Scent and Subversion (5 page)

Perfumers:
François Coty and Vincent Roubert

Started in 1858 by a Czech military man named Joseph Knize, Knize is a Viennese bespoke tailor/men’s clothing house that’s still kicking today. The “ten” in Knize Ten represents the highest handicap in polo, the chic sport whose images Knize used in its advertising.

Knize Ten starts with a hot blast of birch tarry-leather, petit grain, and rosemary that tops its bright notes of bergamot/orange/lemon. Soon after, the woody-powdery center takes the perfume into a desert of dryness, while subtle aromatic cinnamon and spicy carnation provide a bridge to Knize Ten’s smoky-leathery drydown. A touch of vanilla, amber, and a menthol note (is this the resiny, mentholated facet from cedarwood?) intervenes occasionally, but throughout, from top to bottom, a tough, tarry, smoky, rubbery leather is ever-present and my favorite part of this gorgeous leather classic. The reformulation is less dry and leathery.

Top notes:
Bergamot, lemon, orange, petit grain, rosemary

Heart notes:
Geranium, cedarwood, rose, orris, carnation, cinnamon, sandalwood

Base notes:
Leather, musk, moss, amber, castoreum, vanilla

This 1960s ad captures the 1924 perfume’s animal magnetism.

Perfumer:
possibly Madame Zed

With the narcotic sweetness of neroli, ylang-ylang, and jasmine, initially pushed in a green, fresh direction by its sharp top notes, My Sin quickly drops it like it’s hot in the base notes, with a lascivious and warm civet-led balsamic drydown.

My Sin’s notes have converged to create a sexual flower, one that is at its most fragrant, from a meadow in full bloom on the hottest spring day, visited by the horniest, healthiest bees at the height of health. It smells lush, overripe, and decadent. This is one of those readily available vintage perfumes that might convince you that the difference between modern and vintage perfumery is akin to the difference between polyester and velvet, a two-dimensional photograph and a 3-D hologram, or digital and analog. Luscious.

Top notes:
Aldehydes, lemon, bergamot, clary sage

Heart notes:
Neroli, jasmine, clove, rose, muguet (lily of the valley), jonquil, ylang-ylang, lilac

Base notes:
Vetiver, vanilla, musk, woods, tolu, styrax, civet

Masks are a haunting signature icon in Corday’s beautifully surreal ads. This one for Toujours Moi is from the 1940s.

The love child of Tabu and Habanita, Toujours Moi (“Forever Me”) is a must-have for lovers of perfume in the Oriental category. It has the vanillic sensuality of Shalimar, a hint of Tabu’s eroticism, and a comforting whisper of Habanita’s smoky tobacco.

There have been several Toujours Moi formulas, and I’ve had the pleasure of smelling two versions—one from the 1950s and one from the 1960s. (The ’60s box features line drawings of maidens and unicorns, a result of Max Factor buying Corday and moving production to New York.) A reader sent me the ’50s version, which I would describe as rounder, more powdery and amber-vanillic warm than the later version, which leaves a stronger tobacco/incense impression in the drydown. Its woody, balsamic finish hours into the drydown is my favorite part.

Notes:
Orange blossom, lavender, jasmine, lilac, vetiver, musk, incense

Crêpe de Chine’s floral bouquet is blended so well that only the brightest and sharpest notes—ylang-ylang, lilac, and jasmine—poke their petals out, looking for attention. Its floral come-on is followed by reserve and elegance—it is a chypre, after all—telling you that in spite of its outward friendliness, you should not get too familiar with it. This floral chypre has a nice balance of sweetness and spice, sparkle and depth, friendliness and reserve.

Top notes:
Bergamot, lemon, orange, neroli, fruit note

Heart notes:
Carnation, rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang, lilac

Base notes:
Oakmoss, vetiver, labdanum, benzoin, patchouli, musk

A 1937 ad for F. Millot’s Crepe de Chine

Because of its boozy, leathery scent and its gender trouble-causing name, which refers to the nineteenth-century male fashion plate, Le Dandy has often been mistaken as a men’s fragrance. This 1944 ad makes clear that it was made for women to turn heads.

A precursor to both Lanvin’s Rumeur and Rochas’s Femme, Le Dandy by D’Orsay causes some gender trouble for the researcher even now, nearly ninety years after its creation, begging the question: Why worry about gender at all in perfume?

First, the name refers to that foppish, musk-wearing nineteenth-century clotheshorse whose goal was to turn his life into a work of art. You know—a guy in fancy clothes, a walking stick, and a top hat, throwing out barbs like Oscar Wilde. Then there’s the scent: a fruity, boozy tobacco/leather that could be mistaken (especially with a name like that) for a men’s scent, with accords that are now conventionally masculine.

But when you look at the ads of the time, they often feature men watching a beautiful woman whose intrigue comes, in part, from Le Dandy’s sillage, the trail of scent left by perfume. “Someone lovely has just passed by,” reads one 1937 ad for Le Dandy, “and her loveliness was exquisitely accented by the rare fragrance—Le Dandy.”

Fruity and boozy in its opening—like its contemporary, Rumeur, and the subsequent Femme (1944), but without their restraint—Le Dandy dries down to a decadent vanilla-warmed leather scent with hints of tobacco and musk. A true “huffer”—my term for a scent so good you want to huff it like paint fumes to get high.

Notes:
Aldehydes, spicy woods, clove, musks, soapy patchouli, balsams, coumarin

(Notes from Yann Vasnier.)

A photorealistic eye covetously peers through a hole in the wall at Envie perfume on the other side in this surreal 1947 ad by J. Duplan.

Like Dana’s Tabu on a particularly drunk and amorous night, Le Numéro Cinq (“The Number Five”) smells like stewed fruit and rich flowers resting on a vanillic and ambery-spicy base kissed with orris. This is Chanel No. 5’s darker, more-complex cousin—the one who went to art school while Chanel No. 5 went to finishing school.

Le Numéro Cinq is often called “the other number 5.” Lore has it that Edward Molyneux (1891–1974), an English fashion designer who started the Molyneux couture house in Paris, made a pact with Coco Chanel in 1921 to make a “Number 5” perfume. As both perfumes launched, so the story goes, they would see which one became more successful. Nigel Groom, in
The Perfume Handbook,
says that Molyneux named his perfumes after his different addresses: 3, 14, and 5.

Whichever story is correct, we all know which perfume became successful, and which one had to change its name. Ironically enough, Le Numéro Cinq became Le Parfum Connu (“The Known Perfume”), and then languished in obscurity. It was discontinued in the late 1960s or early ’70s.

Notes not available
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Perfumer:
Henri Alméras

Although he is best known for Joy, the Depression-era perfume dubbed “the costliest perfume in the world,” Jean Patou also released Ma Collection, twelve perfumes originally launched between 1925 and 1964, and rereleased in 1984 using the original formulas by in-house perfumer Jean Kerléo (1967–97).

The first three perfumes in Ma Collection released in 1925 were inspired by the different stages of falling in love. Amour, Amour (“Love, Love”) is self-explanatory. Que Sais-Je? (“What Do I Know?”) represents the devil-may-care attitude of those who live by their hearts and not their heads. Adieu Sagesse (“Farewell, Wisdom”) means she’s in deep, and there’s no going back. Que Sais-Je? was marketed for brunettes; Amour, Amour for blondes; Adieu Sagesse for redheads.

So what does a perfume called Que Sais-Je? smell like? The first thing that hit me was an intense, honeyed, peachy-suede-leather accord that reminded me of Jacques Fath’s Iris Gris and Courrèges’s Empreinte, both complex peachy affairs. Unlike Iris Gris, which smells monumentally strange (like peach-scented pastry dough, according to some), and Empreinte, which is a more delicate and refined peach-melon leather chypre, Que Sais-Je? is a more straightforwardly fruity-spicy chypre.There is a marzipan-like richness to Que Sais-Je? that perhaps comes from either a hazelnut or almond accord.

Like Colony, another Ma Collection perfume and a strange pineapple-chypre combo, the strong chypre base creates an interesting dissonance with the syrupy sweetness of its beginning. Perhaps like the woman who has given in to love—to hell with the consequences—Que Sais-Je? asks us to think of her as strong and daring as well as girlishly impetuous. The more I sit with Que Sais-Je?, the more I respect its translation into perfume notes of what plunging headlong into love is like, which apparently is a combination of syrupy sweetness and fiery passion.

And if such things sway you, consider this: Indie perfumer Andy Tauer lists Que Sais-Je? as one of the top ten perfumes you should try before you die.

Notes:
Peach, honey, hazelnut