1957 ~ Chanel “1957” Les Exclusifs de Chanel

 

1957

On Sunday, Chanel was the look. But on Saturdays, in 1957 in the town of Los Parros everyone dressed casually, unless of course you were going downtown or into Hollywood to see a movie. Then you dressed up. But on Saturday’s little boys wore blue jeans rolled up at the ankles and tee shirts. Little girls wore pretty much the same thing, freed from the flouncy petticoats and ribbons that were the fashion for school days. Dads wore casual slacks with silky Hawaiian or bowling shirts. Mom’s wore pastel peddle pushers and crisp white blouses with pearls.  But on Sunday, at church it was a fashion show.

Marjorie was determined to get this right. She was not very domestic, she could barely sew, was not too handy with a Hoover, and she had a very small repertoire for making dinner, but her husband Bob didn’t seam to mind, not yet at least. They were just married and had just moved to Southern California from Red Bluff for his work. She didn’t know any of her new neighbors yet. But since joining the Los Perros Southern Baptist church she had come to recognize a two couples from her street. Now into the second month of attending church they were on nodding terms. The wives were always dressed like movie stars. Sporting what looked to Marjorie like real Paris fashions. Dior, Balenciaga, and Chanel seemed to be the mode of the morning sermons. Marjorie who was astounded by their taste and style, just wanted to catch up and fit in with her new neighbors. Nobody in Red Bluff dressed like these women. She looked at the second-hand sewing machine setting on the kitchen table which Bob bought for her that very morning. She was determined to get it right.

 

She picked up the MacCall’s pattern and studied the image of the two women on the front of the envelope that held in its pocket the dress pattern. They wore two versions of a tweed suit in white with black braiding piping the cuffs pockets and running along the collar down the front and along the hem of the jacket. Classic Chanel, just like in the Vogue magazines Marjorie had been collecting since she was a teenager. She loved fashion but on the streets of Red Bluff there wasn’t much call for it. She chose the Chanel suit because it looked simpler to sew than the Dior or any of the other patterns, she had seen at the fabric store. She’d picked out a nice cream wool tweed and a simple black braid and some rather pricey gold buttons. She was determined to get it right.

It was well after midnight when she finished. Bob had made his own dinner and she had gone without, as she struggled with sleeves and darts and all manner of things that didn’t make sense to her. He had kissed her on the forehead sometime ago and gone to bed. Just exactly when that was, she wasn’t sure. She was too wrapped up in the pattern that looked like the plans for a rocket ship. It didn’t matter, she was determined to get it right.

She put on a nice but plain black silk blouse and shimmied her hips into the straight line of the wool skirt. She struggled with the zipper as it caught on her slip and then some loose thread on the inside of the lining. It jammed half way up.  Tears punched her eyes and shimmered there threatening to spill on her cheeks. As well as being stuck, the zipper was crooked. She pushed her arms into the sleeves of the jacket and took a deep breath and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Her tears broke over the bottom lids and cascaded to her chin. Her sob was so loud she covered her mouth to keep from waking Bob.

The hem of the skirt was wildly crooked, and the lining was peeking out on one side. The shoulders were lopsided, one being higher than the other.  One sleeve was an inch and a half longer than the other. Marjorie ripped the jacket off and tore the seam of the zipper to get out of the skirt. She was determined to get it right.

Bob found her the next morning at seven A.M. slumped over the table sleeping on folded arms, the crumpled suit her pillow.  They didn’t go to church that morning. Instead Bob drove Margorie into Hollywood. He bought her a wonderful lunch at the Brown Derby and took her to see a matinee of Funny Face at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Marjorie who had been sullenly quiet all morning burst into tears when Audrey Hepburn made her transformation from Greenwich Village bookstore clerk to Parisian fashion model in all those fabulous Givenchy fashions.

“Honey don’t cry.” Bob said as he put his arm around her, she crumpled into his shoulder.

“I should have bought the Givenchy pattern.” She whimpered.

 

***

 

1957 by Chanel from the Les Exclusifs line smells to me exactly like the 1950’s. You can bet your bottom dollar that I know what that smell is all about. It is soapy, clean and upstanding in it’s sparkling Madison Avenue glitz. For years I have expounded my theory that the smell of Palmolive dish shop was copied from No.5 in order to make it more appealing to the American housewives of the Suburban sprawl. I grew up in Los Angeles of the 1950’s and 60’s and Chanel was the aspirational brand then just as it is now. But back then that aspiration was pure and clean and dreamy. Not as it is today when many of us aspire to Chanel for all the wrong reasons.

In the fifth decade of the twentieth century soaps and hairsprays smelled of the influence of Chanel in America. It was as if the thought of Paris glamour could be found with in the bubbles that floated up from the kitchen sink after dinner. Chanel No.5 is locked into my scent memory as the fragrance of not only my mother, but my aunt and my grandmother too. They lived for Chanel.

1957 pops from soapy bubbles as it opens in its aldehydic and musky glory.  With a sprinkle of warm pink pepper like the pepper corns from the huge old sunburnt pepper trees of my Southern California childhood.  It is bright, clean and arrestingly comforting.

Orange blossoms from my youth in the Inland Empire waft across the middle of the fragrance with hints of Jasmine and honey. A very thin hint of honey like one would get from a fresh warm piece of toast with a thin layer of honey slathered over it on a Saturday morning during Summer vacation. Olfactory tendrils of jasmine drift in and out in a summery shimmery dance.  And the musk goes on and on throughout the mid-notes into the dry down.

Here in the last phases of the eau de perfume there is a dry powder supplied by a delicious orris root. That floats in the air just like fresh flour when a baker is making croissants. It mixes well with the white musk, a scrubbed clean cashmiran and a dry woody cedar.

Some have said that 1957 from Chanel, like the perception of the decade of the 50’s is boring. Bu to me it is not. Chanel’s 1957 is a melding of the American fascination of the French elegance of the fifties and the need make something as mundane as doing the dishes glamorous. Like all those commercials of my childhood where a housewife is dressed in her best pearls while she scrubs that greasy pan in a bubbling fresh sink that smells exactly like Paris in springtime.  The Paris born of the imagination, of Hollywood and of her dreams.

LE TRAIN BLEU ~ L’Heure Bleue by Guerlain

4:45 PM, Paris, Summer, 1985

Slightly frayed but none the less beautiful the upholstery of the luxurious compartment number 6 sighed its familiar welcome to the Comtesse Lamoureux as she eased into it. The porter, nearly as ancient as she and by now an old friend set a Lalique crystal glass half full of Frapin Cuvee 1888 on the table before her.

“Merci Ramon.” She began to pluck off her gloves then delicately placed them on the table next to the cognac one upon the other as always. She looked out the window onto the platform of the Gare de Lyon. “This is a most important trip,” she said softly.  “for both of us.”

“Qui Madame la Comtesse, the last run of this great train.”

She smiled. “I think for a change, tonight I shall take a late supper in the grand salon.”

Ramon bowed and left the Countess looking out the window toward the patch of fading afternoon blue where the iron station opened onto beige Paris and the south.

The coach barley lurched and began to inch into the last journey of Le Train Bleu.

The great iron and glass roof of the station opened as the train picked up speed and Paris slid away, like so many playing cards falling from a gaming table. The countess was transfixed on her reflection in the glass. What she saw there was no longer familiar, it was a young woman, herself sixty years in the past on her way to Nice for the first time.

***

She was not the most beautiful girl on the Côte d’Azur but perhaps the prettiest to arrive in the middle of the années folles. As she stepped down onto the platform of the station in her Chanel summer whites. The fragrance of the south hit her like a new lover’s scent. In fact, she had come south in the mad flush of new love. His name was Pete, he was an American saxophone player who had captivated her one night when she and her boyfriend of the moment René, had stumbled upon the Casanova Club. There he was. The most beautiful black man she had ever seen, playing the most beautiful music, she had ever heard.

Pete never called her by her first name that summer of 1925 as they romped the Côte d’Azur from Marselle to Menton. He simply called her “Countess”.  Sleeping till four in the afternoon after nights of Jazz and cocktails. Romping on the beach at dawn. Caviar and eggs for breakfast. By the last days of September, She was ready to give up everything for him.

He went back to America that winter. Sporting a bruised heart she went home to Pairs on The Blue Train.

***

 

The trip south the winter of 1939 was to escape the cold of the city. But not long after her arrival in Monte Carlo, things began to look grim. People were heading south not to escape winter but to try and outrun the fear of what was coming to Paris, what was devouring Europe. She stayed on to help friends and then soon strangers as well find refuge. After the fall of Pairs that summer of 1940 her villa in the hills above Monaco became a meeting place for young men and women of the Resistance against the German occupation and the Vichy government.

His name was Axel Barre. He was first and foremost a freedom fighter and secondly, perhaps the love of her life. He died in a ditch, executed by a German firing squad.

***

 

At 56 she was the picture of polished, poised, elegance the summer of 1961. The train trip south was marred by nothing except the incessant snoring of the man in compartment number 7. The Countess sat up all night with cotton stuffed in her ears trying to read “Heaven Has No Favorites”. It was useless. Each time he ceased his rumble she closed the book, put out the light and removed the cotton from her ears, he would start up again.

The following morning she went to an early breakfast in the Grand Salon and found herself sitting across the table from a Monsieure Jean Lucien Dubeau. He said good morning and from the timber of his voice she knew at once that he was the cause of her sleepless night. She gave him a scowl, he gave her a dazzling smile, a wink, and ordered a bottle of champagne for both of them. They were married in a miniscule country church near Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat the following Spring.  She never really got a good nights sleep from then on.

***

On this final journey of Le Train Bleu the Countess sat up all night thinking about the journey behind her and what little of it remained before her. It had been a good ride for the most part. There were many things along the way she had enjoyed and much she had endured, wild young love gone wrong, A world torn by war and loss, and finally the love of a good man whose ashes she now carried to the villa in the blue-green hills above Monte Carlo.

As she stepped from the train onto the platform in her black and white Chanel suit the fragrance of the south enveloped her like the warm hug of an old friend.

***********************************************

L’Heure Bleue created by Jacques Guerlian in 1912 has come to symbolize the end of the Belle Epoch in France just before the beginning of World War I. It has been called a farewell to a romantic era, a melancholy remembrance of things lost to time, not to be found ever again. The cap on the bottle is an inverted heart that symbolically captures that past in perfume form from the bottle it encapsulates thus preserving within its transparent heart the memories of lost love and departed friends.

All of this is true. But for me there is more, something deeper in L’Heure Bleue. It is the perfume of a complete lifetime held in memories of youth and the passing of time into maturity. It is not melancholy as one would expect such memories to be, but rather reflective of life, a contented quiet and very personal joy.

Who can wear L’Heure Bleue? Anyone who has the daring to be in a space beyond the ordinary. Someone not only with an appreciation of history by someone who also has a past both intriguing and perhaps slightly tainted with scandal. A past worth writing about in a diary one hopes to be found fascinating by others if found at all.  In short it is suited to both men and women of taste and sophistication.

It opens quite classically as one would expect such a perfume of this vintage and from this particular house to do. Notes of anise, coriander, neroli, bergamot, and lemon spark and fizz but momentarily like the flicker of old movies, a editing of cinematic notes mixed with music, that quickly collapse into the unfolding beauty of the middle composition.

Here we get the classic powder and Guerlainade that was established with Jicky in 1889. The bergamot, rose, tonka, vanilla. Jasmin, and animalic and resinous accords make up this signature, a DNA of the house so to speak. It is a kind of Jicky through the looking glass. Notes in the middle comprised of Rose, cloves, Jasmine, tuberose and Geranium hit my nose with the most power. Undertones of ylang ylang and violet play supporting roles to this old world glamour. This phase lasts about three to four hours.

In the dry down we get the full force of the powder and seduction there in of this fragrance that lingers well into the sixth hour. The animalic accords are here along with the swirling hypnotic benzoin note. This combined with the iris, vanilla, sandalwood, and vetiver create an incense accord that is incensual (if I may create a word that sums up my love of perfumes that are smoky, exotic, and mysterious) This is where the fragrance carries its key to our memories. It is as magical, romantic, and epic as a journey to the Cote Azure on the long lost Le Train Bleu.

CARELESS BEAUTY ~ Cologne Intense by Houbigant

Hothouse lilies white in the window seemed almost invisible against the falling snow beyond the arches of the portico along Rue Royale.  Durocher’s was famous for the best flowers in Paris and the most beautiful blooms of roses and lilies flown in from the greenhouses in the South of France.

 

Madame Durocher looked beyond the lilies to the other side of the street where Noël Boulet stood in the snow watching the shop. She smiled, Poor boy, utterly and hopelessly crushed by his infatuation with Alizée, the young girl who helped Madame in the afternoons.

The door opened with a gust of snowflakes borne upon icy wind.

“Good day Monsieur, how can I help you?” Madame Durocher put her glasses that rested on a chain around her neck on the bridge of her nose then as was her odd custom dropped her head so as to look over the top of them.

“I would like an arrangement of Freesia and Lilly of the Valley; they are for my housekeeper.”

As Madame set about writing up the order for whom she knew, without asking his name, was Rene Michel Petriz. He and that actress were all over the news. She didn’t care much for his kind or that American Actress ether. “A notorious gigolo and a cinema harlot on the downslide of life.” she would say, if anyone cared to know her opinion.

Alizée came from the back of the shop carrying a huge bunch of Hyacinths for the client she was helping. Rene Michel at first barely took note of her. He turned to look at the lilies in the window and was amused to see a young man with his nose pressed against the glass. He was dreamily gazing at the girl with the Hyacinths.  Rene Michel then turned his eyes back upon the subject of the boy’s adoration.

It amused him even more to note that she had barely noticed the boy. Her only reaction to his presence on the sidewalk under the portico was when she looked at him only once, to wrinkle her nose as if she smelled something slightly sour. Then without her even being aware of what followed, she smiled sweetly to herself. It struck Rene Michel that she was indeed, for a girl of maybe at the most 17, an exceptional beauty.

Madame presented him with his flowers perfectly wrapped in cellophane and white ribbons. “I hope your house keeper likes them Monsieur.”

He paid her and turned to leave. The boy in the window seemed now literally to be frozen to the glass.

Rene Michel could not let this moment pass. He turned back to the counter. Madame Durocher was gone only Alizée remained. She was arranging a small bouquet of Forget Me Nots.  And all the while giving the boy outside a disapproving look.

“Why don’t you invite him in?” Said Rene in his most seductive professional voice. The one he used with his new clients. “He looks cold out there.”

She was taken aback. “Who?”

“That poor love struck young man at the window.”

“Oh Noël?  He is a nuisance.” She smiled up at Rene and suddenly was caught simultaneously by his charm and good looks and being so caught it followed that she recognized him. A little gasp as she tried but failed to recover her composure.    “He is just a boy.” She said softly. She dropped the bouquet and smiled into his hazel eyes that were ringed in gold.

“When I was young and just like that boy there was a girl like you in a little shop.  Had she been kind to me rather than cruel, well both our lives might have been different.  We might have been…happy.” He gave her a glittering smile.  “Ah well I suppose it is the way of things Mademoiselle. To be so pretty and young and so quick to break a heart so carelessly. Au revoir. “

Photograph JOEL SAGET

As he passed through the door out into the snow Alizée, looked after the handsome man who all of Paris adored as a scoundrel. Then her eyes shifted to Noël Boulet.  He smiled his funny crooked smile, that when she narrowed her eye she could see was a rather handsome and kind smile. But still he was annoying. Sometimes.

“Madame my I go for my lunch early?”

“Yes I suppose but be back in half an hour.”

She walked out of the shop and turned to face a shivering, smiling, wonderstruck Noël.  Alizée took his rough woolen gloved hand in hers. “Would   you like to come with me for a cup of hot chocolate?”

   ***

 

The nose behind the new masculine fragrance by Houbigant, Cologne Intense is Luca Maffei. He is a young nose in the fragrance industry that is making a name for himself with such stunning fragrances as Perris Monte Carlo’s Oud Imperial and Rose de Taif. What he has created in Cologne Intense is something brilliant bold and breathtaking. The presentation of the fragrance which comes in both Eau de Parfum and Extrait Parfum is classically elegant. The 100 mil bottle is the same sophisticated masculine bottle that was created for Houbigant’s 2010 re-release of the exquisite Fougere Royale from 1882. The juice is darker in Cologne Intense which only adds a golden richness to the presentation. Just as the No.5 bottle is used for other perfumes by Chanel so it is that Houbigant is presenting this release in the same bottle as Fougere Royale. This smart marketing gives a certain instant house recognition. You see the bottle and you know the house at once. Class and sophistication are assured.

(Luca Maffei creator of my favorite fragrance release of 2015 ~ Photo Cafleurebon)

The parfum is classified as a citrus aromatic. I agree, it opens with sharp crisp summer freshness of Sicilian lemons, a bitter bite of Calabrian bergamot which sparks brilliantly on the skin then gives way to the wonderful green petitgrain and Moroccan neroli. It is a show of green citrusy skyrockets that shimmer as they rise and sparkle as they fall way to reveal the center of this fragrance.

 

Here within the heart in this classic a savory tarragon takes the center stage. It is richly blended into a complex dance with red pepper, a touch of lavender, and a whiff of Indian Jasmine. Oh that Jasmine is nice if subtle, as it should be. And the pepper is sharp adding depth to the tarragon and lavender.  I love the middle of this fragrance but my love turns to obsession when we reach the dry down.

 

In the bottom notes I find a fine and creative blend by Luca Maffei that make this a truly memorable release of 2015. The two magical notes he introduces to the fragrance are a bitter Mat Tea and lush deep and hypnotic incense.  The effect with the fading mid notes is sheer olfactory heaven. The longevity on my skin last between 6 to 8 hours. the sillage is at about 18 inches.

 

Cologne Intense is one of my top favorite releases of last year. It is a beautiful addition to the venerable and historic house of Houbigant that is both a tip of the hat to past classics, an era of refinement and grace but also embodies a youthful modern vibe.

RENE MICHEL PETRIZ WILL RETURN…

 

 

WINTER IN ROME ~ Mandarine Glaciale by Atelier Cologne

Rene Michel Petriz had a flat look, dead eyes smiled at her. The rich American Actress who was on the beginning of her long slow decline from Goddess to “who was she?”, handed him a parting gift. She had enjoyed her fling with the Parisian Gentleman for hire and she understood that it was nothing more than a business arrangement. Besides the French and English Press had caught wind of her liaison dangereuses. It was time to pay him off and board the plane for Rome before she made a fool of herself on TMZ.  He took the red box from her not looking at it. Something from Cartier to add to his collection that might come in handy when his long slow decline began.

Rolling along the partially closed Via Imperiale in the back of a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce Rosaline Roclaire looked out the window the view of the shattered ruins of the Imperial Forum whizzing past. She sighed and sank back into the lush warm cushion created by her grey Russian sable coat. Rome was not a disappointment even on a cold and overcast February it always made her happy. A good place to forget the loss of time and youth amid so many broken stones.  She noticed the street vendors along the side of the road selling postcards and tacky knick knacks in the cold.

“Alberto, stop the car.”

“But Signora there is no parking here.”

“Then pull over and let me out. I want to walk.”

“It is not wise, lots of tourists here. They will recognize you and you will be mobbed.”

“I don’t care, Stop the car!”

photo by Giorgio Clamenti

She overpaid a sweet old man who had no idea she was the biggest movie star in the world for an accordion folded set of picture postcards of Rome.  Rosaline dropped the twelve Euro at the Forum gate then sauntered down the pitched path into the Forum between the temple of Antonius and Faustina and the stumps of marble that were all that was left of the Basilica Amelia. She pulled the collar of her sable up to her chin. The Roman winter air was much colder than It looked it, much colder. Despite Alberto’s warning the Forum was devoid of tourist. She was all alone. She wandered on taking in the shapes of crumbled temples and tried to imagine what they might have looked like two thousand years ago. Much more impressive than the false fronted forum she’d seen at Cinecitta, she was positively sure of that.

At the entrance to the Palatine she caught a glimpse of a little girl all in white running up the path ahead. She turned and smiled at Rosaline. And with a laugh she skipped ahead. There was something so familiar about the way the girl laughed.

“She must be very cold in that skimpy white dress and sandals.” Rosaline thought as she climbed up to the top of the hill where the fountain stood at the entrance of the Farnese Gardens its waters frozen over. There was music, in the distance beyond the gardens. Percussion and reeds, and then a voice singing in… was it Latin? She followed the sounds that led her to the ruins of the house of Augustus. She could just barely see down into part of what remained of the atrium.

“This way, come this way….”

 

The music suddenly expired, she turned to see who had spoken to her. There was no one there. It began to snow. She walked on through the ruins of the imperial palaces. Snowflakes drifted down to settle on her hair, and the shoulders of her sable coat. She came to the lookout over the Circus Maximus and the Aventine Hill beyond. One of her favorite views of Rome. She lit a cigarette and watched the early rush hour traffic race along the Via Del Circo Massimo. Headlights flickered in the low light, taillights winked. She stood there dreamily alone and at peace for a long time as the snow fell. By the time she realized that it was getting dark the snow had completely covered the ground. She turned to go back. There before here were foot prints in the snow. Someone with very small feet had come up behind her and stood there watching her and was now gone.  Then she heard the little girl laughing from very far way.

“This way, come this way…”

She never found the little girl, she was always just turning a corner or running too fast and far ahead. Finally Rosaline did find her way back to the Excelsior on the Via Veneto where Paparazzi lay in wait for her.

“Ah well,” she thought  “the little Parisian scandal has reached Rome.”  As they rushed screaming her name like hungry seagulls she smiled and endured the onslaught.

Rosaline looked back over her shoulder and swept her sable in a dramatic arc when she reached the top steps in the Port Coacher and struck a pose. She then gave the little boys of the Press a grand movie star go to hell glamour smile. The photos made the tabloids but she didn’t care, her walk in the ruins had been the most fun she had known in a very long time.

***

A new presentation from Atelier Cologne last year (2015) one of four in their exclusive Collection Azur   release though Sephora (also available Atelier Cologne’s website), Mandarine Glaciale is a summer time fragrance perfect for a snowy winter day by which to conjure up the warm sunny shores of the Amalfi Coast in Italy.  It is romantic, enticing, and filled with passion and desire. All the things we find so appealing when the weather grows frosty. Not to say that Mandarine Glaciale is not right for the spring and summer. Well in fact this spicy bright as sunshine over Ischia fragrance is perfect all year round.

It splashes across the skin in stunning opening notes of Delicious Mandarin orange, tart, succulent Sicilian Lemon, and bitter green Calabrian Bergamot all of these together are so reminiscent to me of the smells one gets in the spring and summer along the coast of Italy from Castellammare di Stabia to Positano.

The heart of this fragrance is where we get a spicy bite, the romance of the fragrance dwells here. There is a sharp almost peppery Ginger that shoots into the air like Italian fireworks, a creamy Jasmine adds glamour, and greet sharp Petitgrain from Paraguay keeps it lively and sparkling. In the dry down there is a grassy earthy touch of Heart of Vetiver, a rich dark Oakmoss adds depth and weight, and it is all topped off with a very subtle touch of White Amber. This Amber gives a creamy sophistication to the ending of the fragrance leaving you wanting to spray it on again.

The nose behind this stunning fragrance is Burgundy born Jérôme Epinette

who was educated in the art of perfumery in Grasse at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery. He is known for such creations as Bal d’Afrique by Byredo, and Fougere by Jovoy Paris. He has done seven fragrances for Atelier Cologne as well including Sud Magnolia.

Mandarine Glaciale along with Sud Magnolia, Figuier Ardent, and Cedar Atlas all presented by Atelier Colognes in their Collection Azur.   Each fragrance was inspired by places in the south warmer climates. From the American South to Morocco, Southern Italy and the south of France. So there is certainly more beautiful fragrances to explore in the collection.

For me it is a perfectly blended pure perfume not a cologne as is often the common mistake people make when it comes to Atelier Cologne’s fragrances.  The pure perfume therefore gives it a fine life on the skin of about six to eight hours. The sillage is moderate but when you get up close quite enticing, inviting and invigorating.  Mandarine Glaciale for me is a winner for any season. A Beauty that will be a part of my collection for years to come.

 

Mandarine Glaciale Five Gold Stars *****

For the next installment go to: CARELESS BEAUTY

HOW INSENSITIVE…. Prada Amber Pour Homme

At the door to Dior he tried to clear his mind and continue his morning walk along the Avenue Montaigne but it was no use.  As he strolled past the minuscule and austere square park next to Gorgio Armani he realized the street that usually made him happy did not make him happy on this very early clear late June morning. The lush green fingers of the Horse Chestnut tree leaves seemed to point down at him in disdain.

The snappy click of his red soled Smoker Flats seemed not smart but rather muffled, scuffed and sad. He had been walking all night unable to sleep since the opera ended and he said goodnight her and then without much thought a sudden and final goodbye.

There were no tears this time, usually there were. No slap in the face. That too was de rigueur with some of them in fact it had never gone out of style. Euros had not been flung in his face. No name calling, no pleading, nothing. Nothing but that last look.

Ending an affair had never been so easy. And yet he could not sleep and only walking had gotten him through the night and to this early dawn under the accusatory trees. Rene Michel Petriz had no idea that for the first time in his life he was caught by something so foreign to him that he didn’t recognize what it was that would not leave him alone. His heart had no room for words like regret, guilt, remorse or the most dangerous word of all, love. He was built for speed, designed in fact to please the eye, to entice the touch and the sound of his voice had more than once obliterated a woman’s defenses. Born with the lucky combination of looks, charm, intelligence, and most importantly sans regret had made the most desirable gigolo in Paris. So this little fling he had ended, a gratis diversion from the wealthy women who kept him secure should have never started. It was best for all that he had killed it last night. And it was good for business. She had cost him a lot of time and money. He looked into the dark windows of Armani and was shocked when all he saw in them was the reflection of that last look in her eyes, not cold, not crushed, simply disappointment.

  If only it were later in the day and the stores were open. Silk ties and fine linen shirts would take his mind off of her and that final look when he told her it was over. He walked on. The ruby geraniums on the balconies of The Hôtel Plaza Athénée glistened with diamond like touches of morning dew. He smiled remembering the rich Argentine woman whom in that very hotel had dropped her Van Cleef & Arpels diamond and ruby cocktail ring in his glass of champagne as payment for the night. It was a cold memory and his smile faded. He needed to get back to work.

For the rest of the way, to the end of the avenue he was oblivious to the passing windows of Bottega Veneta, and Prada filled with things he would never need. At the Place de l’Alma he crossed to the intersection of Avenue Montagne and Avenue George V and stopped in front of Chez Francis.

It was just opening. He took a seat outside on the sidewalk just behind the green hedges. The young waiter brought him a coffee and then retreated back inside to leave Rene Michel uncharacteristically slouched in his chair long legs stretched out before him exposing his scuffed Louboutin soles, He took a sip of his liquid breakfast and contemplated the light traffic on the Pont de l’Alma. Slowly the flame of liberty across the place de l’Alma came into focus.

It marked the entrance to the tunnel where in 1997 Princess Diana died. On the balustrade above the entrance to the tunnel and just behind the Flame of Liberty thousands of messages were scrawled in many languages lamenting the loss of the Princess. Messages of love and farewell. The spot had become an unofficial memorial to her.  Rene Michel starred at the flame of Liberty, his coffee untouched turned cold.

When, the night before, he told her on the steps of the opera house that he was leaving her for good. She looked at him in disappointment.

“I love you.” She said.

He just stared at her in icy silence then turned and walked away. He walked all night.

***

Prada Amber pour Homme (2006) created by perfumer Daniela (Roche) Andrier under the guidance of the head of Prada Miuccia Prada is an interesting fragrance to me. One that challenged me and in so doing became a good object lesion in the understanding that sometimes a perfume takes time. You see, I almost ended the affair before it began. How insensitive of me.

This oriental fougere is not a bold in your face amber based fragrance but rather a soft, distantly elegant men’s fragrance that in my first encounters left me disappointed.  This was a case of expectations from the name not at all from the actual understated beauty I came to know in this fragrance. Amber! Amber in the name of the fragrance was my downfall. Expectations. I forgot for a moment what I have learned in life about expectations. If you leave expectations at the door you will never be disappointed and often times you will in fact be surprised.

I was hoping for a full lush symphony of deep romantic amber such as one finds in Ambre Nuit by Christian Dior.  But in truth I can find no amber in the fragrance per se but rather an accord of amber created by the blending of notes. Thus it is more of an amber veil rather than a smooth polished and hard amber note.

The fragrance opens bright and bracing with a beautiful mandarin, neroli and bergamot combo that is given an interesting edge of masculine sweat that shimmers the citrus with a glistening dash of cardamom. This gives it a touch of the sensual. But the sweaty aspect is never off putting or in need of a bath but rather like the salty deliciousness of a lover’s skin. The opening lingers for some time before the mid-notes enter.

With the arrival of these mid-notes we are awash in clean soapy musk, which is sweetened by a spray of orange blossoms. There is a really great geranium here as well along with a touch of bitter green vetiver gives the fragrance its strong masculinity. This is layered over with an exotic surprise of myrrh that is just the right touch. This is one of the best soapy accords I have found. Very complex and rich without a detergent brashness to make it common.

In the dry down there is more sensuality but of the understated variety coming from labdanum. It is smooth and soothing as it meets a note that Prada is famous for, Leather. It is suede like leather and very expensive smelling. Sandalwood and saffron add elegance to the mix. There is, I have read supposed to be tonka, vanilla and patchouli in the fragrance but they escape my nose if there are in fact in the game.

The silage is not overwhelming but respectable. It entices notice to those nearby rather than commanding their attention.  Prada Amber Pour Homme lasts a very long time on my skin clocking in at a good solid ten hours. Its wearablitly and versatility ranges in my estimation from office wear to evening. You will find that it will carry you thought the workday and into evening with great ease and elegance.

Overall it is understated, sophisticated and accessible. Commercial and wearable by a wide range of men and women. It may not be what one expects. But it surprised me in its development once I let go of what I wanted it to be and allowed it to stand on its own and be what it is, a fine masculine fragrance.

PRADA AMBER POUR HOMME

FOUR GOLD STARS ****

 For the next installment go to: WINTER IN ROME

A SPLASH OF CAPRI ~ Smashingly Brilliant by Diana Vreeland

  

“He just quit! Balenciaga just shut up shop and quit.” Mona Bismarck’s voice was on the teeter-totter of emotions between tears and laughter. “No darling QUIT, Can you HEAR me? We have a bad connection. Cristóbal says no one has style any longer. It’s the hippies I tell you! They’ve killed fashion!”

Diana could hear Mona on the phone from the cool blue of the villa’s interior. Her voice tumbled past the chiffon drapes seeming to almost push them out against the incoming warm breeze and across the terrace to where Diana stood. It was the end of an era no doubt about that, If you wore Balenciaga you were the only woman in the room – no other woman existed. But now that he was finished how boring it would be to hang on to the past, with all the magnificence of today and tomorrow opening before the world.

    The Bay of Naples sparkled all blue sapphires and white diamonds in the sun and in the distance Vesuvius wore a broad sunhat of flat white clouds.  Diana smiled to herself and walk to the edge of the terrace to where the path lead down the steep cliffs to the roman sea of Catullus’s poetry and Tiberius’ treachery. As far as she was concerned the hippies had great style and it was born from being positively original. The 60’s were the most exciting decade since her youth bubbled over in the 1920’s. The music, the colors the street fashion and Mick Jagger’s Lips! Positively Marvelous!

1968, was it really only two years ago that Reed died? Her first time back to Capri since then. There were so many wonderful times with Reed in Capri. Mona’s hissing rising voice plucked at her ears like stinging harpies. She looked up at the statue of Augustus perched on the precipice arm stretched out over the tops of the juniper trees that clung to the cliffs below. He was pointing to Sorrento. Suddenly she had to get away.

   When she reached the beach the heat of the day was at its zenith. That wonderful caressing heat that snaked across the sea from Africa laden with the smell of flowering Italian lemon trees and climbing geraniums. She kicked off her sandals at the edge of the water and pushed her Chinese red lacquered toenails into the cool water.  She wiggled them watching with great amusement the rubies that were her toes dance under the turquoise salted waters. All of this in the wonderful light of Capri…well lighting is everything in a color.  She’d said that often enough.

Down she sat on the small marble white pebbles keeping her toes submerged and looked across the bay to the mountain that loomed over Pompeii. That was where she and Reed first saw the fresco of the slave girl in “Capri” Sandals. The easy sensuality of those ancient shoes worn by a young girl frozen in ashy time had impressed her as timeless, beautiful and somehow tender. She shut her eyes and drifted into the past.

“You smell like Capri Diana.”

She opened her eyes to see Reed coming out of the Tyrrhenian Sea, golden tan, young and in love with life and with her.

Still sometimes a little shy of him she smiled with reserve.  “I have been making my own perfume out of bergamot and suede and germanium petals. Do you like it? I think it will be the hit of 1928.”

“The height of vanity, making your own perfume.” He teased and followed it with a wink.

“I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.”

With his intrinsic grace he descended to sit beside her looking every inch Apollo with his noble head blotting out the sun thus making it his crown. He leaned over and smelled her skin. “It is divine darling. Like summer after the rain.”

Diana watch him as he turned his face away and looked out over the bay. She wondered still that this marvelous man, had come into her life and found her as fascinating as she knew she was. “Do you like it here Reed?”

“No prohibition here and it is beautiful. I love it Diana.” He turned back to her.

“Prohibition. Insane idea. Try to keep me from taking a swallow of a cup of tea and I’ll drink the whole pot.”

Reed laughed. “You have wit my darling. That is one of your charms you know.”

“A funny person is funny only for so long, but a wit can sit down and go on being spellbinding forever. Witty talk is without question the most fascinating entertainment there is.”

He smiled and looked up at the ruins of the Villa Jovis.  “Do you like Capri?”

“Heaven on earth my love, utterly and completely divine. The only thing I find I like better than this island is London and like London only because it is so close to Paris. ”

“Then we shall come back again as often as we can.” Reed said as he turned back to her as a sunflower follows the sun. He leaned in to pull his young wife into his arms. She closed her eyes and inhaled.

“You also smell like Capri darling.” She said softly and looked up into his eyes “And it is smashingly brilliant.”

(Reed and Diana Vreeland)

***

I have not been to Capri the island of the virgin daughters of Phorcys known as the Sirens.  But I have been very close, the Amalfi Coast. And if Capri smells anything like the junipers and lemon groves of Sorrento in spring then I know I would love it as much as Diana Vreeland did.

The new release Smashingly Brilliant by the house of Diana Vreeland was inspired by her love of Capri. Being the newest addition to the line this has burst upon the spring scene like the much anticipated release from winter’s grip that we have all been waiting for. This is a fragrance that will not merely carry one into spring, but on though the high heat of winter and into the lingering warm days of a fading fall. Smashingly Brilliant is the first fragrance from Diana Vreeland designed for both men and women. This is wonderful news, for though I truly believe that many in the line are uni-sex Smashingly Brilliant opens the doors to men of a less adventuresome nature. And that is great! This house should be discovered by everyone who loves magnificent perfumes.

   The nose behind this Citrus Aromatic is Clement Gavarry who also created two of my other favorites in the line, Extravagance Russe and Simply Divine.   Amani Code, Prada Amber, Lovely Sara Jessica Parker and Black Violet Tom Ford are a few of his many highlights as a perfumer.

Clement Gavarry opens the fragance bright and sunny and very Italian with the top notes of Italian lemons, succulent Calabrian bergamot, summer warmed aromatic juniper berries and a true Italian touch, basil. It gleams and sparks on the skin, a real wake up happy and ready to go opening.

   The heart note is a solo star center stage and in full spicy bloom. The aria in Vreeland Red that is a beautiful peppery geranium. It unfolds on the skin in stages like the blooms of the flower it comes from. Fluttering open at the rise of heat from the skin as the flowers do in the full glory of an adoring Mediterranean sun.

The geranium carries into the dry down that is as comfortable as a pair of those Capri sandals Mrs. Vreeland first saw in Pompeii. The suede note is soft and caressing on the skin and warms up the dry down in a creamy supple leather note. Not a hard biting leather but buffed relaxing leather like those fine perfect driving gloves one finally finds at Bergdorf Goodman or Neiman Marcus. A perfect fit on the skin. This wonderful leather is wrapped around fresh wood notes that add to the masculinity of this side of the scent. It is smart, bright and ready to go. Purely scintillating from top note to bottom.

Silage is low and close to the skin. With a fragrance like this made for the outdoors and sporting around in convertibles and on the tennis court who would want it any other way. For some the longevity may be an issue for on my skin it fades at between three and four hours. For me that is just the perfect excuse to refresh. In the words of Diana Vreeland, “Perfume is an extravagance.  But it’s odd that Americans, who God knows are an extravagant people, have never used scents properly.  They buy bottles, but they don’t splash it on.  Chanel always used to say, keep a bottle in your bag, and refresh yourself with it continually.”

And how refreshing Smashingly Brilliant is. Go ahead, splash it on!

The Maharani of Rajasthan ~ Pichola by Neela Vermeire Creations

“India for the Indian’s” she purred as she stretched and turned on the silk pillow in her perch under the columns of the pavilion of the City Palace.  Shaded from the hot sun she surveyed her kingdom with glittering green eyes. As far as those exotic impenetrable eyes could see out across the lake and into the hills around Udaipur she knew that with the British leaving at last her people were free.

She sighed with pleasure as she took a sip of honey milk, her favorite drink. Let everyone else drink Chai or Champagne this little Maharani when you got right down to it preferred the simple pleasures of life. Her palace on the lake. Soft silk pillows to lie upon, her diamond choker and the loving attention of her servant. She must be the only Maharani in all of India who had a little British maid. Now that was something. Of course after independence she would have to send her back to London. It would be hard to say goodbye to the one who had waited on her hand and foot, who brought her all her meals and showered her with so much attention. Sometimes even when she just wanted to be alone there she was…demanding to take care of her. Well it would have to be done hard as it would be. Goodbye to all things British and hello to a new world. Yes 1947 was going to be the best year yet.

Something caught the corner of her eye, someone was coming. She was in no mood to see anyone. She would simply pretend they were less than a mouse an ignore them.

Ah India, her beautiful land, it was now hers to rule, well anyway this part of it called Rajasthan where she had been born. “India for the Indians.”  How wonderful that sounded. The British Raj was at an end at long last too. Since Alexander two thousand years ago and even before him many had swept into India and tried to claim it as their own.  Bit in fact, she swatted at a tiresome bee buzzing past her ear on its way to the tuberoses in the garden. What was she thinking? Ah yes…but in fact India was unconquerable. No matter how long the invader stayed India remained in its soul its very own. It remained always India, the jewel in its own crown.  It would absorb and slowly change those who tried to take it and they eventually and inevitably became part of her or as in the case of the Greeks and the British they would leave…India for the Indians.

The approaching quickening steps grew louder. “Little Maharani where are you?” She ignored that shrill clipped voice and closed her eyes to mere slits of green and turned to look out over Lake Pichola. Another lazy regal sigh. She rolled on the pillows and stretched again in the all-encompassing heat. The rains would come soon. She loved the Monsoon and how it made the lake sing like thousands of bells when the water fell from the heavy clouds onto its silver surface. Then when the rains finally ceased the flowers would come back with the heat to perfume her palace on the edge of the lake.  Pichola was really most beautiful in spring, when the orange blossoms burst the air with their glory. In the night the jasmine filled the warm breeze off the lake to enchant her. Summer roses enticed her in the mornings and magnolias heavy in the trees smiled down on her, the beautiful little Maharani of Rajasthan. She would never leave this place that smelled of cinnamon, sandalwood and saffron in the summer. And in the autumn could only be described as heaven on earth. The place where the gods touched earth and found the land to be divine. She would never leave her beloved India.

“There you are Little Maharani!” Her servant’s hands reached down to pluck her rudely from her silky soft pillows of peace.  “You are the silliest cat in all of India. I had a devil of a time finding you. Now come along or we shall miss our train. You are going to love London!” Mary Elizabeth Thurber hugged her cat tightly as she turn on her heel to see her parents waiting at the end of the terrace looking tired and a little sad.

Little Maharani’s eyes widened in horror as she was carried away from the pavilion to the waiting boat below. The first leg of her journey into exile.

 

  ***

Pichola by Neela Vermeire Creations just released in March of 2015 is a lush fleurs blanches rush of romanticism as well as a homage to the beautiful lake in Rajasthan for which it is named. It is a splendid perfume that I find to be intoxicating and perhaps the most beautiful perfume yet from the impeccably brilliant house of Vermeire. It is a fragrance of love, and spring beginning, it is a wedding fragrance that promises a honeymoon of carnal delights that with a holy blessing may never end. It is glorious.

The nose behind this creation of Neela’s is the wonderful Bertrand Duchaufour who is responsible for the entire canon of the house. A brilliant nose who has created many modern masterworks for L’Artisan Parfumeur, Dior, Acqua di Parma, Aedes de Venustas …the list is longer than the  Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The idea for this house is to blend and marry two worlds. The exotic rich beauty and history of India with the equally rich tradition of classical French perfumes. We are not disappointed in the least by this attempt to bring the two worlds together. Bertrand Duchaufour once again has met the challenge and succeeded brilliantly.

As an oriental floral Pichola sings in accords of spices and white florals, of woods and the aromatic splendors of the East.  It is undulating and sensuous. A sublime seduction of the senses.

It opens with notes of spices and citrus, bergamot, clementine, neroli oil, sparkle like early morning sun on the lake…the magnolia smooths and sooths the citric notes down and lays its fleshy white carpet over them to make way for the spices of saffron, cardamom, cinnamon with a twist of juniper that are spilled like jewels before a monarch on unfurled bolts of red, purple and gold silk.

The middle notes take us to the heart of this perfume, the palace where passion dwells on her throne of love. Orange blossom absolute, Rose absolute, Tuberose absolute come in waves designed to weave into a marriage made in heaven with yellow blossomed ylang-ylang and a slyly beautiful midnight Jasmine Sambac.  It shimmers on the skin more beautifully than gold dust in the light of a full moon.

This is all supported by a fine if not in fact very glamourous dry down of vetiver, benzoin absolute, bone dry driftwood and a creamed almost caramelized sandalwood.  A brilliant armature of notes that is almost architectural, an armature if you will from which all that came before it hangs in perfect harmonious balance.  But the notes do much more than hang from this support, they dance.

The longevity of this perfume is epic but never overwhelming. The silage is full and lush and you will be noticed. This is a perfume for both sexes but keep in mind that this sexy perfume demands a bold personality to wear it well. Pichola embodies all the glamour and youth, the romance and beauty, the fluttery butterflies one feels with the realization that you are falling in love with India though the eyes of Paris. This is no shrinking wall flower…this is the belle of the ball at the dawn of a new Belle Epoch in perfume.

PICHOLA

ARRANGE TO BE BORN IN PARIS! ~ Diana Vreeland Perfumes!

For those of you who don’t know, yes I have a YouTube review channel. (One wonders, What won’t he NOT stoop too?) In any case here is my take on the just released perfumes by Alexander Vreeland of the new Perfume line Diana Vreeland.  Something more in depth is bound to show up here on the blog in a week or so as I get to know these (3 out of the 5) better. In the meantime enjoy my rambling and endless ums and ahs.

 

COWBOYS DREAM OF PARIS ~ Cuir de Lancôme by Lancôme of Paris

He smelled of leather and sweat standing there in the middle of Kaufman Texas, the handsomest sixteen year old boy in town. Mike kicked his boot against the curb to crack the dried mud off the heel. He looked up at the marquee of the old Plaza movie house on Courthouse Square and squinted as he pulled the rim of his cowboy hat low over his honest blue eyes.

“Mighty hot today.”  Mr. Cross the owner of the theater was sweeping the sidewalk with a nubby old broom. “You coming to the movies tonight Mike?”

“I don’t know.” Mike kicked the boot a little harder this time sending the last clump of mud flying off into the street.  ““What’s it about?”

“Paris….it’s about an artist in Paris.”

“Paris France?”

Mr. Cross leaned on his broom and smiled.  “I don’t think there is much call for artists in Paris Texas.”

Mike pursed his lips to one side and thought for a moment. “Is it any good?”

“It’s better than good, It’s a great film. But nobody in Kaufman is coming to see it. Just not the kind of story folks around here like, “Rocky II” next week…that will be a sell out.”  Mr. Cross started sweeping again. “You might like this film though.”

Mike suddenly felt a little exposed. “What makes you say that?”

Mr. Cross’ smile was genuine and safe. “Because you don’t belong in Kaufman.”

Mike had only half an idea just how true those words were. He had no idea he was born in Los Angeles and had been adopted before he was one by his parents. They never told him he was Jewish or what his real name was. What he did know was that he was an outsider. Even though he looked from top to bottom like Texas he longed for something beyond the rolling heat and big sky. It wasn’t something most people picked up about Mike, the girls at Kauffman High all had crushes on him. Most of the boys wanted to be like him.

“You’re so pretty Mike.” One of the girls blurted out during lunch which in turn erupted in nervous laughter from his buddies.

“There’s nothing pretty about me.” He barked in his Texas baritone.

He was right, he wasn’t pretty.  He was beautiful. It wasn’t his dirty blond curly hair, or his golden skin that shimmered smooth over his well muscled frame. Not that kind of beauty.  He had a beauty deep inside that came from a natural valor and truth that bubbled up when ever he tried to hide his true essence. He was just too big for Texas.

That night he sat in the empty Plaza movie house on Courthouse Square in the middle of Kauffman Texas and let Paris wash over him in the dark. That night he realized that someday he would fly away to a world where he could be real, to a world where he could kiss the boys and make them cry.

***

 

Even Cowboys from Texas can wear perfume. And not just any old perfume but one of the most beautiful leather perfumes around, Cuir de Lancôme by Lancôme of Paris. As I and so many others have said. Perfume is without gender and what is good for the gander works just as well on the goose.

 

Cuir de Lancôme is from the La Collection Fragrance line by Lancôme. Their exclusive line created a few years back. Many houses now have special lines like Collection Privée by Dior and Les Exclusifs by Chanel. Lancôme has not been left behind in the dust on that account.

 

This fragrance is most interesting in the fact that it is labeled Cuir (Leather) and yet it has not a single so called leather note in it. Yet its overall effect is that of the most luxurious fine leathers one can wear.  It opens with a softly sweet and smooth mandarin orange and a slightly bitter bergamot that is given a tawny elegant smoothness with the addition of saffron. This note is where we get the leather. It is a grounded leather close to the earth and rather sensuous and caressing. This wonderful leather effect is created from a flower.

 

Hawthorne lightly sweetens the mid notes and marries the jasmine and ylang ylang under a canopy of sturdy masculine patchouli. It really shines here. Never too loud like some leather perfumes, rather it is like a Gary Cooper cowboy in full control of any situation yet laid back and languorous with a hint of danger behind it.

(GARY COOPER)

In the dry down it gets even more masculine with a balsamic styrax, the pure beautiful note of birch.  These notes meet up with a austerely cool and gorgeous orris root. Cuir de Lancôme is never more beautiful than in its fading moments.

 

With fall fast approaching I know that this will be in my rotation. It simply and effortlessly projects a quite, masculine elegance that with a flip of the coin is equally perfect on the skin of a woman of substantial glamour and poise.

 

There are two noses behind this fragrance Calice Becker (J’adore and Velvet Orchid for Tom Ford) and Pauline Zanoni. Together they have come up with a really beautiful fragrance that lasts on my skin between 8 and 10 hours. Around the third hour it moves closer to the skin were it remains to invite more intimate exploration. The projection is moderate which I like in a leather fragrance. You don’t want to come in with six guns blazing all the time. Sometimes you can say much more leaning against the bar surveying the room from under a ten gallon hat.

 

Cuir de Lancôme by Lancôme of Paris 5 Gold Stars *****

A NEW LIFE ~ 21 Bonaparte by Vicky Tiel

Diana Vreeland looked across the luncheon table at her and put it quite plainly: “My dear at your age and with a face like yours you simply cannot be a smug Mademoiselle.”

Vivien Van Volkenburg looked up from her Chanel compact and smiled. “Diana what a thing to say!”  she snapped the compact shut.

“It is not that you aren’t beautiful, it is that you are to smart to stay here in Manhattan. You simply must go to Paris. For a newly minted divorcee like you Paris is essential, like caviar or oxygen. You simply must have it to live! And while you are there it is vital, VITAL that you have a love affair.”

 

Screaming horns and screeching tires brought Vivien back to the present. She opened her eyes and looked out the window at the gushing fountains of the Place de la Concord as the taxi that carried her whizzed past in a glittering shower of December rain. The mixture of the ozone from the rain and the heady fumes from the cars and taxis cutting across the Place to turn up the Champs Élysées made her delightfully dizzy. Her taxi did not turn with the others onto that famous boulevard but lurched forward toward the Seine and the 6^th arrondissement. She wiped the steamy window just in time to see the Christmas lights strung for a good mile in the trees all the way to the Arch de Triomphe.

“When you get there you simply must make a Bee line to this perfectly charming boutique on the left bank. Forget Dior and Coco’s little shop behind the Ritz. This is the place for you. You have the body and the look that was made for wearing Tiel.”

“Teal is not a good color on me Diana”

Diana tilted her head upon her great swanlike neck and vermillion red lips parted in a smile. “It is not a color, it is a person.”

Just before the Pont de la Concord the taxi driver made a hard left just missing the front fender of an on coming bus and sending Vivien sliding across the well worn leather seat to slam up against the left door.

“Pardon Madame.” The driver mumbled.

“Are we almost there?”

He ignored her as they speed along the Quai Francois Mitterrand. Vivien cleared the window with her leather loved hand just in time to catch a glimpse of hundreds of little Larks wheeling up from the Tuileries and out over the river toward Notre Dame.  Despite the crazy ride across the city Vivien smiled. She was in Paris after all. It was beautiful and somehow, just as Diana had promised her, being here was as easy as breathing. It felt like coming home.  The taxi decelerated from 50 to 15 to turn onto Pont Neuf. The little finger park on the end of the Île de la Citéwas deserted yet inviting as it separated the waters of the Seine like an elegant trowel. Another sharp right onto Quai de Conte that within a block became Quai Voltaire, then a sweeping honking mad turn onto a little narrow street. Moving too fast down the street there was just a flash, a wet impression of the École des Beaux–Arts in passing in a jumble of stones then a sudden stop.  Vivien leaned to the window and looked out. The driver turned around in his seat.

“We arrive Madame… 21 Rue Bonaparte.

***

 

21 Bonaparte, the new perfume by famed Paris based American couturier Vicky Tiel is classified as Oriental Floral. It is more than that, it is sensual, elegant, refined, a woman’s perfume.

Launched in 2013 its creation stretches back many years to a glittering night in the South of France.  The night Elizabeth Taylor won her second Oscar for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”  The star did not attend the awards in Los Angeles, she was on the Rivera finishing up “The Comedians” and Vicky was with her. When her husband Richard Burton lost the best actor award Elizabeth was very upset and stormed out of the villa heading down the stone steps that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea. Vicky was worried for her friend and followed  to see if she was alright.  As she followed she noticed the night was filled with the scent of Jasmine, Gardenias and Tuberose. She stopped and looked about to find that she was surrounded on either side of the marble staircase by the very flowers which filled her senses and in so weaving their white magic cemented an indelible memory. She made a mental note on the spot that some day she would make a perfume from that impression.  She then continued down to the sea to find Elizabeth. It took some time, 47 years to finally realize the perfume in memory of that night.

The name 21 Bonaparte is for the address of the dress boutique in Paris she owned with Taylor. The bottle is a regal beauty worthy of Taylor’s inspiration, the color, purple which Elizabeth loved.

The perfume opens a tad sweet and spicy with black current, Mandarin Orange and star Anise. And at first it seemed to me to be a little too sweet. But in moments that sailed away leaving the perfume to become in every way that garden on the French Rivera in 1966.

The middle notes are glorious, Jasmine, Gardenia and tuberose. Now it should be noted that true gardenia scent is impossible to extract from the flower and must be created with the expert blending of other white florals. Often times the attempt by perfumers fails to delver a believable facsimile of the scent, but in 21 Bonaparte we have a photorealistic Gardenia blooming and lush. Here in the middle of the life of the perfume these flowers are joined buy a very subtle smoky vanilla, It seems to waft into the white midnight garden like an exotic incense.

 

The dry down consists of Patchouli, Vanilla and smooth, woody and rich, sandalwood. The Patchouli brings a certain masculine vibe along with the sandalwood making 21 Bonaparte accessible to men. But only those who appreciate the indolic joys of white flowers on skin.

The perfume lasts a very long time, around ten to twelve hours with a heavy sillage in the fist quarter of its lifespan.  21 Bonaparte is exclusive to and only sold on HSN. I have tried other perfumes by Vicky Tiel and found Sirene to be very nice, Ulysse for Men stunning, but 21 Bonaparte to me is her grand opus, a fine tribute to her friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and quite simply her best perfume to date.

 

(Vicky Tiel)

21 BONAPART ~  FIVE GOLD STARS *****