read at least once a year for the
pleasure of losing myself in so much maudlin decadence, guilt, grandiose
minutiae and the desperate longing to belong. I instinctively understood the
role of gilded outcast, poor destructive Sebastian Flyte and his swirling
demons. The Deco suites, liners, café-bars and cocktail bars of Brideshead are
revisited in the aristocratic languor of Vasnier’s heavenly vanilla.
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| Sebastian Flyte, Charles Ryder & of course Aloysius the Bear |
Carlos & Co have set their rakish and ambivalent scent in
1930s Mayfair, in a gentleman’s Deco smoking room as a group of forward
thinking architects gather to discuss their angular work, perhaps a striking
addition to London’s acclaimed luxury hotel scene or perhaps a modern bank
building decorated in cryptic moons and stars, an office for Cunard, a private
residence for a painter and his diamond-collared leopards, a soaring power
station housing giant turbines or a department store, glittering and brash, a
beacon of hedonism in a hitherto staid and meek age.
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| A Quartet of Deco Doors |
A geometric wave patterned door bursts open and into this hushed
and perhaps a little conservative enclave tumbles a coltish tribe of jeunesse dorée, cocktails in hand,
clothes bright with starlight and sex, blood awash with gin and cocaine.
Lashings of ambiguity, perfumed dazzle and chatter fill the room momentarily
like surging music. The Architects Club is lit like fire, white and bright with
the vital force of rush and frivolity of sudden modernity, laughter and
sensuality crashing against hard surface, line and rigid form.
Thus far, Architects Club
is the Arquiste masterpiece, although Anima
Dulcis and Aleksandr run it pretty close. There is something new on the
scented horizon in the autumn which I have been privileged enough to sample. I
am not going to discuss it here. That would be unfair and break a trust. But
needless to say, it is quite astonishing and makes me worship at the altar of
my own hide.
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| Vanilla pods.. |
I am of course a gourmand lover and obsessive vanilla hunter in
scents. Architects Club still managed
to surprise me with its grandiose quirky vanilla with sparkling shards of
bright lemon candy. The bigarade note lends a quaint ghostly twist of lime
marmalade to the opening of the scent, as if the olfactory rim of the glass had
been rubbed with juice. The elegant build of the juice is plush, smooth
mixology influences wrapped in a whispered oak surround to suggest the walls of
the Mayfair den. Years of cigars, cheroots, and cigarillos have left embedded
traces of smoke in the wood and although there is no tobacco listed in the
notes, there is shadow and wraith in the carful blending of the woods and
amber.
Yann Vasnier has used a heavy dose of fruity cedar-toned
Ambermax in the formula; you can smell its creamy, silken texture flowing over
the sweeter elements. It has enormous tenacity and fusion as an aromachemical;
I find it embeds perfumes astonishingly into cloth. In Architects Club it seems to amplify the leather/tobacco sheath
nuances of the vanilla as the scents dries down. Initially it is the unctuous
crème anglaise parfum of the vanilla that catches the senses. I love the
interplay of chemical and natural in scent, when done expertly as here, the
tapestry of effect is stunning. It is a feature of the Arquiste line the
blending of notes is magnificent, often seamless, like watching for the line
between reality and digital render. The better the effect, the more luxurious
and convincing the overall experience.
The sillage of gin experience is not quite as pronounced and
sudden as some reviewers would have you believe. It is a little more subversive
in its transition from spiky botanical to clear and tranquil suggestion.
Angelica is related to fennel and lends an anisic shade to the suave fall of
the vanilla, so full-bodied, yet discreet and controlled. Each time I spray it
I love the inhaled dichotomy of peppered sweet balsam and quivering dessert.
The lemon is a very clever addition, a cocktail zing, but vital in tempering
any potential excess in the gourmand flourishes on skin. Mixed with the
bigarade and angelica, the vanilla becomes magnificent, lit through with high
quality citric tones.
There is immense addiction to be had at the Architects Club, you are compelled to keep on wearing it, and it
lingers with great beauty and distinction. If I’m honest I was surprised how
much I loved this scent, on paper I wasn’t terribly convinced by the notes; I
expected quietude and overtly woody aromatic charge. But this enfolding elixir
of dexterous and sensuous vanilla with bursts of sunshine lemon and bitter
orange is a perfume of hush-hush subversion, modern, sexy, solid and yet in its
own way an erosion of the gourmand status quo.
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| Path Outside St Pauls Cathedral (London Night) Images by John Morrison & Harold Burkedin (1934) |
Is it Deco? Does it matter? The movement itself was a reaction
against the dangerous sinuosity and rampant sexuality of the Art Nouveau
decadence that preceded it. By imposing a more rigid decorative code, this
somehow made the sensuality all the more driven and desirable. Carlos Huber and
Yann Vasnier have used a arresting array of motifs – Deco London, cocktail
culture, Bright Young Things, sex vs predictability, party vs meeting, smoke,
light and shadow, sugar and stability. In the end, architects mingle with
gilded things, the air roars with vivid perfumed life. Glasses smear and break,
cigarettes and confidences are shared. Suddenly everyone falls out into the
dawn-soaked streets of a silent London, dizzy with booze, vanilla and laughter.
Kisses are scattered and hands shaken. The scent of a night of joyous excess
lingers on skin, cloth and hair as goodbyes are said in the sobering light. The
air is so still they can hear the echoes of last night’s cocktail flutes and
coupes kissing edges in the haze of mirrored lights.
©The Silver Fox
July 2015
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