Iris Bleu Gris

I debated getting Iris Bleu Gris for weeks before finally deciding to take a chance on it. Before this, I tried several other Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier fragrances, most of which I've written about: George Sand, Camille de Chinois, Ambre Precieux, Parfum d'Habit, Or des Indes and Eau des Iles. I wasn't thrilled with Parfum d'Habit and ultimately didn't buy a bottle. There were huge discrepancies between the way it smelled to me and the way I'd heard it described. It was tamer, lighter, almost sheer, and decidedly fleeting. Lovely, but I decided early on that when it comes to skin scents, you can never have too few.

That discrepancy and lack of forcefulness made me suspect that Iris Bleu Gris would be nothing like I'd read. Ironically, curiosity about Iris Bleu Gris was what brought me to Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier in the first place. I love iris but find that it's such a variable note in fragrance. It seems to be one of the most interpretive, and it has polar attributes which appeal to different perfumers and wearers, defining iris for them in contradictory ways. I'm more often unenthused by an iris scent than those whose reviews I consult, it seems to me. It doesn't help that many of the current iris iterations introduce a peppery quality I find about as appealing as maple syrup on garden salad.

Eventually, I spent more time with Ambre Precieux, and saw how wonderfully it lasts and evolves on the skin. I revisited all the Maitre fragrances and found similar, equally admirable complexity. I'd dismissed Ambre for various reasons initially. I can't enumerate them, as they were, I think, mostly instinctive and reactionary, a product of very specific expectations and subsitutes for lack of better words to describe or articulate what appeals to me. Once those expectations dissolved the true merits of the fragrance emerged, its rich, cozy ambience, its steady, mildly herbal diffusion and warmth. Ambre Precieux isn't a skin scent, but it works differently on my skin than equally persistent fragrances, which substitute volume for nuance. Ambre projects in a much more refined, subliminal way.

My fears about Iris Bleu Gris were entirely unfounded. Granted, it smells nothing like I expected. It simply smells much, much better. The treatment of iris predates the current interpretation, which aims at the root and photo- or hyperrealism at or around ground level. I imagine many people, having been fed on fragrances like Iris Silver Mist and Bois d'Iris (to name a few of the more popular contemporaries), might de disappointed by Iris Bleu Gris. Its deployment of iris is subtler, less overtly woodsy or astringent. That isn't to say that the iris is warmer than, say, Iris Silver Mist. An unmistakable affinity exists between the two. There are absolutely medicinal influences in Iris Bleu Gris, but they're not as literal-minded as you might expect. There's earthiness but your nose isn't rubbed in it. Where other iris fragrances dig into the dirt to expose iris root and whatever happens to be clinging to it, Iris Bleu Gris evokes the smell of damp soil in the open air. It widens its net to take in a broader picture of iris in bloom, perfectly content to stay above ground, approaching the subject panoramically, at eye level.

When you focus on singling them out, you detect individual notes: jasmine, moss, vetiver, vanilla. When you relax into the fragrance, they cohere into an associative whole, augmenting the iris note in ways which feel by turns austere, dewey, lush, and intriguingly piquant. Many talk of a leather note in the mix, some going so far as to make comparisons with Jolie Madame and other vintage leather chypres. I can get on board with that, though I would characterize the leather as soft and supple, more hand glove than car seat or horse saddle. The opening of the fragrance, though in no way candied, is practically fruity, indicating a currant note. This dances in and out of the heart but has so well integrated by the dry down that it enhances an overall sense of sharpness and cool languor.

As many have commented, the extended dry down is sublime. The wondrous thing about Iris Bleu Gris is how close it comes to so many dread accords before surpising you. Iris Bleu Gris is in control, working expertly on your senses by combining familiar notes with unexpected results. You might expect things to go powdery, for instance. The fragrance certainly seems headed in that direction. And yet it stops short, showing what a difference a fraction makes. This keeps you engaged in unique ways, alive to the perfume's continual evolution the way you might listen for the various layers of sound outdoors, surprised by the depth and texture your subconscious mind normally tunes out or takes for granted. Exquisitely calibrated, Iris Bleu Gris demonstrates the highest level of artistry and craft, resulting in a testament not just to Jean Laporte's particular gifts and strengths as a perfumer but to the imaginative and emotional territory perfume can access. This is an exceptional fragrance.

Cheap Thrills: Dunhill Desire for a Woman

It's a testament to Maurice Roucel's talent that his cheapest fragrances often smell as good as his high end niche reputation makers. K de Krizia is an amazing aldehyde floral, dirt cheap online. Nautica Voyage, a miraculous little sleeper of a scent, retails for as low as thirty-five dollars. Rochas Tocade (25 bucks) smells as fantastic, if not more so, than Guerlain L'Instant (60-70). Lalique Pour Homme (roughly $35) might just smell better than Bond No. 9 Riverside Drive (three times the price). Nothing compares to Iris Silver Mist, of course; then again, it's more an out-of-body experience than a perfume, and holding it up to mere mortals for comparison is like looking for a Paul Lynde "type" to play David Bowie in a high school musical. Wondrous oddities aside, Roucel's work remains remarkably consistent.

One key to that consistency is his trademark magnolia accord, which relates many of his scents to each other and smells so rich, creamy, and tangible you swear you could eat it or touch it or slather it all over yourself. Tocade is vanillic rose laid out on this signature base. L'Instant uses it not just as a foundation but as reason for being. You smell it everywhere in Roucel's ouevre, from Broadway Nite to 24, Faubourg. Tenacious sans bombast, it transitions from high to low, adapting itself to everything in between. What could be cheesier than something named Dunhill: Desire for a Woman? And yet, like almost everything else he's done, missteps and heavy hitters alike, Dunhill Desire too arranges itself around that familiar rubbery magnolia accord.

Lush, long lasting, and impressive, Desire has more going on in its top notes than the entire formulas of many a mainstream fragrance. I bought my 2.2 ounce bottle for 30 dollars--so it has more going on for less money, too. I'm not going to pretend I've wasted much time on Dunhill fragrances as a whole. There seem to be so many--for men, at least--the majority of which strike me as something my straight male friends would wear, lured by some aspirational fantasy associated with the name.

"Dunhill caters to the needs of the discerning man," says the company's ad copy, "from formal and casual menswear, to handcrafted leather goods through to fine men's jewelry" and so on, ad nauseum. Not pens and pencils but "writing instruments"; not watches but "timepieces". Jude Law is the spokesmodel and litters the website looking studiously urbane; suave, styled within an inch of his life, and bored out of his mind. "I'm sensitive, well dressed, and sometimes known to lean against the shelves in my library reading from a randomly selected, leather bound book," his sensitive expression says. Greys, tans, black, white. The menswear line is designed for "the modern gentleman and the maverick traveler."

I suppose a maverick travels in his own private plane, as opposed to lowly first class, and lives in a world drained of color. With their facile attempts at signaling a certain kind of cut-rate Ralph Lauren affluence, the few Dunhill masculines I've smelled depressed the hell out of me--as if to be a man means ipso facto to be magnificently tedious--and why be depressed, with so many wonderful things to smell out there? I've ignored Dunhill, and will probably continue to do so. Desire for a Woman seems to be an anomaly for the line: it smells like nothing else on the shelf, performs impressively, and like my favorite Roucels, manages somehow to suggest both impeccable taste and fun-loving, imperturbable trash.

I don't know exactly what's in it. I only know that I like it. It starts out intensely floral but very subtly evolves on the skin, arriving at a perfectly calibrated olfactory architecture of spiced amber, buttery warmth, and woods. From various sources online I've heard rose, freesia, caramel, sandalwood, and vanilla. There could be watermelon in it, for all I really know. Like everything else Roucel does, Desire smells edible without feeling particularly gourmand or foody. His fragrances share this precarious quality with the work of Sophia Grojsman.

Think of Desire as L'Instant Intense. I was always disappointed by L'Instant, and smelling Desire I now know why. L'Instant was far too timid; a miscalculation for which Roucel overcompensated, three years later, with Insolence, Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill to L'Instant's Masterpiece Theater. Desire situates itself somewhere in the middle of these extremes, a luxury it earned, most likely, by virtue of its market. Imagine the pressure applied at Guerlain, which has a real heritage to uphold, compared to the fairly straightforward, faux historical mass market imperatives of an outfit like Dunhill, whose incessant releases survive or perish according to a sink or swim mentality. Desire seems like Roucel having some fun, with a more relaxed attitude and a healthier sense of humor. The bottle is shimmery fuschia, just so you don't miss it, a delicious squeal of laughter compared to L'instant's pale whispery, watered down purplish pink.

Dunhill marketed Desire as the fragrance equivalent of the young woman in a pajama top designed to look like her boyfriend's, only in bright girly colors. Smells a little like his cologne, they said, but not to worry: strong enough for a man, but made for a woman, etc. Lo and behold, the reverse holds true. The perhaps unintentional effect of Desire's conglomerate of notes is a dreamy-sweet, curried pipe tobacco aroma, a mixture of powdered bubblegum and smoking room which makes the fragrance, in fact, a far superior masculine than any of the Dunhill males I've had the misfortune of smelling.

Dandy of the Day: Tilda Swinton

Actors are vain, needy creatures. Do they look okay? Are you sure? Should they do it again? They could do it louder. They could do it with more enthusiasm. They could do it as if they were a woman who's just lost her dog. Do you like them? Do you really like them? Most actors need to know. They need to be at the white hot burning center of your attention. If they can't be, they might die. We all might die. What actors do is of world importance: more important than war, famine, sickness, crime. Actors cure all those things just by speaking out--about their views, their experiences, their favorite colors. They want you to know: they're special. They want you to know you're special, so you can thank them for pointing it out to you. It goes without saying: without them, you wouldn't be special at all. It goes without saying but they're saying it anyway. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there, who hears it, unless the actor is present and can then report it through various actor-y techniques. It's impossible to watch most actors on screen without wondering how many people they've thrown hairbrushes at, but there are exceptions among these exceptional beings, and one of those exceptional exceptions would seem to be Tilda Swinton. She doesn't play lesbian serial killers, true, but packing on pounds is a little excessive, if you ask her, just to show you aren't afraid of looking homely, especially when it's vital to you that everyone knows you're truly not. She shows up on the red carpet in Issey Miyake, looking like origami. She has no shame. She'll play man, woman, whatever. She leaves you to figure it out. She works with small directors, odd little films, and big budget headliners, even blockbusters. She speaks out without patting herself on the back. She doesn't pretend to be self-deprecating. In her personal life, which is mostly, blessedly, personal, she's her own person. Still devoted to the father of her ten year-old twins, she is also with actor/artist Sandro Kopp. Don't ask if you don't want to know; otherwise, she'll tell you. It's not like they're robbing banks or something. They're all together, though not in that Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Ashton Kucher way. Swinton is our dandy of the day for this unfussy candor and many other reasons, and judging by her fashion forwardness, which is practically futuristic, we suspect she would wear something niche. We suggest Iris Silver Mist or Tubereuse Criminelle, if she doesn't know about them already (if she does, she likely heard of them long before we did). Both are nearly avant-garde in their strange interplay of pretty and potent, angular and full-bodied, dirty and petite. Some would encourage you to wait an hour or two after application before entering out into the world. Use caution with these two, they'd say. Tilda would say those first two hours are the very best.