06 Thursday Dec 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
I filed away this Caron advertisement from 1940 a while ago, not just because I liked it, but because I had a feeling that its imagery was borrowed from some earlier work of art. Yesterday, in a completely unrelated search, I came across the source…
29 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in Perfume Reviews, Uncategorized
Maybe I’m just in a nostalgic mood these days—then again, when am I NOT in a nostalgic mood? A few weeks ago I wrote a short post about Brideshead Revisited and its wine-tasting scene. Now I’m thinking about the film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun.
Christie’s murdery-mystery novel Evil Under the Sun was published in 1941 and this film was released in 1981. It was directed by Guy Hamilton, with a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote two other Christie screen adaptations, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). Peter Ustinov played Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective who (as always) cracks the case.
19 Monday Nov 2018
Posted in Oh Really
Tags
ayala moriel, dawn spencer hurwitz, hiram green, natural fragrance, natural perfume, new york times, perfume, providence perfume company, velvet & sweet pea
Flipping through the Sunday New York Times, I came across a short profile of Marie-Lise Jonak and Baptiste Bouygues, the mother-and-son team behind the new perfume brand Ormaie. The full article is available online, as “Brand to Know: A Line of All-Natural Perfumes, Made by a Mother and Son.”
For me, the packaging is the most interesting aspect of Ormaie’s story—see the photo above! The bottles and labels are classic French elegance, while the beechwood tops are fun nods to the work of Ettore Sottsass and other postmodern designers.
However, the Times (especially in the print version) focused on topic of all-natural perfumery…
12 Monday Nov 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
U.S. Sailors and Marines from the USS Iowa on shore leave shop for perfume in Bermuda, circa 1943. (Photo by Ivan Dmitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
03 Wednesday Oct 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
I’m still distressed by the news that Henri Bendel will be shut down in January 2019 by its owner, L Brands, due to low profits. Last week I took a look back at The Gilded Cage, Henri Bendel’s shop-within-a-shop for perfumes and cosmetics. Today I’ll share five memories of Bendel from my own scented timeline.
04 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
Tags
For those of you returning to school this week (as student or as teacher) or for any of you embarking on a new research or writing project this fall—here’s a magazine advertisement for Revlon’s Intimate. This perfume was released in 1955 but the ad seems to date to the early-1960s.
Wishing you luck as you hit the books this fall!
29 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
My husband and I recently went to see the new documentary McQueen. I’ve been an admirer of Alexander McQueen’s work for a long time—even before his death in 2010. In 2011 I was a frequent visitor to “Savage Beauty,” the retrospective exhibition of Alexander McQueen’s designs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I’m still haunted by McQueen’s artistry and the magical way it was showcased there…
26 Tuesday Jun 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
Tags
In honor of June—the month of roses—and as a birthday card to myself, here’s a vintage advertisement for Caron’s La Fête des Roses!
14 Monday May 2018
Posted in Classes and Lectures
I’ve just added a lecture to my schedule… I’ll be speaking about classic perfumes on July 19, as part of the “Hamilton Lectures” series in Manhattan.
For information and tickets ($40 each) to this “show & smell,” visit the Hamilton Lectures website.
Hope to see a few of you there!
