Opulent: 185 posts

Diamond  heists and Gérard Depardieu’s tax evasion tactics aside, Belgium doesn’t make the front page news often, but the Antwerp fashion scene never fails to be noteworthy. Dries Van Noten is one of the top Belgian designers, and his colorful clothes emphasizing textures and  prints are unusual and eclectic. After walking around his store in Antwerp this summer, I felt as if I had just visited an art exhibit. I then spotted a neat row of Frédéric Malle bottles on one of the shelves and learned that Van Noten is a big fan of Editions de Parfums.

So here we have Dries Van Noten par Frédéric Malle, part of a new initiative to create a series of olfactory portraits of artists and other creative personalities. Such projects are only as  interesting as the people who inspire them, and in this case, we have an exciting collaboration. The perfumer interpreting Van Noten’s portrait is Bruno Jovanovic, and the main theme of the composition is warmth.

Continue reading →

I debated whether I should review Shiseido White Rose Natural, because it’s expensive and available only in Japan. For some, this may be a tantalizing combination, for others (and we are in the majority), the ultimate frustration. But if you’re a rose lover, a perfume history buff, or like me, have a strong interest in Japanese fragrances, White Rose is hard to resist. Given Japanese perfume tastes, it’s somewhat of a puzzle–a rose that doesn’t smell at all like the fresh watery roses that grace the regional top seller lists. White Rose Natural combines the boldness of American perfumery with the refinement of French, but the end result is that smells remarkably Japanese, even if it doesn’t follow the established trends.

Last year Shiseido celebrated its 140th anniversary. Its story is full of interesting tidbits. Did you know that the company was founded by the ex-head-pharmacist to the Imperial navy, Fukuhara Arinobu, when he was only 23? Or that Shiseido is believed to have introduced ice cream to Japan? White Rose may not be an expected Japanese perfume, but then again, Shiseido doesn’t always play by the rules.

Continue reading →

Several years ago I walked around an exhibit devoted to Marlene Dietrich’s collection at the fashion museum in Paris, The Musée Galliera. Among her famous pant suits, feather dresses and sexy lingerie (you had to look through a peep hole for a glimpse of her lacy underthings), were bottles of  cosmetics and tanning oils. One was labelled rose, and another–jasmine.  I don’t remember who made them or what the bottles looked like, but the image of Dietrich stretching out her gorgeous long legs, her glistening skin catching the fine granules of sand, is what surfaces in my mind whenever I hear the star’s name. I can almost smell the rose tanning oil and salt on her warm skin.

I don’t know if in creating La Fille de Berlin, the dream team of Serge Lutens and Christopher Sheldrake thought about Dietrich, and I have never visited Berlin to understand their source of inspiration completely. For me though, it’s a perfume that I imagine Dietrich wearing. It’s beautiful and surprising, but with a dark side. A classical Lutens, in other words.

Continue reading →

Gardenia is the flower with the most feminine of connotations. It’s a blossom that the jazz singer Billie Holiday tucked in her hair. Its seeds give a vibrant yellow hue that the turn of the century Shanghai courtesans appropriated as a signature shade of their lingerie. More innocently, it’s the preferred flower for a prom corsage–even without water it will remain fresh and fragrant for hours. When Arquiste Parfumeur announced that its Boutonniere no.7  will be a masculine rendition of gardenia, I was intrigued.

The idea behind Boutonniere no.7 was to create a fragrance for a vignette: a group of 19th century dandies standing in the foyer of the Opéra-Comique in Paris and wearing gardenia boutonnieres on their lapel. Perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux received the commission to make this story come to life. Flores-Roux is a talented perfumer, but I still wondered if it’s really possible to create a realistic gardenia perfume and yet make it suitable to men?

Continue reading →

Poison:  Nearly 30 years after its debut, the name still causes a chill up the spine or a frisson of fear among those whose nasal passages were assaulted by Christian Dior’s titanic fragrance.

Launched in 1985, Poison entered a world of big perfume.  It was the era of flamboyant, often bombastic scents.  Even in this context, Poison made an immediate name for itself.  Whether this was cause for celebration or not depended on who was doing the smelling.  Poison, like Giorgio Beverly Hills, had as many vocal fans as it did vehement opponents.

I remember the first time I smelled it.  I had recently started wearing Obsession, Calvin Klein’s new-at-the-time Oriental that had a hair tonic note in the base.  But during a holiday gathering a cousin arrived, or Poison arrived with the cousin, shrieking in like a comet to the Thanksgiving dinner table.  Gone were the typical holiday aromas:  chestnuts, turkey, and pumpkin pie.   We were served Poison alongside roasted yams and it was all anyone could talk about; even the old aunts clucked—in appreciation.

Continue reading →