L’Origan has the roughness of new-born things, the characteristic brutality of Coty’s work – he was a man of instinct rather than a consummate artist like Guerlain. It has the vitality of an upstart forcing the doors of posh salons, the colour-saturated rawness of Poiret’s orientalist gowns and of the Ballets Russes, which would soon take Paris by storm; the kohl-rimmed gaze and hennaed mane of a Van Dongen courtesan.
Like all of Coty’s first fragrances, it innovated by introducing synthetic notes, often dressed up in bases (mini-perfumes composed by the labs), which gave a bone structure to heavy, oily natural essences of traditional perfumery, as well as a greater stability. Unlike the smooth, fleshed-out fragrances of Guerlain, Coty’s intuitive compositions – “slightly heterogeneous assemblages” miraculously transformed in masterpieces, according to Roudnitska – leave this bone structure in view.
--Denyse Beaulieu, "Coty L'Origan: L'Heure Bleue Without the Blues"
1) I have finally discovered something I absolutely have to do when I go to Paris (well, Versailles).
2) The comments section of this blog are kind of amazing? You regularly get stuff like "I think [Jean-Claude Ellena]'s concept remains firmly within the confines of representation, albeit stylised representation: more Matisse than Duchamp, say. Modern, not post."
(2a-- I agree with this point, by the way)
3) Thanks to Frederic Malle putting "bylines" on his bottles, I now know who Jean-Claude Ellena is, i.e. the creator of several perfumes I'd been triaging against each other for purchase in recent months. Put another way, I'd been homing in on them blind. Yay for... consistent taste, I guess? Dude is something like the haiku master of French perfumery, they're all reductively elegant (in the math equation sense) and evocative and don't hang around after they've made their point. Zero sillage is frustrating but possibly a plus, given that my boredom threshold is low and Guerlain stuff lasts 24 hours on a couple of spritzes. It took me literally a decade to get through a bottle of L'Heure Bleue. Speaking of L'Heure Bleue.
4) Eventually ended up getting 50ml of Angeliques Sous La Pluie. It's my second perfume -- after Tokyomilk Gin & Rosewater -- where the top note is basically "gin and tonic." Except the Tokyomilk is clearly Hendricks (cucumber/citrus), whereas Angeliques is just as clearly Bombay Sapphire (coriander/pink pepper/angelica). I guess this is a thing these days.
5) The other one I got in Japan was Monocle Scent One: Hinoki, for which I went out of my way to the Monocle pop-up shop in FrancFranc Aoyama. It's supposed to smell like a chilly spring morning spent soaking in an outdoor hinoki tub at the Tawaraya in Kyoto... and does. Haiku, right?
6) I have a lot of sympathy for Kanye West's inability NOT to drill down to obnoxious connoisseur level on anything he's remotely interested in. Like, imagine how insufferable I'd be if I had real money.
