| | | Serge Lutens - www.autourdeserge.net | | Administrateurs : celine |
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| | | | | | | | Bela | | Modératrice | | Pipelette ;) |  | | 149 messages postés |
|  Posté le 28-08-2004 à 04:38:59   
| Friday August 27, 2004
The Guardian
Making scents of it all
He can replicate the smell of a lover's sweaty post-coital armpit, the spicy stew of a Moroccan souk or a baked Mediterranean forest. Hazel Curry meets cult perfumer Serge Lutens
I am lying naked and loved in a man's arms. The odour from his body is sex and comfort; it's the animalistic smell of a human that is heaven on a lover, repulsive on everyone else. Well, I'm not really in such proximity to an armpit; my nose is hallucinating.
I am loitering in the Paris boutique of perfumer Serge Lutens, possibly the greatest living fragrance maker, and the 21 scents you can bag here (and only here) are lined up in front of me, brown and amber nectars sat in short, stocky flacons. I am meticulously working my way through them - the armpit blend, Muscs Koublaï Khän, is almost as heart-wrenching as another I have just inhaled, Rahät Loukoum, which, in its guise as the location of my last romance, brought me close to crying.
I can't count the amount of times I have sniffed fragrance in department stores, but I can count the times it has made me this emotional. Nil. Lutens' perfumes affect you - the olfactory equivalent of hormones, they smell of real things: earth, place, animal, human, sex and skin.
The Frenchman's boutique, Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido, is a blend of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter; a tiny purple space with astrological signs on the walls and a star-speckled ceiling. In the centre is a huge spiral staircase, which a small child or anyone with an unhealthy Rings/Potter obsession might assume leads to some magician's lair. I tip-toe up them and find the guess is not far off - a gamine, 62-year old Lutens greets me. He is coiffed, his short frame suited in something well cut, but I don't notice this at first - only the wizard-like eyes. Big, kind and sparkling, they have a confidence which belies the rest of his body, which timidly hurries into a foetal sitting position. His arms are locked over his stomach, legs crossed almost twice, head dipped and brow furled. This behaviour and his hermit-like existence in the two houses he owns in Marrakech are infamous.
We begin by talking about the scent he launches this month, Daim Blond. When I try to conjure up some clever image of what it smells like, he simply shrugs unimpressed and says: "It's suede." Ah, right.
We talk about musks and he explains how they are the most skin-like of perfumes. The foetus unfurls slightly. We move on to creation and mysticism and he softens further, talking animatedly through a beaming grin: "I'm always at work. If I'm not making perfume I become ill. I never take a holiday - on holiday I would have nothing to do - that's not very positive."
What does he do after finishing a fragrance? "Begin another." It sounds exhausting. "It is," he confirms, and adds: "There's an element to creation that's prison-like. You feel full of a tension that you can't get away from until the artwork is finished, a bit like being pregnant. But paired with the tension is a luminosity that keeps the creator going. When you're inspired, it's the most liberating feeling in life."
Lutens wasn't always a perfumer and didn't discover smell until the age of 26. He was in the south of France, taking a break from creating a make-up line for Christian Dior, when he saw a boat due to sail to Morocco. The young adventurer leapt aboard, followed his nose down to Marrakech and fell in love with the smell of the souk. He told himself it would be great to be able to recreate it. That was in 1968. He was partying hard with the Paris smart set, which included Helmut Newton, and Dior make-up was about to break new ground thanks to its bold colours. He became well respected and the Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido offered him a job. Once there he persuaded them to let him produce perfumes and hasn't looked back since.
His business is still owned by Shiseido and sells 14 of his 32 scents in 25 countries. The ones that are widely available aren't as magical as those in the boutique, but are still stupendous. I like the virginal Sa Majesté la Rose (Her Majesty the Rose), Fleurs D'Oranger, a light-hearted orange blossom that does well on anyone, and Daim Blond, which (Lutens says) is simply a representation of the most ladylike of leathers.
Next month he introduces a new scent to the Paris boutique, called Chêne. Lutens seems reluctant to let the special scents out of his salon, as if these olfactory giants that ooze such bucketfuls of emotion should not be let loose. Take the aforementioned armpit-esque Muscs Koublaï Khän - at first sniff it smelt of a sexy man and therefore went straight into my bag, but on bonding with it at home I find it is almost like a soul-mate; I wear it when I need a hug.
Then there is Iris Silver Mist, the most graceful floral. Where jasmines and tuberoses grope at you, this cool customer pulls you in under the spell of its powdery violet-ness. Fumerie Turque is also on my shopping list; as you would expect, it is smoky, but is also arabesque and hot, via rum and honey. And though all the boutique perfumes are olfactory royalty, I would also urge your nostrils in the direction of Chêne, which smells of baked Mediterranean forest, and Cuir Mauresque, Moorish leather.
But, according to Lutens, you should ignore me and go and sniff them for yourselves: "Don't listen to recommendations or an advertising campaign. Buy the perfume you recognise yourself in."
He is, above all, a philosopher; he couldn't live anywhere but North Africa, where sensuality is a religion, he says, because nobody would understand him. As he says, in an almost Sufi manner: "You can find and learn about yourself in scent. It is the shadow of a person's soul." Just hope yours doesn't smell of armpits.
· Serge Lutens' mainline, £46 at select department stores nationwide, including Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, or online at www.salons-shiseido.com
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| | celine | | Webmiss | | Administrateur |  | | 591 messages postés |
| Posté le 30-08-2004 à 14:05:29 
| Merci Bela pour cet article. Pensez-vous pouvoir nous en offrir une traduction, éventuellement ?
D'autre part, connaissez-vous le nom de l'auteur de l'article ?
D'avance merci (je sais, je suis exigeante...)
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Wer, wenn ich schrie, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? - R.M. RILKE
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| | Bela | | Modératrice | | Pipelette ;) | | | 149 messages postés |
| Posté le 30-08-2004 à 14:20:41
| Bonjour Céline
L'auteur est Hazel Curry.
Oh, j'avais peur que quelqu'un me demande de le traduire. L'article fait plus de 1000 mots, c'est-à-dire au moins quatre heures de travail. Je n'ai malheureusement pas quatre heures de libre en ce moment. J'ai rarement la possibilité de traduire pour le plaisir. 
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| | celine | | Webmiss | | Administrateur | | | 591 messages postés |
| Posté le 30-08-2004 à 14:26:58
| Oups, pas de problème... C'est déjà gentil comme tout de l'avoir partagé ici. Et à votre avis, je peux essayer de le traduire et le soumettre à votre expertise ?? (sachant que, sur le site, les versions originales seront celles qui priment et les trad françaises proposées uniquement pour les non-anglophones...)
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Wer, wenn ich schrie, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? - R.M. RILKE
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| | Bela | | Modératrice | | Pipelette ;) | | | 149 messages postés |
| Posté le 30-08-2004 à 14:34:26
| Absolument ! J'ai déjà constaté que votre anglais était excellent. Vous avez raison, cet article mérite d'être traduit, car je crois qu'il aborde le sujet d'une manière légèrement différente des autres : il insiste sur les émotions provoquées par les parfums créés par SL.
Bon courage ! 
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