Perfumes de Paris

Para a querida Kate, que se rendeu a Paris agora, é sabidinha da beleza e pode continuar se sentindo em Paris borrifando esses parfums!

(quem gostaria de cheirar a São Paulo, não?)


Eiffel Power
BY CHANDLER BURR, NYT

For years, Paris has inspired a river of scents, from Evening in Paris (don’t laugh) to Paris, Yves Saint Laurent’s crepuscular rose. There have been literal representations and abstract concepts — and here, for your delectation, are three more. Annick Goutal offers a collection of perfumes of the most deeply Parisian sort: slightly Old World; bottles designed as if by the niece of Baron Haussmann; fresh, well-made florals. But to most, Annick Goutal is its tiny, lovely shop at 14, rue de Castiglione, where everyone in the world pops in, on their way to and from the Tuileries. The best seller is Eau d’Hadrien, a traditional Gallic citrus eau fraîche, although the pure pleasure is Le Chèvrefeuille: a sweet honeysuckle with a hint of green stem. This is the scent that follows the pretty French girl exiting the store.

Chanel No. 18 is a conceptual portrait of Paris. And a beautiful one. The Chanel perfumers Jacques Polge and Christopher Sheldrake have taken the idea of Chanel’s jewelry store at 18, place Vendôme, mixed in the concept of a translucent jewel and the elegance of the address, and made from them a linear, crystalline scent. I cannot stress the degree to which No. 18 is a brilliantly postmodern perfume, literally a different species from No. 5 or Allure. Persistence on skin is the one flaw that costs it a star, but aesthetically it is perfection. No. 18 smells as if the perfumers had captured a flower, but a flower whose perfume somehow exudes from spotless glass jewelry counters and warm, burnished stone.

And then there is the jaw-dropping incarnation of midcentury Paris. If you have not smelled Diorella since whenever, it is time to seek it out. Created in 1972 by Edmond Roudnitska, one of the great perfumers of all time, it is astounding not merely because it is technically flawless (diffusion, evolution on the skin, etc.) and captures the quintessence of the 16th Arrondissement woman in full battle regalia (heels, scarf, blouse, jewels, jacket) but also because of its startling modernity. This is a scent past the event horizon, 36 years old, yet it smells as if it were created in 2010. Diorella is an olfactory abstraction of luxury, like 18-karat gold gently warmed. Sadly, Roudnitska’s original formula is no longer used (as with all perfumes of a certain age, a number of materials in it have been declared allergens and removed). No matter. The current version is still a revelation.