Chandler Burr is the author of Emperor of Scent, the fascinating book about Luca Turin and his theory of smell. He is also the New York Times writer on scent. You can read his articles about perfume on his website, and you can also take a look at his 10 favorite fragrances.
If you have not read Emperor of Scent, you might also want to look at this interview with Chandler Burr for the website parfumessence.
You came to appreciate fragrance while working on the Emperor of Scent. Can you recall a few of the perfumes that initially captivated you?
I was fascinated and a bit disturbed at first by the degree to which I *didn't like—couldn't access, didn't understand— some of the perfumes that Luca loves, specifically the classic Guerlains and Carons: l'Heure Bleue, Shalimar, Après l'Ondée, Vol de Nuit. These are the olfactory equivalents of 19th century French literature—smelling Chamade today is in almost every aesthetic sense identical to reading Stendhal today: the sentiments, reference points, emphases, and values all differ from those (or those most common) of our time, and you can find yourself lost. They require work. I've spent years with them, and I'll never have an instinctive love of them. I don't like Hugo either. Too much *stuff. But I can, now, appreciate their construction and their importance.
Luca Turin, obviously, has strong opinions about perfume. To what extent did his tastes influence your own as you began to get more interested in fragrance? Are your tastes very different now?
The answer to this continues the answer to the above: I didn't pick up Luca's love of Shalimar, but he profoundly influenced me on every single level regarding (for example) Guerlain, from the purely intellectual (what is the guerlinade, how was it created) to the aesthetic (his rich, brilliant descriptions) to the historic and emotional. I never considered Gucci's Rush much until I read his description, at which point I went back and found myself completely reconceiving my reaction to the fragrance; I love Rush now. That's not me altering my instinctive tastes but rather taking a second cut at things.
I'm not sure that my tastes have changed much. I've always disliked vetiver and smoke; I've never been a fan of Guerlain's Vetiver , and to me Yves Saint Laurent's M7 is an example of the smoking remains of a nuclear war masquerading as a fragrance. I've never liked orientals. What has changed most is, perhaps, my willingness to learn. Comme des Garcons 2 was a fragrance I hated from the start. They sent it to me, and it sat on a shelf in my fragrance library, and as the library grew I'd take it down and smell it once every three months and put it back. And then one day, I found myself suddenly changed. It's a scent I love now. I mean *love. Which is really weird. But things do change, our tastes, what we expect, what we know. I never liked Eau Sauvage—I'm not a fan of those dark super-freshes—but when I smelled Frederic Malle's Bigarade, which I found fantastic from the first molecule, I went back and tried Eau Sauvage again, and I still didn't like it—but now I saw more in it, if that makes sense. I once spent an afternoon at the East Wing of the National Gallery with a Ph.D. in art history, and he showed me all sorts of paintings and explained all the things in them that he saw and that were invisible to me, and I feel like Luca has not transferred his tastes to me; he has made infinitely more of fragrance, all aspects of them, visible to my eye.
Like many of the "fragrance obsessed", I started by smelling everything I could get my hands on, and only much later did I become interested in the process by which perfumes were created. What little I have learned since then about the inner workings of the fragrance industry has been somewhat disenchanting. I am wondering if your experience, where you learned about fragrance from "the inside" as it were, has given you a particularly cynical attitude about the process by which new perfumes are created and marketed today, or would you say the opposite?
I couldn't have had a more opposite reaction, and I think I can explain that very simply: I'm a science journalist (by practice, if not training; by training I'm specialized in international economics and Japanese politics), and I depart from a sort of relentlessly clinical, empirical approach upward toward the aesthetics of perfume. In fact the machines I love most in perfume are the synthetic molecules built in the laboratories that supply the perfumers with their materials. Ethyl maltol and beta-damascone and cis-3-hexenol—I love them, I find them utterly enchanting, how they're synthesized, what they can do, so much more than the tired old naturals. Maybe it's because of the crap that PR people attempt to feed me all the time in my Times reporting, the hackneyed "here are the notes!" clichés (who cares), the excruciatingly boring, calculated, and irrelevant marketing mantras: "Oh, and it's got rose and jasmine and ylang ylang and.. !" Kill me now. Or better, kill yourself and let me talk with the perfumer about what's actually in there, the Iso-E Super and sweet ethereal methyl acetate (CH3-C(=O)-O-CH3), what they do, how they work, how they create the scent we're smelling. It's awesome. It's artistry. People (ignorant people) say, "It's artificial," which is the same thing as saying that Joan Mitchell's and Kandinsky's having used synthetic paints reduces the aesthetic value of the paintings you see. Please.
One of the ways in which I see cynicism expressed by other fragrance fans is a presumption that fragrances from the smaller "niche" houses are likely to be better, or at least more interesting, than those which are produced for the larger department store market. News that Serge Lutens, for instance, is about to release a new fragrance generates considerably more excitement on the fragrance forums than the latest release from Calvin Klein. Do you see any difference in the quality of niche vs mass market perfumes, or do you think the division is meaningless?
I completely agree that there is a degree of snobbery involved in this often-made distinction. The question is how much of the distinction is snobbery, and how much is a valid aesthetic judgment. Snobbery apart—I couldn't possibly care less if a great fragrance comes from Calvin Klein or JAR—I do flatly believe that the niche houses are just producing better stuff. Chanel, when it comes to its feminines (I also think that dividing perfumes into masculines and feminines is ridiculous), does a solid job. (I don't like Chanel's masculines, although I think they're well-built.) Lauder and Dior are huge commercial giants, and they make some very nice things. But you're just not going to get anyone more inventive than Frédéric Malle or l'Artisan Parfumeur or Bond No 9. Look at Fresh—they're now partly (partly) LVMH, but Lev still retains full creative control, which means that they continue to come out with great, inventive, delight-inducing things. The niches don't bat a thousand (no one does), and they've got competition from Hermès (the inestimable Ambre Narguilé) and Dolce & Gabbana (the mesmerizing Light Blue) and other big guns, but, as a whole, if I had to choose, yeah, I'd personally go small right now. (Luckily I don't have to choose.)
Who do you think is doing the most interesting work in perfumery today?
It's impossible to answer this, A because the answer changes constantly, B because once you start you want to make an exhaustive list, which you can't because A the answer changes constantly. Along with my answer above, I'd add anecdotally JLo's Miami Glo—amazingly perfect commercial creativity. I love it. It's exactly what she and her marketing team want, and if you take it on that level alone, it's worth a smell. Contrast it with Norma Kamali's terrific Beach, which is the same concept, executed with a completely different aesthetic—Lopez has you on the sand in South Beach with her girls from the block, the exhaust from the cars on the strip, the slightly-too-much makeup, the testosterone of the boys hanging around watching the sun heating up the cheap, luscious coconut oil on their exposed stomachs; Norma puts you on a lonely sand dune with the wind and the salt and the warmth of a remote, cool summer. JAR is awesome. (The store is on rue Castiglione, between the Place Vendome and the Tuileries.) Alexandra Balahoutis' Strange Invisible Perfumes is making a virtue of necessity by creating an entire line of fragrances from an exclusively natural palette, and her things are like dark, subtle, diaphanous dreams.
Your next book will expand on the article you did for the New Yorker on the creation of the latest Hermès scent, Jardin Sur Le Nil. What else can you tell us about the book, and when can we expect to see it?
It'll be launched Spring of 2007. I expect about a third of it will be my behind-the-scenes experience with Hermès—after spending eight months with them the New Yorker article was necessarily the tip of the iceberg. My publisher at Henry Holt, John Sterling, proposed to me that I tell it in the first person, my reactions, everything from the crap to in my opinion the sublime, something I'd never thought of. In a few weeks I start following from the inside the next creation process at Fresh and, perhaps, at Estée Lauder, and the last narrative thread in the book will be my telling the story of how a major international corporation is now in the process of creating not a visual logo—the Nike swoosh, the Mercedes star, the McDonald's arch—but a scent logo for its products, an olfactory branding, a corporate smell.
Great, thank you for a great interview but I have to point out that I was surprised to read that Bond No 9 is considered a “creative” brand: they do have great bottles and a great stories but that's as far as creativity goes: they have lots of types in their collection: Paris, Opium, Angel and some Creed's copies once the owner L.Rahme had to give up the Creed distribution. But I love the Fresh stores and concepts and Frederic Malle's approach to perfumery.
2007… what a long long wait! hopefully we can read the chapters in the meantime in the New Yorker or elsewhere. I still have my subscription 🙂
I don't love all the Bond fragrances but I have to admire Laurice Rahme — can't think of many other lines that could introduce that many fragrances in a few years, and actually have them sell. Great bottles & great stories are more than most brands manage I guess.
It is a long wait! I loved the Scent of the Nile article and will be very interested to see that topic expanded on.
Interesting interview. Thanks.
What a captivating interview, R! The Emperor of Scent has just shot to the top of my must-read list!
Thank you E!
K, I can't believe you haven't read it yet! You really must. I confess that the first time I read it (shortly after I became interested in perfume) I skimmed much of the science of smell and read it mostly for the perfume. Have since gone back and read the whole thing through. I think you would love it.
p.s. And the next time someone accuses me of niche brand snobbery, I'm just gonna cop a 'tude and quote Chandler Burr.
LOL — and spray them with your Poivre Samarcande 😉
Lovely interview, R – thanks! I bought 'Emperor of Scent', and am determined to keep it for holiday reading. Problem is that holiday is not till September! I've now read so many 'quick glimpses' that the book will be completely consumed! Oh, why don't I just read it now?
I agree with him on l'Artisan and Frederic Malle, and I'd add OJ and The Different Company too. I've never sampled Fresh – there's a new challenge! Some mainstream scents are excellent, but the niche companies seem to be where the adventure is. N
Marvelous job, R. Thank you.
Fabulous interview. Burr has attitude to spare!
I was really tickled to see that I have five of the eight “women's” scents on his Top Ten list. Yay!
P.S. Is it me, or does Burr look like Kevin Spacey in this picture?
N, September seems a long way away at the moment, but the darn summer always disappears before I know it!
Fresh is an interesting line, and I love the packaging. Many of them are sweeter than I like. Sake didn't appeal to me. I do like the Sandalwood Vert, and I'm curious to see what they do with Memoirs of a Geisha.
Thanks K!
Hey I! It is a nice mix of fragrances. I just got a sample of the Lucienne a few weeks ago & need to try that out. Have been puzzling over Versace's The Dreamer since he first put it on his list. That is one that I “don't get”. It smells like eating tootsie rolls in an auto parts factory to me. Very interesting, but toxic.
I didn't notice it, but yes, kind of! But younger.
Dear R!
A big wave to you from sweltering Kiev. I am still in the midst of my exploits here, but today I stopped by to check my email only to discover this excellent interview with one of my favourite journalists on my favourite blog. I am going to print it out to read it in more detail, but I am already delighted by your wonderful questions.
Oh, I managed to uncover vintage (1960s) Red Moscow extrait de parfum in my grandmother's closet, and it is quite interesting, probably more unusual than more commonly encountered EDT. I will be sure to share all of my stories once I am back on Thursday.
xoxo
Victoria
Fantastic interview, R! However I now blame Mr.Burr for ruining L'eau d'Hiver for me, because now I think about crab whenever I smell it. Also, to be nitpicky…isn't Chamade one of the relatively recent Guerlains, created around 1970 or so? Perhaps Stendahl isn't the best literary analogy for it.
excellent job…well done R! Thought-provoking questions that really reflect the (collective) NST curiously intellectual minds…I was very happy to see his mention of Fresh as a company to watch; also will definitely look forward to his book!
You took the words out of my mouth, er, keyboard! Chamade was created in 1969. There is a literary connection but it's Françoise Sagan (who wrote a novel entitled “La Chamade”), not Stendhal.
Except for mispelling Stendhal's name of course. So much for being nitpicky!
Great interview, R, about a great bookand subject! Ironically enough, I just finished reading Emperor of Scent while suffering from a summer cold, which meant that I could not (still cannot) smell or taste anything.
I devoured the science parts and perfume descriptions equally avidly and think Chandler's informal tone was entertaining and just right. I did notice one mistake, which may have been corrected in a later printing: on p. 26, the text talks about a G major seventh chord, but the musical example shows an F major seventh chord.
V, so glad you are well and enjoying your trip — and discovering vintage perfume!! Congrats on your find.
BTW, loved your olfactory desserts article, and it got a nice mention on Perfume of Life this morning 🙂
But, don't you guys think Chamade smells old-fashioned? I like it very much but can completely understand the reference.
And L — forget that crab thing! I don't smell crab. At all.
Hi V, and thank you! Are you a big fan of Fresh? If so, tell me your favorites.
Wonderful interview! I read it with a big grin on my face. I love his attitude.
I will admit that none of his top 10 would make it on any list of mine, but I think that is his point. It doesn't matter what name is on the bottle as long as it smells good to you.
F (are you F or is that just a screen name?), thank you! Hope you are over your cold soon — summer colds are the worst. Curious if there were perfumes in the book that you were dying to rush out and smell? I ended up with a list.
He's an excellent writer with a great point of view, but I definitely have agreed much more with Luca than with Chandler on many scents. I am, of course, WILD about anything that smells like vetiver, things on fire, or, even better, vetiver on fire, and many of my favorites are those old Guerlains and Carons, which to me are really new since they smell like nothing else going.
Incidentally, I walked past a Duty Free shop cluttered with fragrances in an overheated airport this weekend, and I remembered all over again why I used to LOATHE perfume. I felt like I would throw up as the overwhelming stink robbed me of all available oxygen and made me feel like keeling over. I went in anyway, saying to myself over and over, “I am a fragrance lover, not a hater,” and then after I sprayed a little YSL In Love Again and a little Dior Fahrenheit on, I felt for the next full twelve hours (even after assiduous scrubbing) that the waft of each of them would make me vomit. Isn't that bizarre? I was only too happy to be able to put on a dab of Serge's Fleurs d'Oranger the next day: no headache. I thought maybe I was just ill, but on the return trip, we passed the same shop, and once again, I felt like puking as I smelled it on approach. Something in some of those bottles is wretched poison, I'm now convinced. Or maybe it's like those kids who mix all their food up into a single multicolored horrendous pulp, just for the grossness of it. Only you don't have to eat those, but I HAD to smell the mingled exhalations of the Duty Free shop. (It was right by my gate.)
Hmm, it does smell somewhat vintage-y, but the fruity brightness of the blackberry makes it smell rather contemporary to me. Roja Dove claims that it's a modernized, updated version of Vol de Nuit.
Thank you L! En Passant is one of my favorites, and I used to love Paris, but otherwise, our lists are quite different. For one thing, I lack the willpower to list only 10!
T, I completely understand what you mean. I cannot stand the smell of department store fragrance departments. For years, they all smelled like Calyx, which I actually love, but it was just too much fragrance in the air. Interesting that I don't even notice an obvious fragrance in places like Barneys or Bergdorfs — makes me wonder if the SAs in places like Hechts just spray the stuff in the air?
Hope you had a great trip 🙂
Thank you for the interview! When THE EMPEROR OF SCENT came out, I stayed up all night reading it. It was like a thriller to me, because I had read Luca Turin’s Parfums: Le Guide in 1993 and loved it. The fact that there was a full biography of this guy, who wrote a book I revered and which went out of print in a flash, was like a miracle to me.
I like his comparison of not getting into Chamade (a scent I admire objectively but cannot enjoy, like many of the other JP Guerlain scents – I thought Guet-Apens, which I love, was an anomaly, but now I know he did not compose it), like not getting into Stendhal, because while I loved the major novels of Flaubert and Gautier from the get-go, I have been trying to get into the Red and the Black and the Charterhouse of Parma, both in French and in English translation for years and cannot move beyond the first 60 pages. Many of my friends revere Stendhal so I hope one of these days that I will finally see the light. I couldn't get into Jane Austen until I turned 30, of all things.
Interesting L, will have to smell them together — wouldn't have caught that on my own.
I managed to finish Charterhouse but would not go so far as to say I enjoyed it — it was more like a duty. And yes, have the same feelings towards some of the Guerlains & Carons: they elicit admiration, but don't necessarily want to wear them.
Lovely interview dear R! I wish people would pay me to spend time behind the scenes! ;( Then again I cannot write like M. Burr!
xoxo
PS Raymond is kinda cute looking – I am dead serious here!
Who is Raymond? Or was that a brain slip and you meant Chandler?
I think you do write very well and you are a superb interviewer!
xoxo
yes it was a TOTAL brain slip! hehehehehe! Too warm in Paris. ;D
I was thinking of Perry Mason! ;D
That is what I figured 😉
I'm really a K. Fabrizio is my eBay, Yahoo group, etc. moniker and the first name of one of “my” composers.
Chandler will never forgive me for tripling his age or at least doubling it! Anyways – I do not care for most of his top ten favs. ;D
thank you nowsmellthis!!!
Great questions!!!!
Superb, Chandler!
You remind me of my experiences as a botany major..if you don't go through herbarium sheets regularly, you lose the ability to discern. I had never paid too much attention to perfume (I did love to wander scent counters) before your EOS; now with repetition I have an increasing discernment and appreciation, (I don't always like the scent, but I can appreciate the intellectual and aesthetic process) and a good friend, Luca!
Thank you M!
Will try to remember that, K 🙂
Wow, I am surprised to see people excited by Fresh! I love their lipstick, but that's it. Truthfully, I find their scents sort of dull, except for a couple of things. (I liked the Sandalwood Vert, except for what it turns into at the very end.) They remind me of Susanne Lang, in that the individual scents are so sheer and simple that they beg for layering. Which I don't have time or cash for. (And no, I'm not excited by Susanne Lang either.) I also find Fresh fragrances sort of Jo Malone-like in branding and concept, although I think Jo Malone does it better. Boy, I sound cranky, don't I? 😉
I bet they do just spray the stuff in the air! They have so many bored employees standing around with bottles, ready to get you, that I'm sure they just start spritzing paper strips whenever another person starts approaching.
to me it 's all crap! Who needs anyone to tell perfume lovers JLO Miami Glow is nice enough to make it on their top 10 list?
Literary writer maybe but sold to whoever he writes pleasant things for!
Cranky is allowed 😉
I probably don't know enough about the marketing of Fresh scents…are they doing the layering thing too? I have never really found the Jo Malones very layer-able, although I know she encourages it. Most of them have strong enough personalities on their own. The Susanne Langs are better for layering, IMHO, but completely understand the time & cash issues.
Strictly speaking, Miami Glow isn't on his Top 10 list, but if what you're implying is that he would have to be paid by somebody to say he likes it, I'm not sure what to say except that I've been accused of the same thing (although not with Miami Glow), so I don't take it very seriously.
well the Miami thing came thru the article dont remember where but his olfactive tastes are more than mainstream, is that good or bad–dont know but I wont be buying someone s forthcoming book who is so mainstream–read what? fiction on olfactive logos for Estee Lauder?
Just fascinating! You rock, R! (Wait… Rockin' Robin! Oh, that was bad…). Thanks for a great piece.
I guess I wouldn't tag someone who wrote a book about Luca Turin and an article in the New Yorker about Jean Claude Ellena & Jardin Sur Le Nil as “mainstream”, but beyond that, I think maybe my interest in perfume is more general. If CB wrote a long piece about the development of Miami Glow, it would interest me, even if the fragrance didn't…does that make sense? I just like reading about perfume, and the perfume industry, etc etc. And “serious” writing about perfume is a rare thing.
LOL — that was bad, G 😉
i guess you re right Nowsmellthis, maybe i just overeacted on this–
I just find it weird to go from Un Jardin sur Le NIl to extreme commercial mainstream perfumes–i dont know
I suppose I don't find it weird because of the range of things I like, or at least find interesting. I do tend more towards the niche scents, and certainly I am faster to try them than I am to get myself to a department store to try the latest designer release, but at the moment I am wearing no scent other than my cheapie BBW Coconut Lime Verbena lotion, and it smells darn good 😉
yes it all depends where you stand on your tastes–I only like a couple of classics like l Heure Bleue and En Avion in parfum, one Malle only LPD Therese and too many Serge Lutens whose perfumes I m hooked on and tottaly addicted to–wish I could just go to Sephora and find something most people like but there 's nothing I like at all! LOL
Wow! Another great interview… and, a great assortment of post-interview comments. Very thought provoking. It's nearly 1am, and I got home about an hour ago from my son's baseball game, which went on and on until 11:30pm! Thanks, R, for a great bedtime story to help me wind down from a crazy day. :=)
Thanks for the recommendation, R! I am sure the science of smell will be simply fascinating to me. Who knows when I'll have the time, but I'll get back to you when I finally get around to reading this!
Well, I can certainly understand the Serge Lutens addiction, and Therese is one of my favorites. I am just more of a perfume slut, I suppose 😉
K, Thanks!! That is a late game, hope they won 🙂
Great job, R., lots of goodie inside info snagged here.
But…
Chandler gushes: sand in South Beach with her girls from the block, the exhaust from the cars on the strip, the slightly-too-much makeup, the testosterone of the boys hanging around watching the sun heating up the cheap, luscious coconut oil on their exposed stomachs. I say gak, choke, flee. Every stink from the kitchen sink. I live in Miami — I try to escape that cheapness every day, please don't ask me to admire it, marketing genius or not. As the nuns used to say — the least common denominator.
EOS was an instant classic. I waded through Burr's gushiness to get at *the* story. Since his new gig as scent writer for the NYT would hopefully require a little professional distance from the subject, I am a bit concerned that he was told to write the new book from the first person. I am so tired of 60's, and 70's style man-about-town journalism. yawn. His bit on Japanese perfume sensibilities was nice, though, but again, there was too much “him” in the article.
His love of ethyl maltol, is well, not a good sign. That stuff is harsh, treacly and b-o-r-i-n-g.
In other words, I long for an elegant parfum version of a journalist, not a JGlo Miami eau de toilette version.
Anya, We have such different reactions to his writing, which I enjoy regardless of whether I agree with his opinions on specific perfumes. I loved the New Yorker article on Sur Le Nil, and don't find the “me” at all distracting or overdone.
But you know I have no clue what ethyl maltrol smells like 😉
just as an FYI ethyl maltol is a “caramel-chocolatey-sugar-sweet” note; its cousin Maltol was the note that gave Angel its signature…in case you might be interested
But great interview, thanks again !!
Don't get me wrong, R, I like what he writes, I just don't like his style. I guess that comes from years in journalism and seeing this style *way too much.* I don't detract from what he presents — brilliant inside info on the industry. His bit on his website about the environmental effects of perfume and wash-off products is great journalism.
I'll buy his books, no doubt. The one telling bit in the interview that no one picked up on yet was his admission, when speaking of the perfume classics “I've spent years with them, and I'll never have an instinctive love of them. I don't like Hugo either. Too much *stuff. But I can, now, appreciate their construction and their importance.”.
Man, that's cold. That's like a reporter thrust into a sports gig saying “I don't like Babe Ruth because he was a fat old guy, that ran slowly, from a different era, so I'll never have an instinctive love of him.” It's about much more than construction and importance, IMO, or else places like this blog wouldn't exist, we would't be passionate about the product, and empty our pockets in pursuit of the juice, even yes, the vintage classics on Ebay, just to have a whiff, to lose ourself in the moment.
PS ethyl maltol is used by L'Artisan and others as a vanilla, turbo-style.
Thanks, that helps!
But A, I am passionate about perfume, obviously, and I can't say I have any instinctive love for most of the perfumes he mentioned either, except Apres L'Ondee. It is precisely because of construction and historical importance that I keep smelling the old Guerlains like Shalimar & Vol de Nuit. **slinks away in shame**
So you don't like Babe Ruth, either? 😉
I hope if Burr is reading this, he takes my remarks gently. I'm just an old nudge and fanatic about scents, and *ahem* have my high-falutin' standards that practically nobody but me cares about. I would love to have his writing talent, but would leave myself out a bit more than he does (smacks self upside head, the best to shut me up.)
I too, loved the Sur le Nil article, which is why I'm in the middle of translating it (for fun and education). However, if you read it like a translator/editor, there are parts littered with 3-word clauses, conjunctions, 8 pauses alone in the first sentence is enough to earn a big red REWRITE! from my 12th grade English teacher. And yes, the “I” is very distracting. Either the narrative is from the first person's perspective OR the author is nowhere in the article. Take a stand Mr. Burr! 🙂 I first chalked it up to a free-lance piece, not knowing who Chandler Burr is, but now that I find out he's a staff writer, I'm mildly surprise. This doesn't subtract from my enjoyment of the details and process of the creation though, I have to say.
LOL — what I know about Babe Ruth would fit on the head of a pin. I know even less about baseball than I do about perfume 😉
The New Yorker has been abandoning its E.B. White standards of copy-editing I'm afraid. If you think that's bad, go proof-read a Sasha Frere Jones article if you feel like torturing yourself. However, Burr's obvious enthusiasm for his subject, the depth he goes into his subject and his sense of fun made me gloss over all the grammatical errors. I really don't know anyone else who could fill his shoes. Francine Prose's articles on the fashion world, while pleasant, are too caught up with being “elegant.”
OK, R, we know not to recommend you for a job as a sports commentator, but I'll back you for 'fume writer any day.
The amazing thing I forgot to write here yesterday is that the NYT *has* a “writer on scent.”
Perhaps they're the only paper in the world with this? If so, I think I must coin a new term. In recognition of how food became an object of obsession, art, and worship in the last decade or so, and the resultant rise of the “foodie”, we now are entering the age of the “scentie”,* the slave to all things 'fumey and frivolous.
You may now discuss “high” 'fumes, those that the creator heaped one layer of notes upon each other, until it became a towering spritz of upper-atmospheric ozone depletion; the spare, composed, skillfully-arranged anorexic 'fume that was meant to be gazed upon in its tiny, precious bottle, rarely consumed, er, dabbed on, etc., etc.
Yes, indeedy, it's a new scentilicious age a'coming. Stay tuned for he debut of The Scent Network, a subsidiary of Food TV.
*© The Real Mc'Oy, trend watcher, silly putty aficionado, and South Beach dilettante
Maybe it smells old-fashioned, but Chandler Burr just got it wrong.
A, thank you for the vote of confidence 😉
And LOL at the “age of the scentie” and all the rest! You get my vote for the funniest comment.
Luca Turin has just announced on his blog he has finished his book “The Secret of Scent”!!! No more info yet as to what it's about, whether the UK launch will have simultaneous launches in other countries, etc.
“The Age of the Foodie is passé. It is now the Age of the Scentie.” Me.
Just saw that A! Looks like we're going to be getting lots of new perfume reading! Although actually it isn't clear to me whether his book is about perfume, or the science of smell.
Robin dear! This was fabulous! Thank you so much. I loved the entire interview.
And I was PLEASANTLY surprised that he mentioned Bonds. They are NOT knockoffs of Creed. They are worthy and well-planned, and from concept to juice to packaging and promoting, Laurice has a winner in the Bond line.
That being said, I would like to say I especially enjoy the fact that Burr can see worthiness in not just niche and exclusive fragrances, but department store ones as well.
I like that and I am like that.
One day I will wear Caron FrenchCanCan extrait, and the next day spritz away with MaryKate and Ashley!
Thank you so much P! Completely agree that it is best to cast your net widely. There is beauty to be found in the mainstream fragrances, and actually, you are not the first person to mention the MK & A scents.
So, after reading all the articles on his site, I wrote to Plenty magazine and asked for permission to post Burr's “Green in Perfume How to build a better rose” in my yahoo group. The information there is accurate and well-researched. Mr. Burr has good research chops, no doubt about that, and in this article gives a new spin on environmental issues regarding fragrance in products far beyond the usual respiratory allergies we have read about so often.
Typical Libran, I get a little worked up on one side, and then balance it out by really trying to see the other side. Glad I decided to dig deeper into his portfolio 😉
“The Age of the Foodie is passé. It is now the Age of the Scentie.” Me.
A, You really are a Libra! I am a Scorpio, so there is only one side to an issue: mine 😉
Thanks for posting about that article, I hadn't seen it and it was an interesting piece.