Fall: 101 posts

“Why does all I do become Byzantine?” mused Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. The silhouettes of her garments might have been streamlined and paired down, but the embellishments would be sumptuous: baroque jewels, ornate camellias, richly textured embroideries. Byzantine may not be the first association with Chanel fragrances, which tend to be polished and understated. Yet, if you look closer, you will find plenty of intricate details that make each perfume memorable: the luscious ylang-ylang of No 5, the smoky incense of No 22 or even the vivid technicolor jasmine of Coco Mademoiselle. Coco Noir, the latest addition to Chanel’s collection, promises to take Byzantine a notch further.

With Venetian fabrics and colors inspiring perfumer Jacques Polge, how can Coco Noir be anything but Byzantine! In order to weave his perfume story, Polge looked to the time Coco Chanel spent in Venice in 1919. She fell in love with the city, which she visited in an attempt to ease the pain of the sudden death of her lover, Boy Capel. The exquisite beauty of Venice seduces her and its Byzanthine influences stayed with Chanel for the rest of her life.

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I might as well admit it, I originally disliked Chanel Coco.  I will be up front about that because now I won’t be separated from it. Coco is a good case for retesting a fragrance:  more compliments have come my way with Coco than with any other fragrance. Although created almost 30 years ago in 1984, Coco is far from being dated. It is an outgoing, definite statement scent, not a wallflower. It is a fragrance from the time when women adopted a signature perfume as bold style accessories. Consider Coco an adornment, a piece of jewelry, the finishing touch.

Classic Chanel scents reveal themselves through mists of aldehydes that always to my nose make a Chanel perfume smell high concept.  They are tailored even when they are meant to be sexy, as is the case with Coco.  The top notes are bright and brassy with ripe, fruity aldehydes, mandarin peel, and macerated raisins.  These notes ignite as if flambéed.

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Perfume names can be tricky. Noir leads you to imagine something glamorous and wickedly mysterious. You read Sport on the perfume bottle and before you even smell the top notes, you anticipate sharp citrus and lavender. Based on the name Etat Libre d’Orange Bijou Romantique, which in French means “a romantic jewel,” you’d expect something suitable for women who love kittens and wear far too much pink. I can almost hear Emily Howard from Little Britain saying, “It’s a lady’s perfume, and I’m a lady, you see.”

Now, as a woman who loves kittens—and really, who doesn’t!—and has enough pink accessories to dress up the whole city of Brussels, I don’t mind frilly and girly perfumes. But it’s not fair to call Bijou Romantique a frou-frou fragrance. It has a dose of retro charm thanks to its delicately powdered iris and jasmine, but the earthy vetiver and peppery bergamot give it an elegant austerity. Take a deeper inhale, and you suddenly realize that it’s a sibling of Shalimar, one of Guerlain’s crown jewels and the grandest of grand parfums.

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There are some varieties of rose that smell fresh and delicate at first and then reveal a piquant, peppery bite. You pull away from the blossom with a start, the tingling sensation still in your nose and can’t help yourself leaning in for another inhale. My first impression of Oud Ispahan, a new addition to Christian Dior’s La Collection Privée, was similar—the compelling sparkle of the top note contrasted dramatically with the darkness of patchouli and oud.

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For Dionne, Anne Klein II (1986) was an integral part of her journey into perfume and also of growing into her skin. As we shared emails about the fragrance and as I read her moving story, I learned that Dionne loved incense and woods. She said, “I discovered that even though many florals go sour on my skin, incense and iris and woodsy notes smelled wonderful.” It was then clear why Anne Klein II with its sumptuous blend of patchouli, sandalwood and dark smoky notes would fit Dionne’s perfume personality. Although it was a bit intimidating to find anything approximating such a special and meaningful fragrance, I decided to plunge right into it.

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