Don’t forget the online fragrance discounters in your search for the perfect Mother’s Day present — why pay full price when you don’t have to?
Shhhh! Don’t tell, but this is what I got my mom this year: the Jean Patou Joy Parfum Compagnon (above left). Everyone should have a few drops of Joy in extrait, don’t you think? And the 6 ml bottle was only $65 at Parfum1…
On the top of the stack of books I’m reading now is Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française, a novel that takes place in France just as the Germans seize Paris in June, 1940. I’m only halfway through the novel now, but I’m engrossed in its contrast of the war’s crazy beauty and horror, certainty and improvisation, and, of course, good and evil. Living my insular life as an American so many years later, it’s hard to imagine what World War II must have been like for the average Parisian. Jean Patou L’Heure Attendue and Lucien Lelong Orgueil, both released in 1946 to commemorate the end of the war, bring an inkling of the feeling of relief and joy that the war’s end brought…
When I first smelled Jean Patou Joy, I thought, “What’s the big deal?” Here was an iconic fragrance, reputedly the most expensive perfume in the world (this was before Clive Christian hit the scene), and Jackie O’s favorite. To me, though, Joy smelled ho-hum. Sure, it wasn’t offensive, but it didn’t excite, either.
Well, I was crazy. Now I recognize Joy for what it is: a classic, womanly, gorgeously balanced scent. It is the olfactory equivalent of a 1950s Dior dinner suit — flattering, adaptable, and luxurious down to its hand-basted seams.
Henri Alméras created Joy in 1930, just after the stock market crash that launched the Great Depression…
When I first started wearing vintage clothes, I remember standing in front of a rack of 1950s dresses and wondering if I could really pull one off without looking like I was going to a costume party. After a few years, ramping up first with old handbags and cashmere twin sets, I started to see that dressing retro is all about balance and confidence. The same principles seem to apply to wearing old perfume.
Let’s take, for example, Jean Patou’s Colony. Colony is decidedly from the 1930s, a heady mix of pineapple and what smells to me like marjoram and sap. I love it…
Before I knew anything about Jean Patou’s Ma Collection, I saw the bottles of perfume lined up in an out of the way glass case in my local perfume shop, the Perfume House in Portland. I adored the names — Adieu Sagesse, Que Sais-Je, Divine Folie — and the bottles were curved and lovely, each packaged in a box that reminded me of Sonia Delaunay’s paintings. (The bottles’ labels, on the other hand, have a homemade, fresh-from-the-laser-jet look.)
Patou’s Ma Collection consists of twelve fragrances originally launched between 1925 and 1964, then re-released in 1984…