Two more videos in support of the No. 5 Culture Chanel exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (you can see the others we’ve posted here). First up here, Chanel house perfumer Jacques Polge, then below the jump, perfumer Christoper Sheldrake.
Shop for perfume
Serge Lutens La Fille de Berlin ~ perfume review
She’s a rose with thorns, don’t mess with her. She’s a girl who goes to extremes. When she can, she soothes; and when she wants … !
Her fragrance lifts you higher, she rocks and shocks. — Serge Lutens1
La Fille de Berlin is the latest from Serge Lutens; reportedly it’s the only new scent we’ll get from the house this year (normally, there are two or three launches). It’s being introduced in conjunction with his new book of photography, Berlin à Paris, and pays homage, apparently, to the women of Soviet-occupied postwar Berlin.2
The first couple of seconds — it’s quick, don’t miss it! — are ROSE, big and bright enough to justify the all caps, and nearly a dead ringer for The Perfumer’s Workshop Tea Rose. But La Fille de Berlin soon enough goes off in another direction entirely, bypassing as well the dewy springtime rose of Lutens’ own Sa Majesté la Rose and the overtly seductive aura of Rose de Nuit…
Serge Lutens Une Voix Noire ~ fragrance review
For me, Billie Holiday’s voice, her recordings, are going to be a zillion times more beautiful, moving and interesting than any perfume in a bottle. True, there are perfumes that surpass the human singing voice in beauty (when the voice in question is Jessica Simpson’s, Taylor Swift’s, or Justin What’s-His-Name’s), but a vocal genius like Holiday can achieve heights of passion no perfume can match. (Perfume has never made me cry.) I didn’t expect the Holiday-inspired fragrance by Serge Lutens, Une Voix Noire (a black voice), to have the impact of the iconic singer.
Who knows what Holiday smelled like? I can only imagine the scents of cigarette smoke, booze, sweat, make-up and perfume that surrounded her in the warm, crowded nightclubs where she often sang. Surely there were flowers in her dressing rooms as well as pinned to her hair. She owned a beloved dog, Mister, who would accompany her to gigs. Not many of these elements, as I imagine them, infuse Une Voix Noire. One can respect that Lutens and his perfumer Christopher Sheldrake avoided the obvious (well, the dog’s not “obvious”…why didn’t they put a little “Mister” in the bottle?) but what they’ve come up with could have been used to represent any number of women in modern times: singers, accountants, even teenage cheerleaders in Dubuque…
Serge Lutens Santal Majuscule ~ fragrance review
Somewhere between the over-spiced/overpriced, under-sandalwooded Serge Lutens Santal de Mysore and the nuclear-strength, feminine, flowers and fruit of Santal Blanc (now residing in exclusivity, in Paris, smart thing!) is an open slot for a perfect Serge Lutens sandalwood perfume. (Or at least a sandalwood with charm, balance and a carefree attitude.) When I heard Lutens was releasing a new sandalwood fragrance, Santal Majuscule*, I was interested…but cautious. It’s been a long time since a new Lutens fragrance has tempted me.
Santal Majuscule goes on smelling mildly/vaguely spicy with aromas that remind me of candied orange peel and immortelle (and is there something “minty” in the background, too?) Quickly, the perfume becomes denser and gives off the aromas of shortbread cookies (on the verge of burning) in a wood stove — incensy, and not at all unpleasant. Then, unexpectedly, a rose scent mixes with the toasty wood notes (and for a short spell, smelled on the air, not up close, Santal Majuscule smells like a richer version of Cartier Déclaration d’un Soir). As the perfume develops I get hints of brown sugar/molasses and sweet cocoa…
Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan ~ fragrance review
Ambre Sultan* was my first Serge Lutens perfume. I ordered it from England because, in early 2000, there wasn’t a bottle to be had in the United States. I purchased Ambre Sultan unsniffed because — who doesn’t like amber?
I’ve written about “amber” before, but since that post, I’ve come to prefer “tough” ambers over sweet vanillic amber blends (which many perfume lovers categorize as easy-to-wear “comfort scents”). Of course, I have many perfumes in my collection with amber-y bases, but I usually own just one ‘clear-cut’ amber perfume…and for over a decade that’s been Ambre Sultan.
Ambre Sultan starts off with a dual personality…