Posted by Angela
on
21 February 2011
Who is your favorite perfumer? Mine is Edmond Roudnitska. In my dreams, Roudnitska insists on naming a perfume after me. “You martini-breathed temptress,” he says, “I must capture your essence in fragrance!” He casts his eyes over me, taking in my tangled hair and rumpled vintage dress ornamented with pet fur. He intuits my every thought, even those few not having to do with what I’m going to eat next. Then he creates Eau d’Angela. A masterpiece.
Sadly, Roudnitska is no longer with us. I’m stuck with having to find Eau d’Angela among the perfumes he’s left behind. Of that too-small legacy, one of the few I hadn’t given a thorough investigation until just this month was Christian Dior Diorama.
Diorama was released in 1949, the second of Dior’s fragrances after Miss Dior. In recent years, to buy Diorama and another classic Dior fragrance, Diorling, you had to go to the Bon Marché in Paris or Roja Dove’s boutique at Harrods in London…
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Posted by Robin
on
25 January 2010
What is not in doubt, however, is the talent and taste of Ernest Beaux, nor his temperament which allowed no one the privilege of telling him what to do. His best composition was not No. 5, which has always been cleverly promoted, but rather the magnificent Bois des Iles of which Chanel has never taken full advantage.
— Perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, in the foreword to Michael Edwards' Perfume Legends. I have owned this book for years but somehow never read the opening.
Posted by Robin
on
15 November 2009
To judge a perfume is, above all else, a matter of taste. Taste evolves under the influence of the environment, but this fact must not prohibit judging the environment. Taste evolves chiefly with the acquisition of learning, with the knowledge of facts and of aesthetic accomplishments, which makes it possible to analyze them and to provoke instructive comparisons. It is thus that each of us can progress along the road of beauty and of art. To deny the usefulness of this training would be like refusing to admit that a symphony is better appreciated after one has studied music.
— Perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, in Concerning the Circumstances Favorable to the Creation of an Original Perfume, an article which originally appeared in the April/May 1984 issue of Perfumer & Flavorist. It is available for download in PDF form at Anya's Garden.
Posted by Robin
on
26 October 2009
I do not think it is the creative capacity that is lacking, or the capacity for understanding on the part of the public (which remains what it has always been). What is in process of petering out is the capacity for starting something. It is really responsible people who are lacking, and it seems that to-day there is no man capable of launching a Chanel No. 5.
— Perfumer Edmond Roudnitska in Where Are We Going?, an English translation of a talk given in November 1967. You can download the paper in PDF form at Anya's Garden.
If you read French, you may be familiar with that excellent series of cheap booklets published by Presses Universitaires de France called “Que sais-je?”. Each volume in this encyclopaedic collection covers a specific subject, and the good news is: there's one about perfume too! None other than Edmond Roudnitska is the author of this little marvel, first published in 1980 and simply entitled Le Parfum. Unfortunately there's bad news too: it's not available in English.
Most generic perfume books focus on production methods, raw materials, and the history of perfumery. Roudnitska's approach is rather unique, in that he explores perfumery from an aesthetic point of view…
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