I’m diverting from my usual Fashion News bit this week because I just received an advance copy of fragrance blogger/writer Denyse’s Beaulieu’s “The Perfume Lover” in the mail yesterday, and I’m chomping at the bit to dive into it.
Forget that there was enough fur, leather and shearling on the New York runways this past week to send PETA into a tailspin, or that Marc Jacobs tossed his zaniest show down the runway in, like, ever — I have a book to read!
The promo package sent from the nice people at Harper Collins
The little black velvet bag in the photo contains a sample of Séville à l’Aube, the perfume whose collaborative creation is the core story of the book, and which will officially launch from L’Artisan Parfumeur later this year.
The perfume itself was based on a story that Denyse Beaulieu told perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour about a passionate evening spent with a lover under the blossoming orange trees of Seville — and the scent is a winner, a warmly redolent orange blossom that evokes notions of classic French perfumery while managing to come across all soft and 21st century gauzy. In other words, the best of both worlds.
Personal opinion? I think Séville à l’Aube is immensely appealing, and that fans of both Duchaufour and the L’Artisan brand will be more than happy. I was all set for it to be a big va-va-voom of a feminine, yet I was taken by surprise at how mellow and potentially wearable it is for both sexes.
Yes, it falls squarely on the feminine side of the perfume gender divide, but not uberly so, and it possesses a distinctly artsy vibe that any guy with a sense of refined louche could pull off.
*NOTE: “Any guy with a sense of refined louche” = Ami, or Berluti.
And there’s not a woman I wouldn’t recommend it to as an example of exquisitely constructed, contemporary niche perfumery.
The book officially releases in the UK on March 15th, with Denyse saying that there will then be a launch in Canada in September, and a French edition set for publication in October.
No US launch date has yet been announced, but I’m encouraging Denyse to contact the people at both Lucky Scent and MiN New York to see if they might be interested in carrying some copies of the book for sale to eager US readers.
Though that’s a decision that’s likely for Harper Collins to make, not Denyse. But hey, I’m doing my best to help!
Okay, I’m signing off and diving into “The Perfume Lover” — I’ll let you know what I think as soon as I’ve come back up for air.
UPDATE (February 18th, 2012):
I’ve been trying to find a clear, concise way of describing the unisex nature of the Séville à l’Aube perfume, how it’s feminine and yet not entirely so, when I read pages 70-71 of “The Perfume Lover” and realized that Denyse left the key to understanding this perfume sitting out in plain sight.
She describes her love affair with punk rock style and its transgressive manipulation of gender stereotypes, and she writes of wearing the same “masculine” Van Cleef & Arpels perfume that her punk-rock art-school friends wore, and how it was the first fragrance that felt truly her own:
“Van Cleef and Arpels was the first scent I truly felt was mine . . . It also marked my final emancipation from the belief in femininity . . . People would see a girl and look for the guy who must be lurking behind her. During those heady days in Montreal, fierce in style and intellect, set loose by the crashing chords of punk, I discovered I could be both.”
And that’s Séville à l’Aube. It’s not punk or transgressive (but only because the idea of unisex is no longer transgressive in contemporary culture), but it most certainly has that “see a girl and look for the guy behind her” feel to it.
*UPDATE (March 1st, 2012):
I finished the book a couple of days ago, and as Thomas Dunckley noted in his review for Basenotes, it’s a bit of a mixed-bag.
“The Perfume Lover” is exhaustively researched, there are a good number of interesting interviews with noted perfumers (on the fawning side, yes, though you *have* to flatter if you ever want to be invited back for round two; it’s one of the unfortunate rules of the beauty/fashion game) and the book was obviously penned with a great love and enthusiasm for the world of perfumery.
But I do think some readers might be somewhat put-off by the surprising amount of attention Denyse tends to shower in her own direction, as well. I have to admit I was a little taken aback at certain points.
That said, it *is* a memoir-ish history + industry book, and one person’s “TMI!” will most certainly be another’s “Give me more more more!” — personally, I found the childhood/young-adult anecdotes (her youthful friendships; the early fumbling advances into the worlds of perfume, beauty and womanhood; the punk music/art scene in Montreal; her first trip to Paris) an especially great read.
I do wish there had been more included about perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour’s life outside the office — Denyse and Duchaufour have a breezy, chatty working relationship that’s entertaining, but it’s also mostly lab science and next to no revelations about home, family or public life, when it’s obvious that Duchaufour is an extremely intelligent and talented individual all around (his father was a respected soil scientist with a medal of honor named after him, and it would have been nice to hear more about what his family thinks about Bertrand’s unusual career choice).
It certainly seems like a missed opportunity that the book tells us quite a lot about Duchaufour the professional perfumer, but very little about Duchaufour the man.
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