It's almost a shame to have to follow the Chanel Sycomore pictorial spread with Six Scents No. 4. It's not that Six Scents No. 4 is bad (au contraire!), but its visual presentation resources are limited when compared to the might of the House of Chanel.
One thing that Six Scents No. 4 does have going for it, however, is its artistic director, Gareth Pugh:
It's a bird! It's a bat! It's a . . . Pugh?
Pugh has been a highlight on the London fashion scene ever since his first solo show during London's Fashion Week in the fall of 2006. His designs are whacked-out, space-age and post-apocalyptic by turns, and you can see a lot of referencing of the dark, edgy years of Thatcher's England when New Wave and Industrial sensibilities collided head-on to result in an explosion of glamorously bleak Goth-Pop creativity.
The packaging for Six Scents No. 4, art-directed by Pugh as part of an ongoing collaboration between Seven New York, Symrise and Metaproject, is a terrific representation of Pugh's future-goth sensibilities.
This dark undercurrent that flows through Pugh's work is risky in a commercial sense (not everyone grooves to the beat of the Goth Punk drummer), but LVMH just recently took the plunge and provided funding for Pugh's future shows, with rumors swirling that Gareth will be named head designer for Dior Homme, a critically acclaimed menswear line that has yet to turn a profit. LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault must be thinking that Pugh has his finger firmly on the pulse of the 80's resurrection.
But that's not to say that Gareth Pugh is entirely derivative (that's a title reserved for Marc Jacobs, thank you very much, though Jacobs does it with such aplomb that it's almost loveable). Pugh is definitely a product of his Post-Punk generation -- there isn't a flower child, flared jeaned, corduroy blazered bone in his body (which is a relief, really, as I wasn't looking forward to a resurgence of photo print polyester on the runway).
Okay, so getting back to Six Scents No. 4. The cover image is pure pop art, and when you open the box, you get a look at the exceptionally clean, stylized Six Scents logo:
You also get an artsy fartsy booklet that blurbs about the organizations involved in the creation of the Six Scents series, plus a single page description of each of the six scents in the series -- though I'd actually label the booklet fartsy more than artsy. There's some logo and font work, plus a lot of fluffy text, but nothing in the way of overt visual presentation; rather, it reads more like the credits at the end of a movie:
And that's pretty much where the packaging fun stops. The bottle? Oh, well, it's certainly not Chanel. Sad to say, but Mr. Pugh was obviously not involved in the selection of the bottle, since it's a fairly standard issue squared glass flacon with yet another standard issue aluminum cap and nozzle.
I mean, it's okay, with some decent screen printing on the glass, but the flacon is criminally bland when you stop to consider that the Six Scents series is artistically directed by some of the freshest, hottest faces in global fashion design today: Alexander Herchcovitch, Bernhard Willhelm, Yukinori Maeda, Gareth Pugh, Jeremy Scott and Preen (Justin Thornton & Thea Bregazzi). I understand that the intent was to keep the price point for the series low enough for people to want to collect all six, but it winds up leaving the impression that modern fashion designers are pale, cheap imitations of their forebears.
But what about the scent itself? Ah yes, the scent (created by perfumer Emilie Copperman in collaboration with Mr. Pugh). I previously wrote a review of Six Scents No. 4 back in April (of 2008): "The PR copy goes into some overwrought blah blah blah about ambiguity, duality and "a struggle between lightness and darkness." Whatever. It smells like warm skin; the kind you cuddle up to at the end of the day -- unless you're too cool for sissy cuddling, and then I guess you're left with the whole ambiguity and duality thing."
Listed fragrance notes are: dill, black pepper, nutmeg, palissander (aka rosewood), black tea, amyris, white amber and musk. The intro is pure dill weed, followed by a quick rush of dusty cinnamon with a pinch of that smooth rosewood goodness (the nutmeg is responsible for the dustiness, while the white amber in the base serves to bolster the rosewood's natural sweetness). This sweet and sour, light and musty interplay carries throughout the entire life span of the scent until it wraps itself up on a pleasantly fresh, clean musk note that's underscored by the smell of dry, sugared wood dust.
I like! It's one of the few scents I know that finishes up fresher, sweeter and cleaner than how it opened. I think this flipped-around approach to perfumery is the Pugh touch in action.
Longevity is good (around 8 hours or so) providing you apply generously. I didn't get much of anything out of it until I doused myself with about 10 sprays from the nozzle. This is likely due to it being an EDT formulation (much like the Chanel Sycomore, which is also an EDT and also required generous application in order to experience it properly), but don't worry, you won't be gassing out the entire room -- No. 4 is a very light, herbal-centric fragrance, and it wears very closely to the skin.
Six Scents No. 4 is promoted as part of a "limited edition" series with part of the proceeds to go to a charitable organization -- there's even a signed card that comes with the package letting you know what number in the series you purchased (mine is 638 out of 2,000). Now, 2,000 bottles of anything isn't particularly "limited edition" in any genuine sense of the term, but it's not Wal-Mart quantity either, so I'll let them have it on a technicality; however, when you go on to realize that the entire series is "limited" to 12,000 bottles, well . . . the card makes me giggle a little, until I look at this:
"Agh! Okay, no more laughing, I swear, don't hurt me!"
You can find the Six Scents series online at Lucky Scent.
*(photos of Six Scents No. 4 by Nathan Branch ©2009)
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