First up, two videos (one is below the jump) about Frédéric Malle’s new boutique in the Marais district of Paris. The boutique was designed by the architecture firm of Jakob + MacFarlane (and there is an article with lots of pictures at designboom).
Below those, first, a video telling the story behind the brand. Below that, perfumer Michel Roudnitska talks about Le Parfum de Thérèse, created by his father, Edmond Roudnitska.
Edmond Roudnitska's masterpiece, Eau Sauvage, is half a century old. Warning: smoking, and animated, Gruau-inspired nudity.
You have to realize that I never knew my grandfather, who was the founder of Parfums Christian Dior. [...] Obviously Diorling, Diorama, Eau Fraiche — which is a very nice fragrance — and Diorissimo, which is of course probably the best of that bunch, were made between my grandfather and Monsieur [Edmond] Roudnitska. My mother worked with him on Eau Sauvage and on a very, very good fragrance called Diorella. It didn’t enjoy the same success [as the others] but it is one of the best fragrances ever released by Dior. So working with Roudnitska for me — and it wasn’t really working with him because he had already passed away when we launched it — and connecting with Madame Roudnitska was very emotional for me.
— Frédéric Malle, talking about his brand's release of Le Parfum de Thérèse. Read more at Perfumer Frédéric Malle: Matchmaker Extraordinaire at The St. Petersburg Times.
Having appropriated most American technologies, cultural tics and lifestyle choices, Canadians feel we know a lot about our neighbors (neighbours!1) to the south and we tend to be quite sensitive about a perceived lack of knowledge on the other end. Canadian comedian Rick Mercer, a national hero of sorts, came to prominence with a series of television clips called Talking to Americans, where he poked gentle fun at this relationship by interviewing ordinary Americans on the street — in addition to people like George W. Bush2, David Hasselhoff and a Harvard Professor of International Relations — and getting them to do silly things on camera: to congratulate Canucks on converting to a 24-hour clock (from a 20-hour one)3, to sign a petition trying to stop the planned polar bear slaughters in Toronto, or to sing along with a completely fabricated Canadian national anthem. Once, I had an encounter in Buffalo, NY that felt like a Mercer moment: I struck up a conversation with the gentleman beside me at the mall, who turned out to believe that Canadians did not experience summer. “But I live an hour or so away from here,” I kept explaining to him. “We have summer! We have the same climate as you do!” I could not convince him…
I first encountered Eau d’Hermès at a huge perfume emporium in Tijuana, Mexico, when I was very young. I sniffed Eau d’Hermès and recoiled, thinking: “It smells filthy!” Over a decade later, on a whim, and at a steep discount, I up and bought a bottle of Eau d’Hermès. I hadn’t smelled it since Tijuana, and this time I loved it. Perhaps age (and feverish buying and sampling of fragrances for years and years) had altered my opinions of ‘difficult’ perfumes and helped me appreciate the “underside” of fragrances: the musks, the indoles, the rude spices.
Legend has it that perfumer Edmond Roudnitska aimed to capture the scent of an Hermès handbag, its insides, with Eau d’Hermès. Right now, I’m retiring my own “handbag” — a big black leather thing that I’ve had for at least fifteen years. My bag used to be handsome, “fit” and trim; now its zippers are failing, it’s more gray than black, and it’s “flabby” after years of being stuffed with my stuff. I call it my Blood (it’s been to the hospital with me many times), Sweat (so many trips to hot places) and Tears (lots of losses occur in fifteen years) Bag…