One from the Vault: Fendi Theorema

It took me a while with Theorema. I think I needed to smell other things first. A lot of other things. I don't think my frame of reference was wide enough at the time. Theorema seemed too sugared for my taste. There was something candied about it, I thought, which placed it alongside some of those department store celebrity fragrances which seem more like a dessert plate than a perfume. It seems strange to me now, that I had a full bottle of impossible to find Theorema and blithely gave it away. What was I thinking?

Released in 1999 (or 98, depending on source), Theorema wasn't exactly ahead of its time, when you look at the territory Serge Lutens had already traversed. But it was certainly unlike most of its neighboring fare at the mall. Some of the releases contemporary to it were: J'Adore, Allure, Rush, Baby Doll, Jaipur Saphir, and YSL Vice Versa. Aside from Allure, which shares vanillic qualities with it, Theorema stood alone. Even Allure's similarity ended with the word vanilla, as its treatment of the note took it in an entirely different direction. While not particularly edible, Allure emphasizes the gourmand bombast of vanilla, creating the impression of considerable density. Theorema explores the woodier facets of the pod, its results more lucid, if not transparent.

Organza Indecence also came out in 1999, and has more in common with Theorema than any mass release of that year (or many others). Interesting to see how Organza Indecence has persisted, if not thrived in the marketplace, while Theorema is now extinct. With a pronounced influence of plum, Organza Indecence is much fruitier, but both fragrances spread themselves out against a backdrop of sweet-spicy cinnamon and damp overturned-earth patchouli.

Theorema's top notes read like a perforated Lutens pyramid. Nutmeg, pepper, orange, rosewood. Its heart notes are classic old school oriental perfumery: ylang ylang, carnation, rose, and cinnamon. These middle notes place it in company, at least in spirit, with Opium, Asja (also Fendi) and Cinnabar. The base notes add to patchouli touches of benzoin, sandal, and labdanum. You can see the influence of Shiseido's Feminite du Bois throughout Theorema's carefully judged stages; specifically, its woody resins and sweet, semi-stewed mellow ambience. More than Lutens, even, I see a real resemblance to the work of Pierre Guillaume of Parfumerie Generale. Theorema is the distant ancestor of Un Crime Exotique, most notably, and I think diffuses more like a PG fragrance than a Lutens, going wider rather than deeper as it makes its way through the senses and the room.

Theorema now seems far less sugary than I once thought. I can't say why. It might be that I'm more familiar not just with a broader array of perfume in general but with more of perfumer Christine Nagel's work specifically. Her Ambre Soie for Armani's Prive collection is a step through the looking glass from Theorema, with that same strange burnt sugar quality. It came just four or five years after Theorema, but was much more at home in an exclusive, niche-like collection. Dolce and Gabbana The One (2006) is an adaptation of this style to a more commercial application. Rose Absolue for Yves Rocher (2006) and Mille et Une Roses for Lancome (1999) feel like the same perfumer working out the same sentence in different languages.

Theorema is difficult to find. I haven't tried the Leggero version. I'd be interested in hearing from someone who has.

The Bright Side: Things I'm Looking Forward To

So there's bad news (no more quarterly installments from Perfumes: the Guide) but, hey, cheer up, there's plenty of good news, too. The fragrance industry is full of same old /same old (Another fruity floral--for moi? You...shouldn't have.) but every once in a while there are little glimmers of hope which manage to capture my attention. Here's where I'm finding the silver lining lately:

YSL Parisienne

I'm a big fan of Paris. Dirty secret: I layer the edp with patchouli (Patchouli Antique, Molinard, Comme des Garçons Luxe, Demeter). As anyone who even cursorily scans this blog knows, I'm an even bigger Sophia Grojsman fan. So the news that Paris is being updated or reinterpreted is music to my ears. There have been flankers (between 1999 and 2007: Paris Premieres Roses, Paris Roses de Bois, Paris Roses Enchantees, Paris Roses des Vergers Springtime, Paris Jardins Romantiques, and, more remotely affiliated, Baby Doll Paris) and others outside the corporate auspices of YSL have tried to approximate the original's greatness, but nothing comes close to that dew-drenched, violet colored rose marinated in wine.

I might be very much bored by yet another mainstream rose release, were it not for the participation of Grojsman. I'm not yet sure what kind of influence collaborator Sophie Labbe will have on the fragrance. I haven't been crazy about much if anything she's done up to now. But the description gets my mind racing. Damask rose, violet, peony, patchouli, and vetiver are nothing to shout about. But "a vinyl accord evoking metal gloss and varnish"? Someone's been paying attention to the more avant garde sectors of niche perfumery. While I doubt Parisienne will be anything close to Secretions Magnifiques, it is at least embracing an imaginative arena which moves beyond the tried and true, welcoming a broader range of fantasy projection from its consumer.

Halston

I have several bottles of Halston, and like them all, though I do notice differences. I have what appears to be parfum extrait from the early eighties, a cologne from a little later, and an edt I purchased last year at the mall for twenty bucks. Bernard Chant is credited with the original Halston, which I remember fondly from 1975. My sister and her friends wore it, and for a long time I couldn't smell it without conjuring a vision of her pink calico canopy bed. Regardless, it seemed very adult to me at the time--picture Carol King's Tapestry album playing in the background (everyone was listening to it; did any of us have a clue what she was really talking about?) --more so than Anais Anais, which came out three years later and seemed practically juvenile by comparison, custom made to match my sister's teenage bedroom decor.

The trend for reviving old fragrances with newer materials and a different, more ostensibly modern approach reminds me of the film industry's penchant for remaking classics. Sometimes the talent and the magic are there, and the results are a welcome surprise (see, say, Down and Out in Beverly Hills). Sometimes, you get a shrill, grasping approximation, an attempt to fix what wasn't broken (see Annette Benning and Meg Ryan in The Women, or Steve Carell in Get Smart). The Halston I know and love--all versions--is or was wonderfully woody, with weird herbal, mossy, and floral streaks zig-zagging through its structure and a bedrock warmth unique to Chant.

Elizabeth Arden now holds the license to market Halston fragrances, and has appointed perfumer Carlos Benaim to refashion the original Halston perfume--as a floriental. I don't remember anything like black currant in Bernard Chant's chypre, but this combination might just do the trick of approaching the original's strange contrasts at the very least.

Encre Noire Pour Elle

Basenotes reports that Christine Nagel, the nose behind one of my favorite fragrances, Encre Noire, has created a version for the ladies, Pour Elle. This will be news to many women I know, who claim Encre Noire as their own in a sublimely uncomplicated way. For me, there's such an exciting charge involved in crossing the aisle to grab a bottle of perfume in my fist. I use it not just to subvert or disregard boring gender codes and boundaries but to enter into an imaginative space few in the fragrance industry think to provide my sex entry into. I think many women must feel the same. For years they've been grabbing cologne off the bathroom shelf, walking around in someone else's pants. Hearing about Encre Noire Pour Elle, part of me inwardly sighs. Here's the line, it says. Let's not get out of control here. Let's all keep our seats.

Then again, it's Christine Nagel, she of the wondrous Fendi Theorema, Miss Dior Cherie, A*Men Pure Coffee, Armani Prive Ambre Soie, Yves Rocher Rose Absolue, and John Galliano (you might not like it so much. I happen to love it). "Why should rose be for females and vetiver for males?" She asked in a recent interview. "Who decides this?" The answer is in the question. There is a vetiver for females. It's called Encre Noire. And Rose Absolue smells great on me.

Fath de Fath

I have it on good authority that one of the biggest detriments to the success of Fath de Fath was its packaging. The bottle leaked. I'm inclined to believe this, as a bottle I bought my mother leaked in transit, one of only two perfumes I've known to do so. Ask me some time about my flight from Greece last year and the leaky bottle of Luxe Patchouli. I made many friends on that packed airplane, I can tell you.

Where did I read about a reorchestration of Fath de Fath? I'm guessing it was Nowsmellthis. Some faint ghost of the infamous Iris Gris is also rumored to be in the works. My hopes are set higher for Fath de Fath, as there's less room to screw it up. Fath de Fath was a lovely balance of fruit and woods, though the pyramid provided by osmoz lists nothing much which could be misconstrued as woodsy, per se. Pear and tuberose do odd things together in Fath de Fath. Were there musks and civet in this 1994 composition? If so, they won't be resurrected. Still, the Benzoin Fath de Fath contained had a lot to do with the fragrance's chemistry, and no one has banned benzoin yet--or have they?

Futur

Another re-release from Robert Piguet, Futur has been brought back from the past. I don't really care what they've done to it. Baghari and Visa were revisited with sensitivity and imagination. I own both and love them. If also by Aurelien Guichard, the Futur, I predict, will look just as good. From the Piguet website:

"She is witty, outspoken, and supremely confident. Her style is effortless. Her fragrance intensely feminine."

Here we go again. She, she, she. The company calls Futur a green woody floral fragrance, which just about covers the bases this side of oriental. I repeat: I do not care. I have Fracas, Bandit, and the afore-mentioned Visa and Baghari. I want a little army of those black block bottles, with their Bauhaus font and packaging.

Aramis Gentleman's Collection

What could be more exciting than the re-release of eight classic Aramis masculines? JHL alone is more than anyone can ask for. Add to this Devin, New West, Aramis 900, and Tuscany (the remaining two will not be sold in the U.S.). And fantastic pricing. 100 ml at 48 bucks seems downright old fashioned. There are fanatical attachments to Havana all over the blogs. I haven't smelled it and can't say why--though birch tar, coriander, and leather is all I need to hear. Get at me in September. 900 is a fantastic, feral rose, Chant's inversion of Aromatics Elixir. Devin is Aliage in a tux.

I owned a bottle of JHL back in the early eighties and was very pleased with myself, but until recently, when I came across a few fugitive bottles in a remote department store, I couldn't remember why. Smelling it again, I knew. In case you've never smelled JHL, imagine Youth Dew making love to after shave. I'm guessing I loved it so much because it was the best of both worlds, masculine and feminine, a fragrance through which I could bring the worlds of my divorced parents back together.