Christian Dior has launched Addict to Life, a new fresh floral fragrance for women. Addict to Life is a flanker to 2002’s Addict, and is fronted by model Karlie Kloss…
Top 10 Spring Fragrances 2011
Blech. Despite being born a May baby, I have never been a fan of spring. I’m sure it’s different in the other parts of the world, but every year, people above the 39th parallel in Europe and North America stand on street corners at this time of year, leaning at a 75 degree angle into gusting drizzle, and insist: “It wasn’t like this last year!” Trust me, it was. The mud, the wind, the Easter snow or hailstorm, the false hope of that one giddy day near April Fool’s when the sun shone and the warm breezes blew, like in a laundry detergent commercial, before the rain and gray chill returned — it all happened last year. I am not a pessimist. It is merely that I believe in the motto of mothers everywhere: let’s not get worked up here. Crazed displays of Birkenstock sandals and patio furniture will only end in tears. I support measured celebrations of spring’s small pleasures. For one, it is ramp season. Perhaps you have received your tax return. The road salt has melted away and you can go to 2D movies without being subjected to aliens, robots or robotic aliens. And it is time for some of your freshest, prettiest, newest fragrances to grace the air.
Composing a Top 10 for this most uncertain of seasons, I have tried not to dwell on lost favorites or the flood of recent scents I’ve missed. Jean Patou Vacances, Gobin-Daudé Sève Exquise, and L’Artisan Jacinthe des Bois are all gone and it somehow felt irresponsible to include them in the list. I have vintage samples of the many spring classics that have been damaged or ruined by reformulation — Balmain Vent Vert, Caron Violette Précieuse, the silver fluidity of Diorissimo, the mysterious smoky-green of Worth Je Reviens, the original Dior Fahrenheit’s honeysuckle-and-wet-blacktop — and I use them sparingly and despairingly. I have not tried MDCI Un Coeur en Mai, Byredo La Tulipe, ElizabethW Magnolia or CB I Hate Perfume Wild Pansy and am trying to convince myself that I don’t need to do so. With no further excuses, my Top 10 of Spring…
5 Perfumes for: Nerds
In a recent post at Perfume Posse, Musette described her adolescent self as “Geek before Geek was cool”. During a week when I watched The Social Network and contemplated buying a Gregory Brothers / Auto-Tune the News t-shirt, her description was just another sign that we have lived to see the day my mother was always promising me would come: nerds have inherited the earth. We’ve come a long way since the 1980s and nerdom has evolved: gone are the high pants and the pocket protectors (as well as most of the pens), nerds of every gender and race are acknowledged, and globalization and the internet have opened up new, niche fields of nerd inquiry. No longer restricted to math, science, computing and Star Trek conventions, nerds are becoming foodies and bespectacled mixologists, pop musicians, graphic novelists and film bloggers, beekeepers, adventure travelers, market watchers, reality television competitors and whistle-blowing website activists. Nerds have money. They own the best home theatre equipment and make the coolest Halloween costumes. They know the only coffee place in town with a Clover. And, increasingly, some of them are smelling really good.
Perfume is a great hobby for geeks and systems wonks. It can involve hours and days and weeks of research into a secretive, trend-driven and detail-oriented industry. You end up collecting bottles and vials, ordering or swapping rarities through the mail and building storage units or furniture to organize your collection. You exhibit a lot of mavenish behavior, like checking currency conversion websites multiple times a day. Almost every perfumista of long-standing I know keeps a spreadsheet or electronic notepad full of data on sample testing count, fragrance notes, prices, perfumer names or vintage scent markers…
Me neither
Actress Natalie Portman for Christian Dior's Miss Dior Chérie. The music is Je T’aime... Moi Non Plus by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin.
Directed by Sofia Coppola, who as you probably remember also directed the last commercial for Miss Dior Chérie.
Christian Dior Diorama ~ fragrance review
Who is your favorite perfumer? Mine is Edmond Roudnitska. In my dreams, Roudnitska insists on naming a perfume after me. “You martini-breathed temptress,” he says, “I must capture your essence in fragrance!” He casts his eyes over me, taking in my tangled hair and rumpled vintage dress ornamented with pet fur. He intuits my every thought, even those few not having to do with what I’m going to eat next. Then he creates Eau d’Angela. A masterpiece.
Sadly, Roudnitska is no longer with us. I’m stuck with having to find Eau d’Angela among the perfumes he’s left behind. Of that too-small legacy, one of the few I hadn’t given a thorough investigation until just this month was Christian Dior Diorama.
Diorama was released in 1949, the second of Dior’s fragrances after Miss Dior. In recent years, to buy Diorama and another classic Dior fragrance, Diorling, you had to go to the Bon Marché in Paris or Roja Dove’s boutique at Harrods in London…