Posted by Robin
on
18 May 2009
The ‘Perfume Garden’ by Laurie Chetwood and Patrick Collins is inspired by a perfume created 400 years ago for Elizabeth I. It began with a visit to Grasse to recreate the queen’s perfume with the help of French perfume house Jean Patou, and each plant in the garden has a role to play in the creation of scent. The final design will include an area where visitors can try the contemporary version of Elizabeth I’s perfume for themselves.
— From The Chelsea Flower Show 2009 at Time Out London. You can also read more about the Perfume Garden at the Telegraph or at Perfumer Flavorist.
Posted by Robin
on
28 April 2008
Don’t forget the online fragrance discounters in your search for the perfect Mother’s Day present — why pay full price when you don’t have to?
Shhhh! Don’t tell, but this is what I got my mom this year: the Jean Patou Joy Parfum Compagnon (above left). Everyone should have a few drops of Joy in extrait, don’t you think? And the 6 ml bottle was only $65 at Parfum1…
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Posted by Angela
on
21 April 2008
On the top of the stack of books I'm reading now is Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française, a novel that takes place in France just as the Germans seize Paris in June, 1940. I'm only halfway through the novel now, but I'm engrossed in its contrast of the war's crazy beauty and horror, certainty and improvisation, and, of course, good and evil. Living my insular life as an American so many years later, it's hard to imagine what World War II must have been like for the average Parisian. Jean Patou L'Heure Attendue and Lucien Lelong Orgueil, both released in 1946 to commemorate the end of the war, bring an inkling of the feeling of relief and joy that the war's end brought.
L'Heure Attendue means “the awaited hour” in French, and according to the booklet that accompanied the 1984 Jean Patou Ma Collection, which includes L'Heure Attendue, the awaited hour was the Liberation, when “the mists have blown away, night is no more and the sun has risen again”…
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Posted by Angela
on
6 June 2006
When I first started wearing vintage clothes, I remember standing in front of a rack of 1950s dresses and wondering if I could really pull one off without looking like I was going to a costume party. After a few years, ramping up first with old handbags and cashmere twin sets, I started to see that dressing retro is all about balance and confidence. The same principles seem to apply to wearing old perfume.
Let’s take, for example, Jean Patou’s Colony. Colony is decidedly from the 1930s, a heady mix of pineapple and what smells to me like marjoram and sap…
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Posted by Angela
on
5 June 2006
Before I knew anything about Jean Patou’s Ma Collection, I saw the bottles of perfume lined up in an out of the way glass case in my local perfume shop, the Perfume House in Portland. I adored the names — Adieu Sagesse, Que Sais-Je, Divine Folie — and the bottles were curved and lovely, each packaged in a box that reminded me of Sonia Delaunay’s paintings. (The bottles’ labels, on the other hand, have a homemade, fresh-from-the-laser-jet look.)
Patou’s Ma Collection consists of twelve fragrances originally launched between 1925 and 1964, then re-released in 1984. Each of the perfumes in Ma Collection has a story…
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