In the spirit of this coming weekend’s juggernaut
sporting event, the title of this post is in fact a half-serious suggestion to
the Elements co-founders Frederick Bouchardy, Ulrich Lang and Jeffrey Lawson:
start numbering the showcases, like Super Bowls! The third Elements Showcase (the second I have
attended) took place earlier this week and marked the first anniversary of
what’s clearly becoming a pretty major event, what with the sprawling number of
brands exhibiting there and, for the first time, the Fragrance Foundation being
involved. In that regard, my warm congratulations to Odin on winning the first
Indie FiFi Award for 06 Amanu. I’ll be writing at greater length about some specific
products from the show that I’m still sampling, but here’s a quick rundown of
what struck my fancy.
I’m declaring a tie for best-in-show between Neela Vermeire’s brilliant trio
of eaux de parfum and Carlos Huber’s captivating, romantic Arquiste collection. Given how much
breathy praise has already been lavished on these two practically-newborn
brands, I approached them with less anticipation than skepticism: each the
brainchild of an obsessive individual, benefiting from the expertise of highly
skilled perfumers and equally generous budgets, dressed in slick packaging and
draped with poetic descriptions… Haven’t we seen this before, and with
less-than-great results?
Color me humbled. Given that both of these brands are
already commercially available (Arquiste is surely doing gangbusters sales at
Barney’s), it says a lot about their respective entrepreneurial pride that both
of the creators were there, and not just their PR people. And while I
unfortunately didn’t get a chance to speak to Carlos, who’s understandably
everbody’s sudden darling, I completely fell under the spell of his
historically-inspired fragrances. Working from his concepts, Rodrigo
Flores-Roux and Jann Vasnier have really outdone themselves in producing six
scents that span a range of tastes and are pretty uniformly exquisite. My picks
among them: Infanta en Flor, a
portrait of Louis XIV’s betrothed Spanish princess in orange blossom and glove
suede; Aleksandr, which recreates the
morning of Pushkin’s last duel; and my favorite, L’Etrog, with its namesake citron, head-clearing myrtle, and a
drydown like a blanket yanked from a cedarwood closet.
Speaking of myrtle -- Alexandra Balahoutis has it! The nose behind Strange Invisible Perfumes was on hand with her full line of scents, including
the excellent gourmand Dimanche, and
the limited edition Tribute, chock
full of naturally aldehyde-laden florals as an homage to the experimental
fervor of early 20th century perfumery. Sadly, her display lacked
what I wished I could have smelled most -- an evidently transformative
hydro-distilled myrtle grown on her family’s 500-acre property in California’s
Ojai valley. She grows and distills a number of her own essences there, oranges
and their flowers among them, in keeping with her commitment to using pure
organic botanical essences and nothing else. I’m beyond eager to see where --
or rather, in what -- that myrtle essence ends up.
A few booths away, I was patient enough to wait my turn to meet the gracious Neela Vermeire, who slogged all the way from Paris to chat with the likes of me. Her collaboration with Bertrand Duchaufour has yielded three utterly unique scents that were inspired by history as well, but all geographically linked to India.
I admire Duchaufour’s work as much as any perfume devotee, but at first sniff
these struck me as unlike most (if anything) he’s done before. Neela agreed,
opining that Trayee, meant to evoke
India’s Vedic era and spiritual history, is the most atypically-Duchaufour
scent he’s ever done, and Bombay Bling,
reflecting the vibrancy of contemporary India, is one of the most complex. Initially
I was most partial to Trayee, but
having spent a little time with samples of each, I’ve fallen for Mohur, inspired by the Moghul-British
Raj era. Its powerful rose-oud core would risk being unwearable were it not
cloaked by layers of sweet spice, soft white florals, an almost confectionary
iris and a subtle leather accord. I tried giving myself over to the
spirituality of Trayee, but if you’re
one of my handful of regular readers it shouldn’t surprise you that regal
luxury won the day.
Other things of note: Bulletproof,
one of the Tokyo Milk Dark collection by Margot Elena -- a fairly predictable
smoky tea-sandalwood concoction right up until the bizarrely wonderful coconut
kicks in. And finally, the privelege of being among the first in the U.S. to
smell the Di Ser perfume line, exclusive to Japan since its founding 12 years
ago. There is a range of ‘elements’ -- Tsuki
(moon), Mizu (water), Taiyo (sun) and Kaze (wind) -- and a range of opulent floral ‘goddesses’. I
honestly can’t remember what various note combinations populated these
remarkable fragrances (yuzu, rose, jasmine and sandalwood all made frequent
appearances) but they felt so meticulously constructed, with certain notes
frequently illuminating unexpected facets of other notes, like the pivot words
in medieval Japanese court poetry.
*UPDATE, February 6, 2012: I've received a nice e-mail from Neela Vermeire clarifying that her budget was not, in fact, all that extravagant, and the woman I mistook for her "PR" person was actually a close friend from her university years. Clearly this has been a very personal project from the beginning.
*UPDATE, February 6, 2012: I've received a nice e-mail from Neela Vermeire clarifying that her budget was not, in fact, all that extravagant, and the woman I mistook for her "PR" person was actually a close friend from her university years. Clearly this has been a very personal project from the beginning.