When I was 11, I shared a bedroom with my sister in a singlewide trailer in the country. On the wall above my bed I’d tacked up a poster I thought was truly beautiful: three fluffy, gray kittens sitting in a purple basket. By the time I was in high school, the kittens seemed cheap and precious. I was ready to move on to beauty that was a little less predictable, even if just to a Renoir poster of a girl with a kitten. Perfume is like that, too.
Beauty without ugliness is boring. For instance, grown-up versions of the kitty poster are the paintings of fire-lit cottages strung with wisteria that you see in malls. You look at them, you know what they are about, and you are done with them. They can’t engage you or hold your interest. Lucien Freud once said "I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be." Maybe that’s why his paintings are so beautiful — they are true, so they contain ugliness, even if it is ugliness managed by a genius. But that’s what gives them soul. (Wouldn’t you love to see Lucien Freud and that mall painter guy talking art?)
Except maybe for single flower compositions, perfume is more abstract than figurative painting. Still, the idea of creating beauty through imperfection is valid as ever. Imagine Annick Goutal Songes without the funkiness of the indolic jasmine. It would be pretty, but after a few sniffs you might lose interest. It’s that hint of a strange, almost cumin-like odor that hooks me. The disturbing, animalic base of Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therèse is a big part of what makes it so beautiful. Serge Lutens has taken this principle to a whole new dimension by lacing many of his fragrances with skank or galling sweetness, but without them his perfumes would lose much of their beauty. As balanced as they might be, they would be unremarkable.
For me, real beauty is messy and unexpected, often intimidating, sometimes quotidian, sometimes disturbing. As I experience more in life, my perception of beauty grows deeper. The crows clustering on power lines across from the body shop are beautiful. The demanding leather of Jean Desprez Bal à Versailles (bordering on the smell of the stuff the bus driver used to sprinkle when a kid threw up on the bus) is beautiful. The goofily leering Paul Bunyan statue on the north side of town is beautiful, as is the rhythmic chopping of the sprinkler at the schoolyard. And let’s not forget Mitsouko.
Note: image is Ragazza Con Gattino, 1947, Lucien Freud, via palazzoruspoli.it.
What a great article. You have chosen perfect scents as examples. It was a pleasure to read!
Yes!!! Bal a Versailles!!! My world would be a smaller, less interesting place without it.
Funky smells. Jicky. The wretched cumin in SL Oranger. The unspeakable Borneo. Bandit. Le Labo Vetiver.
My new love: CB I Hate Perfumes' brand-new Musk Reinvention. It is LOVELY, but buried in there is a note of pure buttcrack. Layered with Montale Jasmin Full it is so outrageous it should be illegal.
Thank you! I know you have a reputation for liking a little skank mixed with your beauty (for an even greater beauty) so I especially appreciate your comment.
“…note of pure buttcrack”–perfect! I've always thought Jicky smelled like a dead squirrel. Borneo smells like maple syrup on gym socks for a few minutes, but how I love it. I'll have to try Musk Reinvention and I still haven't tried Le Labo Vetiver. So much hideous beauty, so little time.
What an amazing painting…is she holding that kitten or strangling it?
There are many beautiful-ugly perfumes I love to sniff. There aren't many I actually wear, though!
I love the wispy hairs on her head. Robin chose a great image for the article. I know what you mean about beautiful-ugly perfumes–they're an acquired taste, like stinky cheeses. Still, there are lots of mostly beautiful perfumes with just an alluring touch of ugliness to keep you interested. I think a lot of chypres are like that.
You're back A, and with a wonderful article! I've always enjoyed the aesthetics of ugly more than purebred beauty, which does not mean I don't appreciate the latter. Like you and today's commenters, for something to move me deeply, both emotionally and intellectually, it's got to be disturbing, haunting, edgy or even shocking. Habit Rouge, which I'm wearing today, would be merely a spicy vanilla citrus (a good one, mind you) if it weren't for that dead squirrel you mention 😉 A*Men (aka Angel Dude) was an acquired taste for me as it took me a while to get past the disturbing, sweat-reminiscent combo of tar and patch. For the same reason I love Tilda Swinton, with her waiflike masculine physique, or Munch's disturbing lifelike paintings.
Anyways, how is the libretto writing going? 😉
How often am I allowed to say “disturbing”? Geez, I'm off to find a thesaurus…
Yes, Tilda Swinton is definitely gorgeous. All these women who cleave to the standard blond hair and botoxed brow? I don't get it. I think it's part of the reason I like vintage fragrances so much. A scent like Colony is surprising, even a little shocking, these days, but it definitely makes you pay attention.
As for the libretto, I'm working on the Chorus of the Lemmings now. I expect there will be a lot of ugly mixed in with this one!
Well, “disturbing” is a good word!
I thought Le Feu de Issey was pretty funky. I love wearing only once in a while. Also, some of the Fig fragrances out there are pretty skanky but I do like the fig fragrance by Aqua di Palma!!! Ugly-beautiful perfumes are not my thing, but I can appreciate its place in the fragrance heirachy!
“The Chorus of the Lemmings” is just cracking me up. I fear it will be an awfully poignant and, naturally, very disturbing chorus 😀
I'm adding Isabelle Huppert and Cate Blanchett to the list of gorgeous women…
Skank. Funk. Forgotten, subconscious nether regions.
Gotta have the skank in literature — without an antagonist the protagonist would be b.o.r.i.n.g. Ditto music — pretty stuff, from classical, to country, puts me to sleep, but throw in some tension and dissonance or wacky lyrics and I'm right there…
I bet, though, that if you took your favorite perfume and examined what keeps you coming back to it, it might be something that's a little I-don't-know-what that keeps you lifting your wrist to your nose and sniffing again and again. That slight and genius-ly calculated misstep in the scent is what I'm calling the ugliness. (Or, of course, I could be full of hot water!) What is your favorite perfume these days?
Don't forget Chloe Sevigny and Sophia Loren!
Yes yes yes! I so agree about literature and music. Sometimes, too, putting the pretty in an unexpected context is a good way to create a bigger beauty. Like driving a beat-up pick up truck while listening to the Queen of the Night's famous aria in the Magic Flute.
Is that what holds our attention, Angela? A bit of the ugly, or let's say a dissonant note in something that makes a person, a painting, even a perfume more beautiful and interesting? I think you may be right!
How can one compare the banal paintings of Thomas Kinkade to a masterpiece by VanGogh? Let's face it, the former is a hack. The latter was a genius.
I think all girls want to be “pretty.” But it takes a lot of confidence (or maybe you just get plain fed-up with the dictates of how a girl should look) to be your own unique and beautiful self.
The same is true with perfume. I used to go for just pretty. There are so many “pretty” fragrances out there. But after awhile, I became bored with the same old mall-o-rama fragrances.
Today I am wearing Patou 1000, and underneath the lovely florals, there is something darker undulating deep down in the base that makes this one a classic stunner.
Hugs, and thank you for this thought-provoking, and beautiful, post.
Ahhh…The one fragrance that kept my wrist to my nose (I don't own a bottle of it..) is Ralph Lauren Turquoise! Its a weird marine fragrance that I would probably never wear but its a strange fragrance. Though, I love Lauren Blue!!!! Very watery and soft.
Right now, I'm wearing Agent Provacatuer eau emotionelle and Vera Wang. But I'm looking for a musky soft fall fragrance. Any ideas?
That tantalizing weirdness…irresistible. As for a soft musky fall fragrance, I'm not sure. Is the SJP Lovely too girly for you? It has a nice, gentle musk. I'm looking forward to some powerful cedar as soon as it gets cooler with L'Air du desert marocain, and, of course, my beloved Dzing.
Your comment is a perfect summation of the article! In fact, if I had somehow magically had the comment before the article was written, I could have published it instead, it's so on point. And I agree 100% (should I say 1000%?) about the Patou. Makes me long for some right now.
I think this is what Luca Turin was talking about on his blog, the most difficult thing to do in art: deliberate damage. He was writing of Opium, which apparently succeeded in the world of beautiful but undistinguished spices because of a minty note that was “unexpected as a plastic duck in a bag of brown sugar”. (I love that guy!) There are any number of perfumes I enjoy because you go: “Raisins?!?” (Here substitute prunes, pee, salt, cheese, vitamin pills or cough syrup, dirt, basmati rice, toe nails, frying oil, camel poo – of course only I seem to get that in Chergui – various rubber products, carrots or deceased squirrels.)
So many of the beautiful women of famous paintings have that pearly blue, deadish cast to them. And as far as literature goes, it reminds me of E.L Doctrow's comment about Ellison's Invisible Man being a “monumental, hammered-out novel of perfected technical mistakes”. One of my favourite book in this regard is Helen DeWitt's “The Last Samurai”. I've always wondered what Sibylla, the eccentirc mother of the story, would wear.
It just dawned on me that Sibylla comments on this very phenomenon. She calls a character of the book “Liberace” because of his technical, soul-less perfection at his profession. No “mistakes” to catch the attention. Like the idea that many great poets (I always notice this in Whitman, Hardy, and Frank O'Hara) include one total clunker of a line in each poem.
Consider Joy, unquestionably one of the greatest perfumes of the 20th century. It is not easy to love: definitely very indolic and “funky” thanks to all that Grasse jasmine. That puts a lot of modern consumers off. But I would not have it any other way.
What a great post, Angela. Jolie-laid, the dual nature of authentic beauty. xoxo
Nowadays, Liberace is perfect in his unblemished kitchiness! Technical perfection in a piano concerto sounds dead and reminds me of a recital of junior high school music students I went to last summer where one of the students, clearly the most advanced, hammered away at a piece by Mozart and hit every note on the head. She looked bored while she was playing–almost congratulating herself on her ability to whiz through the piece–and I was bored listening. Give me the choppy version of the Linus song from Peanuts any day.
I remember the Luca bit about spices being too nice (but I'm remembering Cinnabar rather than Opium, maybe because I once had a bottle of it). So true.
I'm tempted to add my two cents on poets, too (Gerard Manley Hopkins' deliberate creation of almost-words “wanwood leafmeal lies”) but this is already such a long comment! Thanks for your comments.
I agree. Appreciating the complexity–including the calculated discord–of a beautiful fragrance requires experience and an open mind. But what a reward!
Thank you! After all, who is more beautiful, Angelica Houston or Morgan Fairchild (to pluck a few of a “certain age”)? I know where my vote is.
Thank you, this is really a lovely article, Angela. Give me ugly sexy over handsome in a man any day…same goes with my perfumes and the other things I find truly beautiful in life. Beautifully put, again, thank you.
I'm definitely with you on the man point. This must be why Serge Gainsbourg got all those gorgeous women: Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Birkin, and lord knows who else.
I love Anjelica Huston! I think she is the most striking, marvelous woman. I'm so glad you wrote that, Angela.
I used to be a champion speller, really. I've noticed over the past few months that I can't visualize words as well anymore, including–very embarrassingly–Anjelica Huston! I knew it wasn't right when I wrote it, but I couldn't figure it out. Overexposure to oakmoss? Lack of gingko bilboa? Sorry, Anjelica!
SJP Lovely is nice. I think I'll wait for the new one, Lovely Satin which comes out this fall!!! As for girly, I think Agent Provocateur and Vera Wang are sort of girly… I gotta look for and try this Dzing I keep hearing about!
There is a quotation that I've always loved, and while its provenance escapes me at the moment, it really seems to fit here. The author is describing a jolie-laide woman, and he uses the phrase “the perfection of her imperfections”. Does that not just hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head?
It sure does!
finally delurking 'cos I had to comment on this amazing article! Give me jolie-laide beauty in life and in fragrance, over one-dimensional greeting card pretty anytime…
Welcome, and thank you! The world is so much richer when you can see the beauty in that which isn't perfect.