| Bela | | Modératrice | | Pipelette ;) |  | | 149 messages postés |
|  Posté le 19-08-2004 à 03:27:49   
| Hannah Betts
14 August 2004
The Times (London)
(c) 2004 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
A fellow fragrance addict and I recently sat musing that, despite the industry's efforts to persuade us to anoint ourselves with so many insipid eaux in tropical climes, we favour headier scents which simmer off the skin. Such perfumes create their own meteorology, a sultry, sweat-laden, olfactory storm. And just as there are glacial, aldehydic fragrances said to mimic the effect of snow, so there are aromas that are pure Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; sweltering invitations to an animistic conflation of climate with behaviour.
No perfumer's work exemplifies this feverish exoticism more than that of Shiseido's resident genius, Serge Lutens. This is not, of course, to suggest that his creations are indecorous. One has only to experience the exquisitely nuanced Feminite du Bois to know otherwise (Pounds 31, 020-7630 1515). True, some, such as Ambre Sultan, a grubbily amberous, notoriously erotic "knicker scent", wear their eroticism on their sleeve. Others, the ingenue sensuality of the jasmine symphony A la Nuit, not least, are less obvious, but no less eloquent, a provocation.
All reflect Lutens' passion for Morocco, specifically Marrakesh, the city the Frenchman has made the setting for his sensory adventures, be they pungent curiosities discovered in the souk or riches from its flora and fauna. These are resolutely oriental fragrances. There are florals among these perfumes, but they are a narcotic lily (Un Lys) or fleshy Tubereuse Criminelle. There are sublimely mossy chypres. But everywhere Lutens' work is redolent of musk, sandalwood, benzoin and vanilla, uniting in a voluptuous signature style, incense-drenched, woody, resinous and balsamic.
He has, he acknowledges, created "A very particular world" in the themes inspiring his fragrances; an "olfactory literature" where Baudelaire rubs shoulders with the Arabian nights, and almond-eyed harem girls blow smoke rings as a demonstration of their skills.
The begetter of all this heady sensuality is, as perhaps only the English would understand, a consummately composed individual, clad in an elegant wool suit despite the heat rising off the streets surrounding Shiseido's Salons du Palais Royal. With his pallor and sleek, brilliantined hair, there is something of the silent screen about Monsieur Lutens. At the same time, he has the bookish, devotional air one imagines for the young T. S.
Eliot, confessing that he pores over the dictionary for solace. Lutens was a reflective child, "more than introverted, distant". His adolescent obsession was to style the hair and paint the faces of female friends until they resembled the extravagantly beautiful "white women" he became famous for first at Vogue, then at Dior, and later Shiseido. These images recreate femininity as theatre, a kabuki pulchritude of lily-white skin, ravishing red mouth and eyes like smouldering coals, framed by a helmet of ebony.
"I had a very determined, very exact taste," he explains. "Beauty is rare, it should create a shock. These days there is no style, nothing personal to the individual." He refers disparagingly to "Les Parfums Kleenex", the "incestuous perfumes" churned out by the many marketing-obsessed fragrance houses. "They're so aggressive, so badly put together. I cannot begin to understand." There is nothing superficial, nothing derivative about Lutens' scents. They are as unique as their architect and their wearers, only ever themselves. "I go to the maximum. I go far too far and then I can see and take a step back if necessary." Marketing is not a factor. "Every time we make Fleurs d'Oranger we lose money. But so what? You can smell it." On those occasions when his work allows him to wear perfume, he douses himself in it.
Twelve of the 20 Lutens perfumes are available in Britain (from Pounds 46, 020-7730 1234 or 020-7730 2322). But the Palais Royal emporium handles appeals for samplers and mail order (Pounds 95 per bottle; 00 33 1 49 27 09 09; www.salons-shiseido.com). I lost my heart several times over. Daim Blond, Lutens' latest fragrance, is an achingly sophisticated, soft blonde leather, like the interior of a vintage Rolls. Vetiver Oriental is sensational, a rich Freudian undergrowth of moss, creamy iris and rising sap. Cuir Mauresque, its creator's own favoured fragrance, is the Lutens I was destined for, a bestial note of charred styrax fused with amber, musk and incense. But Chene was my unlooked-for love, a stately oak, warm, tannin-rich, but with an almost metallic touch, evoking the resinous, brassy odour of the music rooms of my childhood. And there will be other trips to Paris for the earthy, opopanaxy Un Bois Sepia, the sand storm that is Chergui and the honeyed tobacco smoke of Fumerie Turque.
Our hero, meanwhile, has been working on another creation, reconstructing a Medinan pleasure palace in his beloved Marrakesh. It is to be not a museum, not quite a library, but a very temple of fragrance, a place of odoriferous pilgrimage amid the sun-scorched earth.
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