sas

I am quicksilver, the fox in the night, emotional about the poetry, love & desire in scent, read me.

Friday 31 July 2015

Imagined Reconstructions: The Gathered Beauty of Arquiste - Part I





I have been a fan of the Arquiste line since its stylish inception in 2011. The striking visuals, sensual storytelling and olfactory time travelling marked the house out as one to keep a close eye on. The brand’s artistic director Carlos Huber is the indefatigably upbeat, pitch-perfect and handsome embodiment of the brand. He is charming and relentlessly persuasive in his pursuit of Arquiste domination. 

Carlos Huber, Creative Director, Arqusite. 

His Instagram is a warm and charming mix of work and personal journeys, destinations, architecture, family, brand love, sun, fragrance development, toned torsos, swimshorts… (ha) and a subtle collage of all the things that coalesce into the Arquiste creative mindset. There is gloss and vivacity, laughter, smiles and dapper placement of Carlos & Co amid locations like London, Mexico City, New York, Madrid, Sydney and Brussels. Partly work and some play, the seemingly casual imagery is in part just that but also a subliminal reinforcement of a meticulous Brand Arquiste.  

Rodrigo Flores-Roux (L) & Yann Vasnier (R) 

The noses working with Carlos are the multi talented Yann Vasnier and Rodrigo Flores-Roux, both perfumers of great dexterity and luminosity. Together, this trio of men have assembled a body of work that has grown in artistic stature and slowly gathered acclaim across the perfume world from critics and perfume lovers alike.

Tuesday 21 July 2015

Beguiling Vice: ‘Salome’ by Papillon Perfumery




“The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world so black as thy hair.”


Oscar Wilde ‘Salome’


A year ago, Liz Moores launched Papillon Perfumery with three extraordinary fragrances, Anubis, Angelique and my beloved sluttish Tobacco Rose. Blended with masterly and sensual precision it was almost impossible to imagine how she had pulled off such a feat of smooth and decadent engineering. Then I had the pleasure of getting to know her through social media, messages, e-mails and electronic chatting. Liz is a very canny user of social media, she is genuinely delicious and honest, fun and deadly serious about what she does. She is her brand, Papillon is Liz, the two are savagely, sexily and magnificently inseparable.
Liz Moores, perfumer. 

Liz’s approach to her scented work is deeply committed and tempestuous. I love the meld of earned graft, home-school aromachemistry and drama she brings to the mixing table. She is a perfectionist with a lovely ability to still acknowledge the eroticism of flaws, she uses the multifarious facets of her charming and layered personality to bear dramatically on the materials and techniques she requires to render her ideas redolent with biography and brio.

She worked insanely hard to get to the point last year when she was ready to launch Anubis, Angelique and Tobacco Rose. Along the way there has been much stress and heartache, temper tantrums, hurling of formulae, diva hissy fits, packaging issues, endless modifications, tears, lot of smoking and vino (hahahaha…) but also much love and support from her ridiculously gorgeous family, daughters Poppy, Lily and Jasmine, son Rowan, cute as a button baby Daisy and dashing hubby Simon. This tight skein of love and coalition from her floral-monikered kids, spouse and the astonishing menagerie of animals that surrounds her in the new forest where she is carefully secluded away has allowed Liz to fulfil many roles all which had fed into her fiercely beautiful work. Mother, artist, perfumer, sensualist, free spirit, friend, bitch, queen, voodoo temptress, lover and glorious generous woman.

Liz & Phanta the ghostly python

The wrapped surround of trees, her semi-wild garden, horses, cats, pythons (including a singular marble toned albino one called Phanta) and owls seems to lend Liz a curious sense of chthonic, oracular, priestess. Ok, one that swears like a docker maybe, but she is profoundly grounded in her details and preoccupations. As I’ve gotten to know her better and we have chatted about different things; her powerful kindnesses and unerring sense of reality and belief in kinship have made me value her friendship like the rarest orchid in the last glasshouse at the edge of the world.