Reader, have you at times inhaled
With rapture and slow greediness,
That grain of incense which pervades a church,
Or the inveterate musk of a sachet?*

…asks Charles Baudelaire in his poem Un Fantôme. Knowing NowSmellThis readers, I’m sure the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

The name of Jean Paul Gaultier’s new men’s fragrance Fleur du Mâle (Flower of the Male) was inspired by the title of Baudelaire’s collection of poems — Les fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil). I don’t know if Gaultier’s research team studied the poems (or simply loved the title) but Les fleurs du mal is full of poems that acknowledge the power of scent, of perfumes, in this world. For Baudelaire, aromas inspire exultation, lust, creation (the poems themselves), happy and sad memories. One of my favorite passages is from the poem Le Flacon (The Perfume Flask):

There are strong perfumes for which all matter
Is porous. One would say they go through glass.
On opening a coffer that has come from the East,
Whose creaking lock resists and grates,
Or in a deserted house, some cabinet
Full of the Past’s acrid odor, dusty and black,
Sometimes one finds an antique phial which remembers,
Whence gushes forth a living soul returned to life.

The debut of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fleur du Mâle has been accompanied not only by references to poetry but by much talk (dare I say ‘mumbo jumbo’?) concerning the state of men’s lives in 2007…

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