22 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
This week saw a new perfume launch from the niche house of Régime des Fleurs: Little Flower, a collaboration with actor and style icon Chloë Sevigny.
I’ve admired Chloë’s work — and her taste in fashion, design, and fragance — since the 90s, so I felt compelled to attend the launch event at Dover Street Market’s Manhattan location.
Here are a few of my photos from the event…
21 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in Passing Fancies
Tags
Reading: Re-reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Starting Clarice Lispector’s The Besieged City, a Boxwalla selection.
Audio: I’m starting to listen to some fashion history podcasts.
Video: “The Great Hack” on Netflix
Art: Radical Love at the Ford Foundation Gallery
19 Monday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
Tags
perfume, dawn spencer hurwitz, hilde soliani, tom ford, cherries, blackbird perfumes, lolita lempicka, cartier
Once in a while someone asks me my opinion about Tom Ford fragrances. Let me try to summarize: I think some of them are excellent. I think some of them are boring. I think all of them are overpriced. And I won’t buy (or review) any of them anyway, because I choose to reject Tom Ford’s branding and marketing.
I’ve heard that Tom Ford Lost Cherry is worth trying, and I’ll get around to smelling it eventually, just for reference. In the meantime, I’d like to mention a few other cherry-inspired perfumes that are worth seeking out.
15 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in Books and Scent
Tags
I’m rereading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (in order to fix it in my mind before the movie adaptation is released next month), and I just stopped to savor this sentence:
“After school, amidst the drowsy tick of the tall-case clocks, [Hobie] taught me the pore and luster of different woods, their colors, the ripple and gloss of tiger maple and the frothed grain of burled walnut, their weights in my hand and even their different scents — ‘sometimes, when you’re not sure what you have, it’s easiest just to take a sniff’ — spicy mahogany, dusty-smelling oak, black cherry with its characteristic tang and the flowery, amber-resin smell of rosewood.”
Donna Tartt is a secret (or not-so-secret?) scent-obsessive…
09 Friday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
My latest post on Now Smell This is a review of Portrayal, a fragrance for women by Amouage.
You can read it here.
07 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in Oh Really
Photo taken today by me.
Roughly ten times per week, I pass the site of the former 1 and 2 World Trade Center, commonly and fondly known as the “Twin Towers” from 1973 to 2001.
I’ve never entered the new One World Trade Center building (constructed on that spot from 2006 to 2014) — not for business, and certainly not for pleasure. I’ve never been tempted, not even once, to visit its One World Observatory (opened in 2015).
02 Friday Aug 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
My latest post on Now Smell This is a fragrance review of Maison Martin Margiela REPLICA Whispers in the Library.
You can read it here.
01 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in Classes and Lectures
I’ve just added a brand-new class to my list! It focuses on two perfumes that were released a century ago: Guerlain Mitsouko and Caron Tabac Blond. As usual, this will be a cross-media “show and smell.” It’s taking place at the Brooklyn Brainery on Thursday, September 5, 2019.
You can find more information on the Brooklyn Brainery website.
29 Monday Jul 2019
Posted in Perfume Reviews
In honor of National Lipstick Day, here’s my favorite lipstick-inspired fragrance. It has been imitated by other brands but no one has improved upon this beauty. It was created for Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle by Ralf Schwieger in 2000 and its notes include grapefruit, violet, rose, iris, raspberry, vanilla and white musk.
