L’un des sens — a French wordplay on the term indecency — was originally the title of a magazine on olfaction and perfumery, edited by Sylvie de Chirée and Brigitt Hörlin, and published somewhere in the late ’80s. I don’t know whatever became of that magazine, but the clever title was re-used in 2001 by Marie-Christine Grasse, Elisabeth de Feydeau, and Freddy Ghozland for their book on 20th century perfumes. L’un des sens (2001) is perhaps best described as a ‘hardcopy’ slideshow: it’s a lavishly illustrated, chronological compilation of perfumes launched between 1900 and 2000, from Houbigant’s Parfum Idéal to Flowers by Kenzo.
A tribute to the beauty of modern perfumery, then. So is this just another coffee-table book? No, it’s more than that. L’un des sens is different from the titles we’ve discussed so far, in that it also celebrates the great women of the past century. After all, the authors argue, perfume has been associated with femininity for the largest part of the 20th century; and indeed, the growing use of perfume is in many ways related to the liberation of women from old social restraints (think of the Victorian era, for example)…