At last, you find a fragrance that you can’t wait to put on in the morning. It’s fresh but interesting, light but present. It smells like you and how you want to feel every day. One morning, you spritz the last from your bottle and hie to the store to buy a replacement, and….it isn’t there. The fragrance is no longer being made.
What now? Here are the steps I’d follow to get my hands on more of my Holy Grail…
Winter is a great time to wear vintage fragrance. Something about the gorgeous-yet-unfashionable waft of an old perfume is perfect when the wind bites at your face and you’re swaddled in wool. In my opinion, wood fires, old movies and long nights all deepen with a vintage fragrance on your wrist.
Here are my top ten fragrances for winter, each at least 50 years old. If you’re new to vintage fragrance, you might be put off by how hard they can be to “read.” Let me warn you, though, once you get a taste for them, they can be addicting. I look forward to hearing about your favorite winter fragrances — vintage or not — in the comments. If you can think of modern takes on these fragrances, please comment! And do check out the winter lists at Bois de Jasmin, Grain de Musc and Perfume Posse…
It’s been a long time since a new Guerlain fragrance tempted me. Even Guerlain old timers have fallen out of favor. I’ve found vetiver perfumes I prefer to Guerlain Vétiver. Mitsouko is now used in my house more as a home fragrance than a perfume to put on my person. Jicky don’t smell like Jicky no more (sounds like the title of a 1920s song, doesn’t it?) The only Guerlain survivors pour moi are Habit Rouge and Les Eaux — Eau de Cologne Impériale, Eau de Cologne du Coq, Eau de Fleurs de Cédrat and Eau de Guerlain.
I came across (and bought) a small bottle of Guerlain’s 1911 Pour Troubler1 Extrait years ago…
For me, vintage clothing falls into two categories. The first category includes dresses that make a statement because of their obviously unfashionable color, print, and/or cut.1 A Nixon-era shift in a daisy print might fit here, or a full-skirted 1950s day dress. The second category encompasses clothing that seems just a bit out of style from its color or hemline, but that’s easily absorbed into a modern wardrobe. Examples here would be a 1970s saddle leather handbag or a vintage cashmere twin set. The quality of the bag tells you it’s no modern-day mall purchase, and the offbeat robin’s-egg blue of the cashmere cardigan reads more as Doris Day than Taylor Swift, but is easily worn with whatever pair of pants you pull out of your closet.
Galanos from Parfums Galanos fits neatly into the second category…
Pardon the name-drop, but a little more than three years ago, through a lucky set of circumstances, I met Thomas Fontaine, the Jean Patou house perfumer.1 For me, it was an amazing afternoon of seeing what a real perfumer’s lab looks like, tasting jasmine and rose Pierre Hermé macarons, and talking fragrance with someone who lives and breathes a world I’ve mostly only read about.
One thing in particular sticks in my memory. Talking about Joy, Fontaine mentioned walking past women — mostly older women — in the street and inhaling their lush, complex sillage, “like a fur.” He described this style of fragrance as “old fashioned.” I bet Fontaine would say the same thing about Moment Suprême…