My job is to create something beautiful. I have to build something like a musician or a painter, create something in accordance with the quality of the haute couture of Patou.
— Perfumer Jean Kerléo, quoted in 1986. Read more in Jean Kerléo, Former Jean Patou Perfumer and Osmothèque Cofounder, Dies at 93 at Women's Wear Daily via MSN.
There is now an uneasy feeling in France. The sky grows dark and rumours of war are abroad. There is a longing to be somewhere else. People dream of a warmer sun and wider horizons. As if in answer to these dreams and longings, Jean Patou produces a new scent, Colony — a scent evocative of sun-ripened fruit, the melting aroma of spices and the blue-black manes of Creole girls.
This is the description of Colony, launched in 1938, from the booklet that accompanied the 1984 Jean Patou Ma Collection set of minis of old Patou fragrances, including Colony. To me, it’s a good description of the Ma Collection Colony (assuming that Creole girls’ hair smells like pineapple, of course). I’ve never smelled the original Colony, developed by perfumer Henri Alméras.
The press release accompanying this year’s Jean Patou Héritage Collection reissue of Colony informs us that “The new fragrance will be a modern adaptation of the historic Colony scent.” Reading this sent shivers down my neck…
Jean Patou Collection Héritage (i.e., reformulated) Patou Pour Homme1 arrived on my doorstep (invited) last week. Patou Pour Homme, Jr., may have been shocked, and intimidated, to learn that years ago I was physically involved with his father, Patou Pour Homme, Sr., who used to cling to me from neck to stomach and points south. I can’t remember how long ago it was that I owned a bottle of original Patou Pour Homme2 (it was released in 1980), but I bought it around the same time I purchased Patou Pour Homme Privé, which came out in 1994.
I have not smelled original Patou Pour Homme in ages, but I remember it as a dense and sumptuous perfume…
The drizzly spring afternoon at an antiques mall where I found a bottle of Jean Patou 1000 Eau de Toilette also yielded a 1920s evening coat. The coat is gold lamé, dull and frayed at the cuffs and collar, and is covered with gold and green sequins sewn in the shapes of flowers with twisting stems. Green silk velvet lines the coat’s interior, even down the insides of the sleeves. Sewn in the collar is a label in a Gatsby-esque font that reads “Miss Wilson, 657 Boylston st., Boston.” The coat feels glamorous, mysterious, and decayed. That’s exactly how I feel about Jean Patou 1000.
House nose Jean Kerléo created 1000 (sometimes called “Mille,” the French word for “thousand”). According to the Jean Patou website, the formula took ten years and 1,000 tries to perfect. Kerléo had only worked for Patou for four years when 1000 was released in 1972, so you can take the story with a grain of salt or figure maybe Kerléo picked up on another perfumer’s work when he arrived. For 1000’s launch, Patou delivered by Rolls Royce 1,000 bottles of the fragrance in jewel-encrusted boxes to the “most elegant women in Paris.”
The Patou website calls 1000 a floral chypre…
Ever wondered what Napoleon smelled like? Or what perfume the Romans wore to dinner?
The answers lie at The Osmotheque — a fragrance conservatory in Versailles, France that collects, catalogues and recreates perfumes of the past.
Many of the 1,700 fragrances are reproduced from the original formulas.
Correspondent Susan Stone of NPR goes to the Osmotheque and talks to its founder, Jean Kerléo…