Diptyque, a new book by Elisabeth de Feydeau, tells the story of the cult brand established by three friends, painter Desmond Knox-Leet, set designer Yves Coueslant and decorator Christiane Gautrot, in 1961.
199 pages, 226 illustrations. In French; published by Perrin. (found via madame.lefigaro.fr)
Other books by Elisabeth de Feydeau: A Scented Palace (in English), L'un des sens : Le parfum au XXe siècle (in French, with Marie-Christine Grasse & Freddy Ghozland).
Underlying Notes is a new romance novel with a perfume twist:
More than a cocktail for hot flashes and fluctuating libido, Underlying Notes strews crumbs of callousness, blame, self-sacrifice, repression, and restlessness along the unmarked trails of introspection and reinvention weaving through Carla Matteo's journey to find her own niche in the Second Act of life.
Fragrance addiction numbs the pain of her father's tragic death, wards off the sting of a severed adolescent friendship…
Long before his appointment as the world's first professional perfume critic, Chandler Burr had made a name for himself as a perfume journalist with a bit of an edge. His excellent New Yorker article on the creation of Hermès Un Jardin sur le Nil, which gave us a glimpse behind the scenes of this secretive industry, was followed by his regular contributions for The New York Times on the current state of perfumery, in which he wrote passionately about his aversion against the mystification, the anachronistic traditions, and the unspoken rules in the perfume trade. The vastness of his contacts is the envy of most perfume bloggers, and sometimes I wonder if he made more enemies than friends in the past years — which I mean as a compliment, of course. Hardly surprising then, that his latest book was so highly anticipated by many, including me.
If scientific controversy was a central theme in The Emperor of Scent, The Perfect Scent takes a swing at the maladies of the perfume industry. Burr uncovers its deeper mechanisms, from the dilemmas faced by manufacturers who are forced to accept assignments without contracts, to the pointless secrecy in which perfume formulae are still enveloped…
In 1999, the Metropolitan Museum of Art produced a wonderful booklet by Edwin T. Morris called Scents of Time. It gave a concise overview of perfume history, and came with a charming set of fragrance minis with scents like rose, sandalwood, orange blossom, and a traditional eau de cologne. A more elaborate book on the same subject (and by the same author) is Fragrance: the Story of Perfume from Cleopatra to Chanel, published in 1984; while the former is a decent but limited introduction that appeals mostly to novices and collectors, the latter is a more comprehensive source for advanced readers. The trouble is that they can only be obtained secondhand, and proper alternatives are very hard to find. Marie-Christine Grasse's Histoire mondiale du parfum is one of those exceptions that proves the rule: a beautiful, recently issued coffee-table book that is widely available, yet only in French. Here's an impression of what you will probably be missing, followed by a short, final thought.
The first section of Une Histoire mondiale du parfum is dedicated to “Antiquity”, and deals with perfume and cosmetics in America, Europe, and the Middle East…
Author Michael Edwards has released the 2008 edition of his yearly Fragrances of the World, known as “the fragrance bible”.
The new edition lists 5,700 fragrances (815 more than the 2007 edition) classified by fragrance family. It is used by numerous retailers to help customers find fragrances they might like based on the scent(s) they already know and enjoy…