Elisabeth Barille's Guerlain is a thin volume, with 15 pages of text and about 50 pages of photographs. The text provides background on the history of the Guerlain family and their illustrious perfume house, but a die-hard perfume fanatic may find it too brief and general to be of much interest. There is a chronology at the end, but it lacks a complete list of the Guerlain fragrances, and some of the picture selections are rather odd. There are pictures, for instance, of Marlene Dietrich, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Catherine Deneuve — all of which tie in to the story in one way or another, but given the abbreviated length, I would have preferred to see more pictures of Guerlain family members, perfume bottles, or vintage Guerlain advertising.
Guerlain completists will probably want to own it anyway. According to the publisher, Assouline, the English language version is now out of print, but like everything else, you can probably find it on ebay if you are patient.
See also: The Book of Perfume by Elisabeth Barille & Catherine Laroze
This book sounds like what my BF would call a “puff piece.” It's a shame that a perfume house like Guerlain would use the opportunity of creating a book to simply pander to the cult of celebrity, and not do a serious perfume book. Don't they realize, if only through Luca Turin, that perfume is something that people would love to delve into more deeply?
Yes, I did not think it was all that interesting either. I also wish there was a book on Guerlain like the one they have at Caron boutique.
Not sure Guerlain actually commissioned the book, but of course, they might have!
Actually, as V says below, it is surprising that there aren't more detailed volumes on Guerlain. Perhaps there are in French and I just don't know about them.
V, I would LOVE to have that Caron book!! Do you remember the price by any chance?
There is a book on Guerlain, published by Flammarion, author is Colette Fellous, that is as in-depth as the big Caron one. I bought my copy at the used books section of the French bookstore in Rockefeller Center in 1996. It is a “puff-piece” type book, but you get deeper descriptions of the main Guerlain scents & there are a lot of nice photos. It stops at Samsara. It's in French.
Thank you so much! Of course, if it is in French, it would take me months to read 🙂
Yes, it was around $80-90, but I saw it on Amazon for $40. Lovely book and definitely worth the prize.
$40 is not bad at all. May enter an automatic ebay search and give that a few weeks before I cave!