the brutal history of perfume: couture
It’s the twentieth century. François Coty enacts his fabled Parisian department-store stunt: “Oops, sorry for the dispersing fumes but the brimming promotional flacon accidentally fell and broke!” Thus he launches the methyl ionone vector known as La Rose Jacqueminot.
“Truth can be defined as something that happens to an idea when it’s shoved down the throats of dissenters,” my helpmate says.
In a couple of short decades, the practice of perfumery will change more than it has in the four thousand previous years. Stephan, the son of iconic perfumer Paul Jellinek, heralds the complex sophistication that replaces the simple harmony of Nature (honestly, he said that).
“Is neomania so profound, anywhere else to be found?”
The writing has been on the wall, about who will eventually advance the charge, put the screws to Creation, which is surely screwed, threaten whatever Life is true to Life, which is truly in peril, put on notice any in Nature now in danger to become de-Natured.
“Warning is hereby issued to all labile conditional temporal ephemeral instrumental or incidental metabolic transmissions from feral beings of forests marshes and meadows.”
Sorrowfully poetic and sadly predictable, perhaps it was bound to develop this way, with the launch of a fashion brand. Paul Poiret (1911) is likely the first to associate perfume (Les Parfums de Rosine) with a line of women’s clothing.
“Subsequently begins the sustained flamboyant procession … of those who’ve forsaken botanical gardens in favor of Paris and London and New York galleries warehouses and lofts.”
The realm of plant perfumes, the fundamental messaging medium of Nature, mother tongue of organic expression, inherent epitome of deep primal meaning in the matter of Life, is finally hijacked by modern surrogates serving a community that conversely is a paradigm of insignificance, of cultural shallowness—yes, that’s the capricious world of fashion, of superficial chic, with some support from a broader kindred fickle crowd of designers.
“The evolvement isn’t happenstance.”
We’ve chronicled the historic lineage of exclusivity, the confinement of aromatics, the shrouded occultism, the elitist royalty, the restricted medicines, now this … a perfectly effective means to conceal the wellspring of Life’s secret ciphers? secreted out of our plane of view … by surrendering the fate of perfumery to couturier caretakers … Coco Chanel? could that be right? Christian Dior? believe it—frivolous fashionistas in alliance with technocratic chemists command the caravan while Nature-estranged abstraction-happy designers ride shotgun … brilliant.
My helpmate adds, “They speak of reaching beyond the skies, floating without any tethers or gravity, free from Earth-based qualifications and contingencies, are preoccupied with themes of unencumbered fancy, virtual indulgences and vicarious experiences, and vie for who’ll be more unaffected and unfettered by mere biology, who’ll be less concerned with metabolic implications, less restrained by settings and situations.”
It adds up, that this contemporary power axis, charged to administer the technological program of modern perfumery, functions as an arrangement for securing control. The system operates by decommissioning and stowing and scrambling the emissive information-bearing principles of Nature.
“The ordering principles of Life?” she asserts.
Life is on its last legs.
“Famous last words.”
Life is in its last stages.
“Life’s last stand, just as they planned.”
Much as we may be inclined to dramatize, our concern over the advance of meaninglessness, the ascent of insubstantiality, along with the ravaging of Life, it is not hyperbolic at all.
“The history of perfumery … indicates an answer.”
The epical running account of perfume … provides essential insight.
“The plight of perfume through the ages … tells the story.”