My father loved clothes and dressing up, but he was also fond of walking around in his underwear or gardening clothes (“rags” my grandmother called them). He had a temper but was patient with animals, especially cats. His cats (at one point we had ten!) took turns sitting in his lap in the garden, and they all, man and cats, bird-watched together. The trait I appreciated most in my father was his curiosity. When I gave him gifts, he’d approach them with interest, as if they needed exploration, analysis. He wasted no opportunity to learn something. Once, for a present mind you, I gave him a boring book on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court; he read it from cover to cover. He loved antique folk sculptures of animals, so I bought him a homey little tome called “Carving Duck Decoys.” Father started carving ducks and several of them are staring at me as I write this. When it came to toiletries, my father used Ivory soap and old-fashioned drugstore shave cream until, thanks to yours truly, he became appreciative of, then addicted to, expensive shave lathers from England and all sorts of interesting soaps and potions. I can’t remember an “unsuccessful” gift to my father. I hope your father is as easy to buy for as mine was!
For fathers big and small, young and old, fancy and rustic; for regal and distinguished Fathers, fauxhemian pères, outdoorsy-sporty dads, and jazzy Daddy-Os, I present some gift ideas for Father’s Day…
Alcatraz, on the other hand (“Indian blond tobacco, yerba maté with its notes of dried hay, smoked lignum vitae and cinnamon spiced with black pepper”) seems to have been conjured not from an actual three-hour tour but a dream.
— On Astier de Villate candles, from Follow Their Nose at the New York Times. Hat tip to Kevin!
Candles marketed to men usually smell of musk (“the animal in you”), wood (the untamed wilderness), musky-woods (hunting deer in the untamed wilderness), leather (baseball mitt!), vetiver (cut grass), even hamburgers (White Castle), but all those supposedly manly candle aromas smell like so many roses and chocolate-covered marshmallows compared to perfumer Olivia Giacobetti’s Dans l’Atelier de Cézanne candle; it’s the most “masculine,” austere-severe candle scent I’ve ever smelled. Dans l’Atelier de Cézanne is downright UNcomfortable; as I sniff it, I feel an ancient bottle of flammable fluid in a rusty tin bottle is on the verge of igniting, a storm of dust bunnies might suffocate me, or dry-rot could cause the floor under my feet to collapse.
Need I say…I love it?
The Dans l’Atelier de Cézanne aroma was created for the artist Vincent Beaurin and his Le Spectre installation at Paul Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence last July and August. The PR materials say it all:
Nothing has changed in this ancient studio since Paul Cézanne passed away and his paintings were removed. Time has laid a veil of fine dust over it, as the Provençal heat has almost mineralized the wood of the furniture, of his easel and of the floorboards, long stained with colours, oil paints and turpentine.
Giacobetti has worked with Beaurin twice before* and was asked, this time, to concoct a perfume that captured the “essence” of Cézanne‘s workspace…
It’s such a conundrum. I have more than enough perfume for life, yet the occasional bottle or split still finds its way into my crowded perfume cabinet. While I return to my favorites and exciting, newer bottles, perfectly good perfume sits and risks turning. What’s a girl to do? Find more ways to use perfume, that’s what. Here are a few uses for perfume you like enough to keep, but fear you won’t use before it spoils:
Scent your curtains. Diaghilev reportedly sprayed his curtains with Guerlain Mitsouko so when the wind ruffled their fabric, his rooms were filled with Mitsouko’s sepia peach and moss. Such a romantic idea. A few years ago I followed his lead and spritzed the cotton velvet curtains in my living room with Mitsouko EdP. I nearly threw up. For about a week I couldn’t spend time on the couch without occasional forays to the kitchen for air. Fragrant curtains are a terrific idea, but I recommend something with less presence than Mitsouko…
A short film for the new Roseros candle duo from Diptyque, created in collaboration with graphic design duo Kuntzel + Deygas. The song is RosEros, by Bertrand Burgalat and April March, lyrics by Pascal Mounet.
