Victoria: 2669 posts

1) South German, Triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints, 1505/15

“How can you make a drawing look appetizing?” I muttered under my breath as I pushed the pencil across the white paper. I was trying to draw my first still life of two apples and a pear. “It should look good enough to eat. Also, pay attention to the light and shadows,” the teacher kept reminding us. If I were to compile the images that spell frustration to me, a scene of my 8 year old self sitting in my art class in front of two apples and a pear is one of them. How can one capture the taste, the scent, the emotion in a painting? Years later, as I started thinking more about how to capture a sensation in a drop of perfumed liquid, I began to search for clues in art.

I spent a lot of time at the Art Institute of Chicago during my student days. It has free visiting hours on certain days, and I still think of it as my favorite museum, mostly because it feels very familiar. During my visit over Christmas, I wanted to take photos of a few favorite paintings, but instead I started snapping details that caught my eye–an angel’s brocaded skirt, a hand holding a book, a glistening string of pearls on a white neck.

When I suddenly noticed the shy whiteness of lily of the valley near Santa Margareta’s cloak (painting 1), I could almost smell Diorissimo around me. So I kept taking photos of elements that conveyed a smell, a taste or a tactile sensation to me. I tried playing the game of assigning a perfume to each painting, but I was with my husband, whose fragrance knowledge is still limited, despite years of being my captive audience. He told me that I should play this game with you and let him enjoy the paintings in peace.

So feel free to join my husband in just looking at the images, but if you want to play along, tell me what perfumes these paintings suggest to you.

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As much as I love complex fragrances that feel like an alternative universe in themselves, there are days when I feel that my own world more than suffices to keep me on my toes. At such times I simply want something beautiful: a perfume that feels like a comfortable second skin, or a soft melody that forms a perfect scented soundtrack to my day. The latest such discovery is by Kilian Water Calligraphy, a perfume from the Asian Tales Collection.

Water Calligraphy is immediately inviting—the sparkling citrus top notes are tart and bittersweet, while the lemony cardamom is deliciously piquant. Even when the luscious white floral notes begin to unfold, the perfume retains its initial airy impression. If you’ve ever floated gardenias in a bowl of water and returned to find a room full of their peach and jasmine cream perfume, you will find a similar experience with Water Calligraphy.

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Christian Dior is launching a new fragrance in La Collection Privée, Grand Bal. “Grand Bal is an echo of Christian Dior’s great ball gowns, whose full skirts and beauty evoked the petals of a flower in full bloom,” François Demachy, Dior in-house perfumer. It is a classical jasmine blend that includes notes of bergamot, jasmine, Tunisian orange blossom, ylang ylang, New Caledonia sandalwood, and musk. Available from Dior boutiques.

Via dior.com

My childhood smelled like crushed strawberries, dirt caked fingers, freshly baked sugar buns, sun dried linens and lilacs. Those few days in the spring when the lilacs would bloom profusely and fill our house with their heady perfume were enough to leave a lasting memory for years. So whenever I see a lilac bush in bloom, I can’t resist burying my face in the thick foam of its tiny blossoms.  Lilac smells of roses, milky almonds and green leaves. The first whiff is citrusy and fresh; a deeper inhale reveals its haunting accent of decay and mothballs (indole, the same aromatics that give jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom their seductive timbre).

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Did you make any interesting discoveries over the past week–perfume, food, movies, books, etc?

In my futile attempts to keep up with the fast pace of the fragrance market, I often don’t have a chance to revisit older launches. So, over the past year I’ve decided to make more time for things that aren’t exactly brand new. In this spirit, I’ve rediscovered L’Artisan L’Eau de L’Artisan (1993), which is a zingy blend of verbena, lemon and grassy notes. It smells exactly the way your fingers do after you crush a basil leaf. It’s a cologne, so it lasts for only a couple of hours, but while it lingers, it has such an appealing verdant brightness that I don’t mind reapplying. It was  created by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti, and it bears her delicate fingerprint.

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