Catherine du Peloux Menage

Introducing ALTAIA: Marina Sersale and Sebastián Alvarez Murena

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 5 Comments

.

Post by Catherine du Peloux Menage

.

Hello Gorgeous APJ Friends,

ALTAIA is the second perfume love child collection of Marina Sersale and Sebastián Alvarez Murena, whom I met at a beautiful dinner organized by Mecca, the brand’s distributors, to introduce ALTAIA to Australia.

Marina and Sebastián’s first joint creation is Eau d’ Italie, which began as a single scent to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Marina’s family’s hotel Le Sirenuse in Positano on the Amalfi Coast– listen to the story here

altaia_portraits8377

Bertrand Duchaufour composed the first much-more-than-a- simple citrus Eau d’ Italie in 2004, then went on to make moody, metallic and stone violet-leaf-iris Sienne L’Hiver, rich rose and incense woody oriental Paestum Rose and the intensely orange blossom grapefruit-green Jardin du Poète. Alberto Morillas, Daphné Bugey and Annick Ménardo created the rest of the range. The packaging and bottles in bright vibrant colours are guaranteed to cheer gloomy spirits before even smelling a single note. At AUS$169 or $200 depending on your choice, they are also on the affordable side.

Introducing ALTAIA

altaia-logo

Marina and Sebastian’s second collection, ALTAIA, is spare, elegant and contemporary in presentation. The story behind the range is as captivating as the scents. ALTAIA or A Long Time Ago In Argentina was created after the two discovered that their families had been connected 140 years before they met and fell in love in Italy in 2001.Their great-great-grandfathers, an Englishman and an Argentinian had worked together in Argentina in the 1860s. Sebastián grew up in Buenos Aires and Marina in London and Italy before their fated meeting in Positano.

The three EDPs by Daphné Bugey which launch the collection bring together stories from the past and present.

by-any-other-name-altaia-fragranticaFragrantica

By Any Other Name is of course a rose, evoking memories of Marina’s mother’s first proposal of marriage aged 16, in the rose garden of Sudeley Castle in England. Gentle rose and osmanthus intertwine and weave in and out of each other in a soft, slightly fizzy blend. They are supported by the musks in the base and invisible (to me) cedarwood. This is no big bold punch-right-between-the-eyes rose but there is no girly pink lollywater effect. Pretty but with substance.

dont-cry-for-me-altaia-fragranticaFragrantica

Don’t Cry For Me revisits Sebastian’s memories of Buenos Aires. Again, it’s soft and airy, an almost dreamlike sweet jasmine, no indolic raunch here. Freesia, sweet cherry blossom (which I can’t pick) and jasmine ,blend with a touch of powder (heliotrope?) and a cloud of soft pink musk and gentle woody notes. Nostalgic and sophisticated.

yu-son-altaia-fragranticaFragrantica

Yu Son is love in an Italian citrus grove. For starters, it’s choc-full of mandarin, bitter orange and greenness (is that the green tea in the note list?). On a humid summer when you’re looking for interesting cool, not cologne cool, this would be perfect. It’s got sweetness from orange blossom, a dry iris note gives it backbone and woods bring richness and persistence.

The range will be available at Mecca Cosmetica stores and Mecca online exclusively from 8 November $277 for 100 mls. Eau de parfum.

Which of the three will you try first?
CdPM

Le Galion: The ship sails on….

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 9 Comments

.

Post by Catherine de Peloux-Menage

.

For the past twenty years, defunct or dying heritage perfume houses have been coming back to life. Les Parfums de Rosine, Lubin, Robert Piguet , Courreges, Orizia Legrand, Schiaparelli, Worth, Houbigant, Jovoy, d’Orsay, Patou in France. Grossmith and Atkinsons, Crown perfumery (as Clive Christian) in the UK. Now it’s the turn of Le Galion.

Coming across an old perfume bottle in a Paris flea market, Nicolas Chabot’s interest was piqued (Le Galion c’est quoi ca?). As a fragrance industry specialist like generations of his family, he thought he knew most French brands. So he tracked down the daughter of former house owner and perfumer Paul Vacher who supported him wholeheartedly in what became his mission to resurrect the house, even giving him access to the Le Galion archive, formulae and original perfumes. Le Galion was relaunched in 2014.

Le Galion: The ship sails on….

As Creative Director, Nicolas worked within the current raw materials restrictions with perfumer Thomas Fontaine (who specialises in reorchestrating perfumes for brands like Lubin, Patou and, Gres) to recreate nine perfumes which best represent Vacher’s work. Vacher created Miss Dior, Diorling, co-created Arpege as well as his own bestsellers like Sortilege or Whip. At his sudden death in 1975, Le Galion was one of the best known French perfume brands, distributed in over 90 countries. Within ten years it had vanished after it was sold to a US company which failed to understand its ethos and place in the market.

Le Galion

The nine relaunched fragrances are in simple, elegant ridged bottles. Not knowing the original Le Galion scents I can’t compare them. (A visit the Osmotheque would be a fascinating exercise.) As always, the scentosphere likes some and dislikes others. Here’s my take (Disclosure: samples are from Nicolas Chabot during a presentation to the Sydney Perfume Lovers).

222 My autumn-winter perfume 2015. Sandalwood, violets, vanilla. Cloudy soft, but with a bite of myrrh and a hint of leather. What’s not to love?

Sortilege Created in 1935, this feels grown up, seductive, half way between No 5 and Joy and with a nice dirty civet-like note. The original must have been stunning.

Tubereuse created 11 years before Fracas is sedate compared to her younger sister. Fruit, rose, musk. Rounded and ladylike.

Iris Delicate and mimosa-powdery, slightly green, woody and lightly musky. Vanishes quickly on my skin but I love it so will be wearing it on fabric to feel feminine and elegant.

Special for Gentlemen Bergamot, Lavender, oppoponax and patchouli, shades of Jicky and Shalimar but also of Habit Rouge morphing into the cologne feel of Eau Sauvage. Extraordinary, powerful. Wear it.

Rose – a delicate, pretty, slightly fruity morning rose. No thorns. Lovely.

Snob Saffron almond opening interlaced with rich deep rose. Could this be one of the first rose-saffron scents?

Whip You can feel the sting of the leather long after the sharp hit of citrus has worn off. Hit me again.

Eau Noble citrus fougere –green citrus elegance with a chypre twist.

sortilege Le GalionPhoto Stolen Le Galion

Further reading: Ca Fleure Bon and Colognoisseur
First In Fragrance has the Le Galion range €140/100ml

Have you tried any of these? Any favourites yet?
Catherine de Peloux-Menage xx

Here and Now – Tamara Dean and Ainslie Walker: An Immersive Installation

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 12 Comments

.

Post by Catherine du Peloux Menage

.

HERE AND NOW – an immersive installation

APJ is all about perfume – so it’s all about smells, not those of everyday life which we often ignore, but the ones that are purposefully created, manufactured, and put in bottles. Many argue that perfume creation is a form of artistic creation. Tamara Dean and Ainslie Walker have turned this idea around by making scent an integral part of a work of art and challenging our perception that only certain smells count as ‘scent’. Tamara is the artist who created the immersive installation Here and Now, and Ainslie (well-known to APJ readers for her reviews) created the scent which forms part of the installation displayed at the University of New South Wales last week.

The idea was to create a piece of nature in the middle of a busy city to remind alienated city dwellers of powerful, primordial connections between humans and nature. It was a truly immersive work. We entered a low-lit penumbral space after removing our shoes and walking through a darkened tunnel (birth canal?), to be faced with a large photograph of a river bank and crouching naked figures covering the whole wall opposite, with wall-size mirrors on both sides. The ground was a pool of water with stepping stones leading towards the image. Walking across the stones, water splashed onto the feet. There was a low buzz of sound and an ambient scent.

The scent was so perfectly appropriate to the surroundings that at first I almost didn’t smell it, but just experienced it as natural. It actually felt as if I really was in a forest, crossing a stream, hearing cicadas and bellbirds, taking in the smell of the earth, the decaying tree trunks, the dampness of water. It was a brief moment of (re)connection with the natural world which many of us rarely experience. All the senses were involved. Touch, as we wore no shoes, sound through the cricket and bird song. We could see the photograph, its reflections and our own image. The air had a scent and smell and taste are so intertwined that the smell of the air almost left a residual taste at the back of my throat.

Tamara DeanPhoto Donated Tamara Dean

Ainslie said that the process began with research into the smells of the environment of the installation, wet vegetation, water, earth and leaves. She didn’t want to create a pretty ‘bottled perfume’ smell but to draw our attention to the scents around us to which we often pay no attention. As she experimented to create the final ‘Eau de Here and Now’, she avoided obvious ‘green’ smells of grass, mint, or eucalyptus or specific ‘woody’ smells and came back to the smell of the vegetation, the soil and rain. We were given a small vial of the scent to take away so we can plunge ourselves back into that darkened room, back into that artificial recreation of the natural though the perfume of nature.

Installations are ephemeral but if you want to share in the experience see the links below.
Please click here and here

Catherine du Peloux-Menage XX

Scents Of My Mother: Sydney Perfume Lovers Scent Salon

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 21 Comments

.

Post by Catherine du Peloux Menage

.

APJ and the Sydney Perfume Lovers have teamed up to run monthly Sunday Scent Salons. Perfume evokes memories and few memories are deeper than those associated with a mother, which is how thirteen men and women, some of them complete strangers met to talk about Scents Of My Mother, bearing photographs, perfumes and recollections. It was a moving, warm and sometimes funny event.

Scents Of My Mother

Sydney Perfume Lovers Scent Salon

Complex is the best word to describe the relationships we brought to the table.
We met many mothers. The one who smoked a joint with her son on his 18th birthday, the one who said ‘disgusting’ about a daughter’s folds of flesh, the one who criticised her naturally slender daughter for deliberately being too thin, the one who still tidies up when entering her daughter’s home, the insightful one who told her son that she thought he probably wouldn’t marry a girl…

SOMM#1-1

There was a gentle woman whose softness didn’t prepare her daughter for the tough world which awaited, the timid one who couldn’t give her daughter the strong role model she craved, the one who came out as a lesbian and couldn’t forgive her daughter for leading a different life. The one who had a child at 15 and brought him up with her own mother.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Many were artists or studied art. Few fulfilled themselves in the workplace. Many were clean and tidy freaks who always look good. (No prizes for making a connection between the last two sentences.) Many were critical, many were loving and most were both at the same time. Many of us around the table described our feelings of love or pain or both for Glenda, Jane, Lauraine, Cheryl, Marie, Rosemary, Waina, Joan, Francoise, Teresa.

SOMM#4

What were our scent memories? One of us recollected trying to please her mother by making perfume for her by soaking flowers in water. Another brought biscuits from her mother’s handwritten recipe book to evoke the smell of baking. There were memories of babysitters arriving and mothers leaving in clouds of Chanel N’5, Chant d’Aromes and L’Air du Temps. I would love to have met the mother who wore Shalimar parfum during the day. Her child was fated not to be timid!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Fresh green beans evoked one mother who survived breast cancer. Another always had acrid smelling salts in the bathroom cupboard in case they were needed and wore Arpege – a startling juxtaposition. Rive Gauche featured twice. It is still worn today by one daughter to differentiate herself as the opposite to her mother who like more run of the mill Avon fragrances, and was worn by another mother when it came out to stamp herself as modern. She also wore Tabu and Oleg Cassini. We encountered one generous perfume collector mother with over 300 bottles who loves giving her daughter bottles of Serge Lutens as well as one who never wears scent but does have scented handcream which smells like Fragonard’s Billet Doux. Cie Perfume (with Candace Bergen as its face) was an early favourite of a mother who also wore Tresor but now is faithful to Champs Elysees. La Cabrasella, a bergamot citrus scent from Calabria has always sat on the dressing table of one Italian mother.

We could have talked for many more hours and left feeling happy to have shared these perfumes and memories. I’m sure another Scent Salon will revisit this topic one day for another group.

CdPM xx