She dressed Edith Piaf and Leslie Caron. She created uniforms for more than a dozen airlines and dressed French traffic police. When she launched a fragrance, she provocatively named it Ma Griffe, which can mean either “my signature” or “my claw” in French. She was a force and a character. She was Carmen de Tommaso, or as she was better known in the world of haute couture, Madame Carven. Yesterday Madame Carven passed away at the age of 105, leaving behind an incredible legacy, both in the world of fashion and fragrance.

De Tommaso was introduced to couture by her aunt Josy Boyriven–the last three letters of whose name, “ven”, got joined with “car” of Carmen to form “Carven”–and she started designing both out of fascination and frustration. She was dismayed by the limited choices for petite women and the lack of attention from the fashion masters.

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It’s hard not to take a second look when a maestro of exclusive perfumery offers you something even more exceptional. When Serge Lutens presented L’Incendiaire last year, it promised ultra rarity (Paris only and maybe some distant Middle Eastern outpost), luxury and drama. How can it be anything but intriguing? I eagerly extended my wrist to be anointed with the precious potion.

My first impression was that L’Incendiaire should make any Serge Lutens’s fan feel giddy. It has enough incense to perfume all the souks of Arabia. Its amber and musk accords are prodigious. It takes dark to another level. It smolders. It heaves. But nothing about it made me want to swoon (much less part with the $600 that buys you 50ml of this fantasy). L’Incendiaire is beautiful, but it’s about as nuanced as a three hour Bollywood drama. At some point, you crave a break.

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I have a short article on Carolina Herrera’s new Confidential fragrance collection in the New York Times. It will appear in print in the Magazine’s issue dedicated to beauty (on stands June 14th). The selection of features in the Beauty 2015 edition will cover makeup, skincare and all things lovely, so please take a look.

As for Herrera’s Confidential, it’s based on an interesting concept melding fragrance and fashion and includes 5 scents. Oud Couture, above, was inspired by the traditional Middle Eastern layering technique that uses oud as a base for other more effervescent notes. The perfumes will launch later this month.

Image via T Magazine

Elisa explains how coconut is used in perfumes and offers 21 examples with 5 different themes. Summer fun begins here. 

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a cultural coconut renaissance. First came coconut water, touted to be a low-sugar super-hydrator, like nature’s Gatorade. (I think it’s gross; with the high potassium content, it feels like I’m drinking soup.) Then, widespread reports of the virtual all-purposeness of coconut oil: Clean your house! Remove your eye makeup! Moisturize your body! (Again, I haven’t succumbed. But if you don’t mind glistening all over and smelling like a Mounds bar at all times, more power to you.)

If I’m skeptical of the head-to-tail approach to coconuts, I am a longtime lover of coconut scents and of coconut flesh and milk in food. It’s one of those magical ingredients, like lime or cilantro, that can completely make a dish. I love it in desserts – I still think about a bite of exceptionally moist coconut cake I had when I was 17, and Caramel Delites were always my favorite Girl Scout Cookie – but I think I love it even more in savory applications, for the unctuousness it adds to dishes like Thai curry.

In perfume, coconut is usually represented by one or more lactones – from the Latin root lact- meaning milk, lactones give a fruity, fatty creaminess to compositions. Coconut lactones can range from fresh and milky to peachy to waxy to toasted and nutty (with an almondy coumarin facet) to downright buttery, like coconut oil with butter flavoring.

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I’m convinced that few European historical periods are as intriguing as the Middle Ages. Or as misunderstood. Take the very name–Middle, Medieval, the latter bearing many negative connotations in modern English. The Middle Ages lasted from the 5th to the 15th century, spanning the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and foreshadowing the Renaissance. Much of how we think about medieval times is influenced by Renaissance perceptions, at times just, at times unjustifiably arrogant.

Especially circumspect are the opinions that women played no role in medieval societies and were treated no better than chattel. In reality, women’s status during the Middle Ages was more advanced than could be said of the Renaissance, and the reason many medieval women disappear from the accounts has much to do with the later periods and their rigid conceptions of gender roles.

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