Rather than tackle one subject today, I’d like to pull together a handful of perfume odds and ends. If you have something to share, too, please leave a comment.

Dynasty: During the first season of Dynasty, Krystal Carrington’s son-in-law gives her a bottle of perfume that he bought on his honeymoon with Fallon (who, incidentally, had been carrying on a long-term affair with his father). As she received the bottle, she said, “Bal à Versailles, my favorite.” So what does that leave for Alexis to wear?

(As an aside, if you rent the first season of Dynasty because you want your fill of Krystal and Alexis plotting against each other, you’ll be disappointed…

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A few nights ago I watched Silk Stockings, a musical set in Paris. It stars Fred Astaire as a movie maker and bon vivant, and Cyd Charisse as a Russian commissaire sent to Paris to bring home a famous Russian composer whom Astaire has hired to write the score for his new movie. The main subplot of the movie is how Charisse is transformed from a stern Communist who cares more about seeing Paris’s sewer system than Cartier to Astaire’s champagne-drinking, couture-wearing bride.

In my favorite scene, Charisse is alone in her Parisian hotel room. She cancels a meeting, turns Lenin’s photo face down, hesitates, and then pulls out a pair of silk stockings she had hidden in a cabinet. She yanks off her Soviet woolen tights, wafts the silk stockings against her bare legs, then dances (so, so fabulously) through the room…

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