gallery of non-scents
One random thing that's been gaining interest for me is perfumery. I don't have a very sensitive sense of smell and am not discriminate with anything I wear, but I find the science and mythology behind it fascinating. Perfume is such an emasculating term and I feel self-conscious admitting my interest sometimes - all of which is silly. The thing is, I'm more entranced by the idea of perfume than the actual scent itself. My poor nose just compresses them into the simplest of categories: musky, floral, fruity, etc. It grosses me out when people wear really heavy cologne.
In the WSJ's most recent issue, Jean-Claude Ellena, a perfumer for one of the business's most important houses, Hermes, discusses his personal associations with scent.
My favorite, though, is perfume critic (isn't that an odd profession?) Chandler Burr, who writes a column for the NYTimes periodically. It was his column that initially got me interested - I read everything that they publish on their blog, The Moment. I find the prose really evocative, much like the idea of scent itself. Perhaps that is what's compelling: trying to put into words the idea of something so sensory. The very nature of perfume requires some semblance of poetry.
One of the most interesting perfumers in NY is CB I Hate Perfume, which is an independent perfumer based in Brooklyn. If we're talking about evocative, then CB can't be beat: he bases his perfumes on ideas and memories, such as "In the Library" and "Mr. Hulot's Holiday". Each perfume is a story - a scent story unto itself. It's certainly Proustian. It's a highly personal mode of perfumery that contrasts with that of, say, Calvin Klein.
I went there periodically when I still lived in the city - my favorite was "Winter 1972". Try to imagine what that smells like before reading the description.
1 comments:
Hey, Scott. Chandler Burr here. Glad you enjoy the column. And yeah, it's a weird job. I created it-- proposed it to The Times-- because I wrote a book called "The Emperor of Scent" about a French-Italian biophysicist and genius of perfume who was himself a scent critic. It's a fun job (mostly). I'm giving a very good review this coming Thursday, then a really brutal 0 star a few weeks later. Incidentally, instead of "perfume" you can just say scent; I do. The French are lucky enough to be able to say "parfum" for men and women both without the silly connotations. I think scent is a nice, neutral word.
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