For a perfume lover, Grasse is Mecca. For a lover of Rochas Femme and the classic Diors, Art et Parfum in nearby Cabris is its Kaaba. Earlier this week, Denyse from Grain de Musc and I spent an idyllic day at Sainte Blanche, home of Art et Parfum and the estate of the late Edmond Roudnitska and now his son, nose Michel Roudnitska.
Before visiting Cabris, my visions of the hills rising off the Côte d’Azur came from To Catch a Thief. I didn’t see roadsters with gloved Grace Kellys and neckerchief-sporting Cary Grants, but the Grassois hillside was almost Disney-perfect. The view from our hotel encompassed clipped olive trees, cypresses, and red tile roofs rolling down to the Mediterranean miles in the distance. Flirtatious cats lounged everywhere. At night, frogs sang.
Sainte Blanche occupies a stretch of steep hillside just off one of the small, winding roads leading from Cabris. After Denyse leapt from the car and said something into an intercom, and the gates to the estate slowly swung open. I eased the rented Twingo down a narrow driveway and around to the rear of one of the two large, white stucco houses. One of the houses is Art et Parfum’s offices and laboratories, and the other is Michel Roudnitska’s private residence.
When Denyse arranged our visit, our hope was that Art et Parfum would be making the first commercial production of the concentrate of L’Artisan Parfumeur Séville à l’Aube that day. (For the inside story on the fragrance, be sure to read Denyse’s book, The Perfume Lover.) One of Art et Parfum’s functions is to blend the concentrates for high-end perfumes. The concentrates are then sent to larger facilities for dilution and bottling. Besides L’Artisan Parfumeur, Art et Parfum makes concentrates for Frapin, Parfums DelRae, Mona di Orio, and others. Unfortunately, all the pieces needed for the concentrate hadn’t come in yet, but it turned out there was plenty to see.
Art et Parfum’s director, Olivier Maure, emerged from the lab on the bottom floor of the house behind which we’d parked. Olivier started working at Art et Parfum in his late teens and now runs the place. He’s handsome in a kind, friendly way that makes you want to congratulate his parents on their good work. He’s a brunette, but a finger’s width of one eyebrow is white. The lines on his face are all smile lines, and he’s gratifyingly tolerant of visitors (me) with lame French language skills.
The air smelled of rich coconut. Gérard, the lab’s lead technician, was reconstituting organic vanilla paste in a liter-sized beaker on a heated pad in the lab next to where I'd parked. A magnet spun through the dark liquid. (“C’est la magique,” he said when I gawked at the magnet, which seemed to rotate of its own accord.) Shelves stacked with large containers of perfume materials took up most of the room.
I’ve seen living rooms larger than the Art et Parfum lab. In my mind’s eye, perfume production began in a factory on the outskirts of an industrial town, not in a room giving out to a sloping garden with turtledoves singing in the olive trees.
After a few minutes in the lab, Olivier led us into the garden Edmond Roudnitska carved into the hillside in the late 1940s when he bought Sainte Blanche. He plucked us Rose de Mai, lilac, peony, wild sage, wisteria, and thyme. (My notebook and copy of Nabokov’s Pale Fire now bulge with pressed flowers.) The morning air alternated cool and warm depending on the clouds. The garden was lovely and a touch wild, with weeds interspersing the occasional Iris Pallida.
Olivier showed us a tree with sweet-pea shaped flowers and told us how the blossom was structured so that when bees landed on it, pollen automatically deposited on their backs. (More bee lore compliments of Olivier: the queen bee secretes geraniol to signal other bees; and some beeswax used for perfume is oddly fragrant from being used over and over by bees to mummify and sanitize a hive’s invaders.) Art et Parfum’s connection to nature showed everywhere we looked.
Denyse and Olivier chattered in French while I, following about three-quarters of what they said, wandered along, stupefied by beauty and the marvel of being there.
And then we were at the legendary patch of lilies of the valley Edmond Roudnitska consulted as he created Christian Dior Diorissimo. They were in bloom! The patch is about four feet deep by ten feet wide and spreads across shady ground. It was easy to imagine Roudnitska’s lanky form kneeling in front of them (surely a much smaller patch at the time) and inhaling the green-fresh fragrance.
Tearing ourselves away from the muguet, we went into the house and Art et Parfum offices. But this post is too long already. Come back next week, same place, same time for part two.
Note: top image is PhotoNerds on Safari Assignment - Flower by hern42 at flickr; some rights reserved.
Oh my gosh, shivers are running up my spine as I imagine Roudnitska’s lily of the valley patch — the ur-Diorissimo! Thank you so much for bringing us along with you, Angela; it’s a privilege.
I wish you could have been there with me! It was truly wonderful.
with both you and Denyse going all gooey about Monsieur Olivier it’s about time one of you two posts an interview about his opinion on pre and postsocratric philosophical approaches to perfumery (and a teeny weeny picture of him would be extremely helpful for all more or less philosophically challenged readers)
You’re making me laugh! He’s such a handsome man in a comfortable, friendly way. I’m sure you would fall in love with him immediately, as would any sensible woman.
Thank you so much Angela for sharing your adventure! How I long to be in Provence to smell the blooms. When I go there in the summer, it’s mostly lavender that is in bloom. I am looking forward to reading more about your fragrant discoveries. I hope you weren’t troubled by the mistral whilst you were traveling.
No mistral to deal with yet! Now I’m in Languedoc, and the weather is tempestuous but generally good.
PBI There is no mistral in this part of the Riviera.
Thank you Angela! I had shivers too over the muguet. Can’t wait to read part 2.
I was so thrilled to see the muguet, too! It was pretty marvelous.
Thank you for sharing. I am looking forward to part two. By the way I got a sample of Mythique. On my skin a bit harsh in the beginning, but when it settles down it is a beautiful skin scent.
I’m sorry it’s harsh on your skin to begin with. For me, on my skin, it’s one of my good old stand-bys.
Hey, don’t feel sorry. It is all about skin chemistry, isn’t it? I will happily wear my sample
What a magnificent trip you had! All seems so picturesque, fragrant, beautiful
It really has been marvelous! I feel very lucky and wish you could be here too.
Oh my, this sounds positively mythic.
In my world, it definitely is!
Your trip sounds wonderful. I need a vacation like that someday. Can’t wait to read part 2. How awesome that you got to be around someone like that. A perfume celebrity.
It really was a privilege to be there–I feel very lucky.
I LOVE learning that my L’Artisans come from such a beautiful place! Also really grateful that they aren’t complaining about their more mundane urban home
Can’t wait for part 2!
I tell you, I’ll never look at my bottle of Nuit de Tubereuse the same! There’s something so nice knowing its heart came from such a friendly, beautiful place.
Amazing! Your writing is so beautiful it transported me there. I can’t wait for Part 2.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! I only wish everyone could have been there with me.
Angela, I can’t thank you enough for letting me live vicariously through you!! Look forward to more!
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Yes. Truly transporting. Thank you for this, Angela.
I’m glad you guys are around for me to tell the story to!
Oh, it’s almost like being there.
And it’s wonderful!
Thanks!
(that garden must have been heavenly smelling, and I love the tame “wilderness” you describe…just perfect!)
It really was wonderful! I like the mix of wild and controlled, too. (Although I admit that some of the”wild” in my own garden is due to laziness more than design.)
Not getting a vacation myself this year so loving this account vicariously. What an amazing opportunity!
I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been! I’m enjoying a writers retreat now, too, in a little town in Languedoc, up in the mountains. I just got back from a long, long walk with Homer, one of the village pooches. I rose this morning and grabbed a cup of coffee and went to wait for the bread truck with a bench full of elderly ladies and gents with their cotton bread bags and little old dogs. One of the gents, an 82-year old named Ernest, sold me some eggs from his hens and suggested we might get married if I didn’t have any better offers. He also proposed a nip of whiskey (at 10 in the morning!).
Aren’t French villages wonderful? I love the scene you describe. Bread, well food in general is so important in France, but in a good way. They will make an effort and will spend the money to get good food mostly.
Have a wonderful time there, and thank you for your posts.
I love the focus on good food and wine where I am. Everyone seems to have his or her own potager and chickens. One of the neighbors even keeps her own rabbits for meat.
I’ll echo responses above – evocative writing. Feels like I’m there. Thank you for this, Angela.
Oh – and my SOTD for today just happens to be vintage Femme!
Vintage Femme is perfect!
Ahhhh. Stupefied by beauty, indeed.
So, so glad you had the experience. Doubly glad you got to share it with us!
I’m glad to have the opportunity to share it!
Oh wonderful ,Angela !
Diorissimo – le sigh ! Both you and Denyse must have had a beautiful day .
I bought the EDP version as well as the EDT and extrait of Diorissimo – all new versions.
My favorite remains the EDT – truest it to the original . Mr. Demachy has put tuberose into the EDP though not listed in the notes – I am getting tuberose and the buttery tuberose whacks the gentle character of Diorissimo severely on the head. Very odd choice of flower for Diorissimo IMHO .
Uh oh. It sounds like it has really changed. Lily of the valley is definitely not tuberose.
Angela – I bought the EDP blind – so much faith ! Huh .
The way I see the EDP is Diorssimo ( kind of ) and tuberose tacked on the back of it . The note is too strong to me and out of place. Surely there must have been another way to amped up the volume , interest etc and keep the character of the scent. I understand Francois Demachy loves his ‘carnal flowers’ but I think Diorissimo is not one of those scents that needs a whopping big indolic tuberose in it.
I haven’t smelled the EdP, but I just can’t imagine tuberose playing well with lily of the valley if the LOTV is supposed to be the star. Too bad!
All I can say is, you lucky DOG!!!!!
I can’t disagree!