The SWINTON’s birthday* edition of the cold weather version of our summer reading poll: tell us about a great book to curl up with on a frosty winter night, and what fragrance we should wear while reading it.
Extra credit: scent Tilda Swinton, or one of her movie characters. No points shall be awarded for mentions of the obvious, Like This!
Bonus reading: Tilda Swinton’s 10 favorite books and her 2015 summer reading list…
Like This, the fragrance collaboration between actor Tilda Swinton and niche perfume house Etat Libre d’Orange, recently launched in the United States. Etat Libre’s founder, Etienne de Swardt, made appearances at New London Pharmacy and Henri Bendel to introduce the fragrance and to reveal more facts about Like This; for example, its “code name” as a work-in-progress was “Immortal Ginger.” And the final name, in addition to being borrowed from a poem by Rumi, is a bit of wordplay on Tilda Swinton’s request for a “cozy” scent, since the sound-alike Italian word “così” translates as “like this.”
Tilda Swinton herself made a visit to Henri Bendel on June 17. I was able to speak with her for a few precious minutes…
Actress Tilda Swinton will be at Henri Bendel in New York City on Thursday, June 17 from 5 to 7 pm to introduce her fragrance, Etat Libre d'Orange Like This. (via press release)
Yellow mandarin, ginger, pumpkin accord, immortelle, Moroccan neroli, rose de Grasse, vetiver, heliotrope, and musk. These are the notes of Like This, the latest fragrance from Etat Libre d’Orange. Sounds like a train wreck, doesn’t it? It’s not. Like a vintage Harris tweed woven with threads of pea green, turquoise, putty, and aubergine, it sounds scary but makes a gorgeous blend: untraditional, yet natural — even inevitable — once you experience it.
Inspired by Tilda Swinton and a poem from Rumi, perfumer Mathilde Bijaoui created Like This. Both Swinton and Rumi set a mighty high bar. The Rumi poem talks about the Resurrection and the fragrance of God, as well as relatively minor things like the sky and love. He is such a popular poet and philosopher that quotes from his work probably show up more often than anyone else’s as part of the automatic signature line on emails. Swinton has blazed a singular artistic path of intelligence, sensitivity, and almost extraterrestrial beauty. (April is National Poetry Month. Do yourself a favor and click over to the Etat Libre d’Orange website to hear Swinton read the Rumi poem.)
I imagine Bijaoui looking at the Etat Libre brief, trying to come up with some common theme between the redheaded Swinton and Rumi and hitting on Orange. Orange hair, the orange of the sun, saffron monastic robes, fading day. Then, with this visual inspiration she found a way to connect orange scents: pumpkin, neroli, mandarin, immortelle, and ginger. The crazy thing is, it works…
Etat Libre d’Orange will launch their second celebrity fragrance this March. Tilda Swinton Like This follows 2007’s Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection…