Solid gold creativity

One of my closest friends was born in Russia.  Soon after we met she told me about the first trip she’d made out of Russia.  It happened when she was studying science at Moscow University and was invited to a conference in the US.

She told me how when she arrived in the US she was overwhelmed; not so much by the sights and the people, as by the smells.  It was “the smell of the West,” she said, and it wasn’t until later, after she’d migrated to Australia, that she worked out what that smell consisted of.  It was the smell of “Radiant and Omo”; the laundry powder and deodorant and the scores of smelling-things we are heir to in our society.

And if the smell of the West was overwhelming to an uninitiated nose in the late 80s, it’s only become more strident since.  In fact, we are being subjected to a kind of smell overload in the present.  Most of it is a toxic mélange of stabilisers, preservatives and other chemicals found in personal hygiene products, cleaning products, furniture, paper, clothing, and so on.

This past winter, for example, I had to give up wearing the Italian net stockings I’ve worn for years because they smell of chemicals when I take them out of the packet, and the smell doesn’t diminish even after 3 or 4 washings.

This is why a perfumer like Serge Lutens, whom I mentioned the other day, can say we’re being virtually “embalmed.” And why a perfumer like Emma Leah of Fleurage is predicting a turn away from mainstream, synthetic perfumes towards essential oils and botanically-derived perfumes.

Happily, Emma produces just such natural perfumes in her showroom and workshop in Prahran, Melbourne, which is where I spent a very cosy time last week sampling, in particular, a chypre made to a 150-year old recipe.

The chypre family of perfume is probably the most distinctive of all.  The combination of animalic, mossy/woody and citrus elements shouldn’t perhaps work; yet by the curious alchemy of “high perfume,” the combination gives rise to a smell that is, paradoxically, ultra-classic and ultra-abstract.

Most perfume aficionados, by definition, will be aficionados of chypre.  Because of this classicism and abstraction.  And because of the semi-mythical story of the perfume created by François Coty in 1917: the original Chypre, the progenitor, as it were, of all similar perfumes, including those made before 1917.

Such was the fame and success of Coty’s Chypre that it’s become the yardstick by which all perfumes are judged by aficionados: the promise — eternally undelivered, eternally renewed — that one day there may be another perfume of its mythic status.

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For these reasons, I had a great time at Fleurage with Emma’s Chypre which, I want to state plainly here and now, is so much grander, richer and truer than my weirdo 31 Rue Cambon.

Emma also kindly contributed a suggestion to the itinerary of my Grand Perfume Tour in May: to the house of Caron in Paris to decant a sample from their famous Baccarat crystal samovars filled with perfume.  This sounds so compelling it’s gone straight to the top of my list.

To purchase Emma’s classic, natural perfumes, or to participate in one of her perfume courses in 2010, visit the Fleurage showroom and workshop at 4C Cecil Place, Prahran, tel: +61 3 9533 8657.

And check out the Fleurage website here: http://www.fleurage-natural-perfume.com.au/

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Image: Women performing enfleurage, the method, virtually abandoned nowadays, of strewing flowers on glass trays coated in animal fat until the fat becomes saturated with the fragrant oil of the flowers (in the Fragonard perfumery in Grasse) (top)