‘Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart,
lie still!
O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!
O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill
Come not with such despondent answering!’
(From ‘The Burden of
Itys’ by Oscar Wilde)
Dryad is a pagan thing, rooty, foliate and spellbound, forged in the
crucible of the New Forest, an ancient hunting ground stained with blood and
druidic oblations, trees splashed with vital fluids offered up for prosperity,
fertility, sex, weather, crop life and safety. This is where you will find Liz
Moores one of the most artistic and talented perfumers currently working in
contemporary perfumery. Like an increasingly small number of independent makers
like Bruno Fazzolari, her good friend Antonio Gardoni, Mandy Aftel, Hans
Hendley, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and John Biebel, Liz is responsible for
everything in regards to her perfume house Papillon Perfumery, from the sourcing
of materials, tincturing and filtering to filling samples, bottling, packaging
and promotion.
I think Dryad is the closest thing we will get
to a confession from perfumer Liz Moores as to her true desirous state. A
desire perhaps sometimes to walk out into her beloved forest and be swallowed
up, consumed by the foliage, roots and buds. She is many things, sensual forest
dweller, mother, wife, lover, voluptuary, businesswoman, realist, role model,
fierce friend and emotive animal whisperer. Owls, rabbits, cats, dogs, pythons
and I imagine anything really with wings, claws and fangs falls under the
enchantment of Liz Moores.
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| Liz 'Dryad' Moores |
I have loved Liz’s work from the first moment I smelled Tobacco Rose, her third Papillon creation launched in 2014. The unfolding of rosaceous wax and carmine excretions mesmerised me. Anubis her precious first creation was a startling and passionate debut, a perfume imbued with something intangible, a purity of intent, yet oozing oriental sensuality and an aura of hard graft and accomplishment. But that thrashed rose smelled like bloodstained skies studded with pollen-weary bee stars. My bottle has simmered in the darkness of my study and has become more waxen and lipsticked. Not polite glossy lipstick, but that sanguine overkill dragged off with the back of a hand in the glare of a neon club bathroom as walls sweat and bounce.
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| Foxy's Tobacco Rose (Image©TSF) |
Then came Salome, the candlelit disturbance, whispering words of persuasive pornography. A unsettling hit for Liz, redolent of private, urgent sex and things deemed to too daring to share outside a shattered bedroom. At times it seemed too too genital, too rutting to flout in public places. Yet something in Salome clicked in so many of us, that animalic sliver of us that always denies watching porn or potentially cheating on lovers. It is one of the few seriously erotic perfumes made in the last twenty years. The trick is that each of us feels immensely special in it, as if Liz had created something bespoke and confidential that we alone can revel in.
Wearing it is an
amazing experience, you feel blood stained and adorned in ruby fire. Flashes of
gold and crimson come and go like pieces of impasto paint buried in chiaroscuro
shadows. A film that had a huge impact on me when I first saw it many years ago
was Les Amants de Pont Neuf, the
hugely controversial French film by Leo Carax starring Juliette Binoche and
Denis Lavant. Binoche is Michèle, a painter, suffering from a degenerative
condition that means she may lose her sight seeks refuge on the Pont Neuf with
vagrant and wannabe circus performer Alex, a fragile and needy young who
contrives to keep Michèle with him as her condition deteriorates. It is a
powerful film about love and what we do for its excessive demands.
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| The Louvre scene in Les Amants de Pont Neuf |
It is also Carax’s
love letter to both Binoche and Paris. There is the most tender and emotional
scene where an older vagrant called Hans breaks into the Louvre at night with
Michèle whose eyesight at this point is incredibly restricted. He leads her
through the galleries and with candlelight she examines works by Géricault and
Rembrandt. The reason I mention this scene is because the effects of that
moment, the guttering candle flame, the emotional response to the high art
reflecting back in full chiaroscuro gold-shadow flicker, the red Louvre gallery
walls; all these things coalesce into Salome.
I came across an online selection of stills from this scene; they felt like a Salome mood board.
When I reviewed Salome for the blog I used a favourite painting by Gustav Moreau of the legendary temptress pointing to John the
Baptist’s severed haloed head, floating in mid air, his blood falling to the
ground like rubies. It is a shocking image, even now; there is a lascivious
come hither or pride in the horror of such sanguine presentation. As with so
much of Moreau’s work, the canvas is embellished in decadent, reflective detail,
layers of erotic subterfuge in a painting of immense power. The Salomé legend has been played to death
and has lost its power to engage us. But the Moreau image reminds us that a
beautiful and dangerous woman lured an innocent man to his death and delivered
up his head to a king. Liz’s unsettling perfume in its own perturbing way
reminds us that not all perfumery is pretty and doll-like. Her Salome is for women (and brave men…) who
are fearless in their processes, unafraid to walk the streets with skin
anointed in dirty, fabulous hyrax & styrax juice.
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| Foxy's Salome...(Image©TSF) |
Liz and I message back and forth from time to time and chat on the phone; I feel like I’ve known her forever. I’m not sharing private conversations; needless to say, we laugh a lot, curse a lot. We have a lot in common personality-wise and Liz has been solicitous and supportive during my periods of illness, stress and writers block, managing to be understanding and insightful but hilarious and not at all sentimental. This amazing mix of down to earthy conviviality, maternal ferocity, pride and self-depreciation is an alluring mix.
Her Instagram is a
beautiful and honest mix of daily life at Papillon HQ, i.e. chez Liz, flowers,
animals, kids, food and sensational indie perfume formulation, tincturing,
filtering and compounding. These glimpses are a unique reflection of a woman
working incredibly hard at her passion for perfumery but making it very clear
there are also much more important things in life. This slight outsider status
and reluctance to play the traditional role expected of a woman perfumer makes
me love her even more. When she started out, she even had to struggle to
establish the fact she was actually the perfumer; such is the nature of rumour
mongering amid the perfume set.
I empathise with
this mind set. I have been told a lot over the years that I will never be a
successful blogger if I don’t this and that or that I am considered aloof and
arrogant. What these kinds of people forget is that I don’t care. I am not
important. The words are. The juice is. The creators I write about are. I use
avatars and pseudonyms for a reason; I don’t want anyone to know who I am
essentially. Each to their own, some folk are just amazing at it, natural and
charming with an unaffected way of chatting. I feel ill at the thought of
seeing or listening to myself.
So Liz settled in
her forested glade away from the perfumed circus and feels empowered by the
union of nature, home and family she has created. She is a natural empath,
someone with a sense of nurture; it is hard not to be attracted to her light.
As a result I think she tires easily, caring, giving, managing a beautiful
menagerie of animals and people is exhausting and not always fun. Her refuge
lies in silence and solitude, time taken away from the little people as she refers to handsome fearless Rowan and squishy
baby Daisy, rugged hubby Simon and the beautiful dark girls, Poppy and Lily,
like 30’s movie stars. The eldest, flame-haired wild-child Jasmine has moved
out and I imagine intends to wreak wicked sexy havoc on the world in her own
unique Bonnie & Clyde way with Jack, her loyal bearded love. You will note
these kids weave a hex of floral enchantment around Liz, their names a litany
of blooms and plants, as if chosen deliberately as a bouquet of safety and
familial protection.
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| Liz & Perry (dryad tint by TSF) Image©LizMoores |
The other great love of her life is Perry, a bold proud horse she adores. In the photos she posts of woman and steed, there is palpable fire. He is her equine sanctuary and I’m sure like any other confessor he will hear her worries and secrets, yet of course remain loyally steadfast and true.
Liz requires a
certain degree of solitude in order to create her perfumes. The way she works
from raw material to bottle requires a certain isolation. It is not a team
sport. Her perfumery is passion and refuge, but like everything in life, it
really is a question of timing, mood and inspiration. My friend Mr E. at Jorum
Laboratories, like me is up at dawn, working on his formulae all day,
calibrating, editing his own work and briefs for clients. It’s all he does, we
message back and forth as I write and he builds his fragrant world around himself.
His dedication is both inspiring and comforting to me. Everyone is different. I
get terrible writer’s block and just stop, simply unable to find words for
anything. This is happening more and more recently and is seriously hampering
my work.
Liz takes time with
the Papillon perfumes, they are personal things and each one is a reflective
facet of Elizabeth Moores, Perfumer, Mother, Lover, Realist, Sensualist and
Priestess. The gestation of the perfumes demonstrates a perfumer in search of
self amid the self-created noise of Casa Papillon. It is almost as if she needs
joyous discord and a certain level of tolerated chaos in order to work against
it.
I’ve mentioned
before in essays that Liz is pretty unique in the indie perfume world anyway
in the way she uses media, Facebook and Instagram to promote herself and
Papillon. From early I think it became obvious that the two were probably going
to be indivisible and she was not going to be able to hide. The kind of overt
sensuality in her perfumery was always going to demand some sort of figurehead
and of course you couldn’t find anyone one more perfect than Liz Moores to
embody her own olfaction. That’s you get when someone puts mind, body and soul
into their work.
She shares evocative
parts of her creative process, tincturing, filtering, raw materials,
compounding, bottling, labelling, boxing and the tedious but necessary task of
filling sample vials. I’m not sure many people buying her perfume have any real
idea how precarious the life of an independent perfumer actually is, especially
when they control all their costs and are responsible for all stages of the
process from A to Z. Allied to this is the rising costs of certain key raw
materials such as vanilla and rose to name but two and the obvious struggle
with niche/indie/artisan definition that has now become a kind of battleground
with high street and luxe names kicking around in the same playground. It’s not
something that will make you a millionaire; it’s something pursued for love.
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| Oak Tree Diptych (original image Vacherie Alley Plantation) www.renatures.com) |
You can feel the dedication in the organic warp and weft of Liz’s scent weaving. I sense the same emotional textures in the work of Hans Hendley, John Biebel at January Scent Project, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Mandy Aftel, Hiram Green, Antonio Gardoni at Bogue Profumo, Dana el Masri at Parfums Jazmin Seraï, Maria McElroy at Aroma M, John Pegg at Kerosene and the reclusive alchemist Josh Lobb at Slumberhouse, all indie creators making deeply personal olfactive work that has difference because these guys have controlled everything from idea to bottle. Each piece of the process has been owned by them; they are invested in the aromatic machinations.
As an essayist who
has generally specialised in essays in indie and artisanal perfumery, it is
this olfactive intimacy that draws me in over and over again. I like feeling connected
to the storytelling, creative artistry and the makers themselves; their imprint
and emotional proximity to the materials is thrilling to me as a writer. This
aspect of the olfactive craft is barely discernible in the larger more
commercial markets and understandably so, they are compelled constantly to
create big winners, perfumes that will make money, successfully flanker
existing fragrances or riff off existing trends. Even the ever-burgeoning crazy
world of haut-luxe niche where brands toy with the concept of individualism
whereas in fact they are no more no less interesting than the plethora of
counter fragrances that we can all readily access. The only real difference is
maddening packaging, glossy PR and a narcissistic preoccupation with
appearances.
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| Beautiful image of Dryad © Thomas Dunckley @ Candy Perfume Boy |
With Liz’s generous
and detailed work, I feel I have always worn something personal, forged in a
place of love and nurtured acceptance. Salome
was the apogee of fevered desire, Tobacco
Rose, the song of abandoned love, fierce and wild, but driven beyond
endurance. Angélique an olfactive
whisper in an empty house full of memories. Anubis
was that rare thing, a private and vast swathe of oriental styling that laid
down a beautiful statement of personal intent that has echoed down through her
work. Dryad is a very different
proposition from Liz, a profoundly personal statement by a perfumer at the peak
of her daring, darling powers. I think it is the best work she has done.
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| Deer in Forest by Martin Friberg (https://www.instagram.com/brushane/) |
Dryad is a haunting green mirror of sanctuary; both comfort and fate.
A pagan thing, forged in the fertile crucible of Liz Moore’s protective forest.
Echoing a time when the druids wove their mysteries in the shadows of sacred
oak and mistletoe in eerie groves. Using sickle knives, blood and secret lore
they called upon the very forest blood, its spirit to protect and them and
vanquish foes.
The word dryad has its roots in Greek, drys referring to oak. Despite dryads
being more specifically associated with oak trees, there were Meliae for ash trees, Oreads for mountain conifers, Karyai for hazelnut trees and Daphnaie for laurel trees to name but a
few; over time the word dryad became the general word for a female tree spirit
or guardian.
Dryads bring
harmony, light and a palpable sense of ease and balance to their arbours. Their
role is to protect and cherish trees, be vigilant and obsessive through the
many years of wood, sap, leaves, bark shedding and renewal. They share a
singular devotion to the trees they love; their lifetimes can be hauntingly
long and any human glimpses of them will seem strangely brief and eternal at
the same time. Memories of beauty that cannot quite be defined yet seem
indelible.
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| Dryad:YellowGlass (Image©TSF) |
In the midst of
familial noise and the wonderful surround of the menagerie built around her,
Liz is still drawn inexorably into the dendriform cathedral that surrounds her.
I’ve noticed on her Insta feed an increase in the time she spends in
tree-dappled light. Thinking time. Liz time. There is nothing more magical then
the abandonment of self to a weather-gripped forest, be it sun-pierced,
wind-shaken, rain-lashed or snow-silenced.
Liz has a favourite
oak she visits and I wouldn’t be surprised if a beautiful dark-haired dryad was
slumbering sinuously inside the tree, occasionally looking out at the world
with sorrowful eyes as centuries roll by and people seem less feral. This
connection Liz has to nature is not just a fad or something she does to pass
the time between distillations, filtering and picking up the kids. She has
always needed a certain measure of gathered time away from Casa Papillon in
order to concentrate on her work. She is not a prolific perfumer; she doesn’t
need to be, some artisanal makers are, some aren’t, it comes down to
temperament and personal circumstances. The way you have your
business/lab/perfume space set up is central to the way your business will organically
evolve.
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| The (always) immaculately manicured hands of Liz Moores |
Liz invests huge
amounts of time and energy into strong themes that have developed into the
singular canon of work she has launched so far. Of course she tinkers with
other ideas and mods. All good perfumers do, it’s like sketching, filling
notebooks with elegant sparse linework and taking it no further. A couple of
years ago Liz announced the launch of White
Moth, an ethereal composition based around tiare absolute. I tried an early
mothy mod and what I sampled was amazing. However, it was very fleeting and the
tiare felt unstable. Liz struggled to bend the material to her will and then White Moth was pinned to the wall and
left for future pondering.
This isn’t unusual
really; the creative process of an indie perfumer when you do everything from
creating your won library of materials to bottling, labelling and packaging can
be a fraught and often lonely one. I remember Liz telling me how crazy she got
during the creation of Tobacco Rose;
the rose absolutes were such a bitch to work with, she was shouting and
throwing things. She actually ended up walking away from the Tobacco Rose edit for months. When she
returned to it and smelled the shifts and profundity, things began to click and
she started down the waxen petal-strewn path to the extraordinary perfume we
have now.
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| Dryad X Oakmoss (from Berti Fernandez...) |
Dryad is a bold and beautiful thing, full of green shocks and
harrowed miasma. All of the Papillon launches, Anubis, Angelique, Tobacco Rose, Salome and now Dryad each have a taste of memento and
vintage ornament to them. Liz is not a copier, her perfumes do not set out to
recreate lost juices of the past as a number of other brands brazenly do (and
deny it…) but Liz has deep reverence and love for classic perfumery as she
should, as any perfumer should and pays homage to their ambered, powered and
rosaceous phantoms as only she can. I like to think of it as a dirty echo, a way of reminiscing and
alluding to the romantic uneasiness of the iconoclastic perfume landmarks. Yet still
creating personal work that allows people to catch distant echoes of the
scented past and still wear something that anchors them resolutely and
sensually in the present day.
Despite my senses
yelling GREEN!! my initial reaction each time to the puissant opening of Dryad is a sensation of gauzy apricots
decaying softly amid wet grass and weary narcissi. An odd image I know, but if
I sniff up close, this strange, slightly morbid tableau appears over and over,
sometimes with clouds of powder-puff dust, sometimes without. Liz’s handling of
the toxicant orpiment allure of narcissus and jonquil is quite shocking; for a
moment it feels without boundary. Then it tightens like a noose around the
other materials, bitter, vituperative and vigilant.
The only other perfume I’ve smelled with this level of narcissus drama was Cristiano Canali’s swooning Romanza for Masque Milano in 2015. The indolic passive aggressive nature of narcissus is something I find tricky; I love it, crave it even. But part of me loathes it to, finding the high heady scream of buttered pollen just too much. In Dryad it has a delirious radiation that speaks of sunlight setting fire to white bedrooms with scattered clothes and sex-stained sheets.
The only other perfume I’ve smelled with this level of narcissus drama was Cristiano Canali’s swooning Romanza for Masque Milano in 2015. The indolic passive aggressive nature of narcissus is something I find tricky; I love it, crave it even. But part of me loathes it to, finding the high heady scream of buttered pollen just too much. In Dryad it has a delirious radiation that speaks of sunlight setting fire to white bedrooms with scattered clothes and sex-stained sheets.
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| Image © Kilian Schoenberger @instagram.com/kilianschoenberger/ |
There is a
interestingly high gesture of citrus in the overture of Dryad; bigardier orange, cedrat and bergamot, scene setting,
glittering like moon on night skin and in the case of the distinctive and
textured bigardier, an ally in exalting and
soothing the caprine chartreuse beauty of galbanum resin. Liz uses her
materials in often-unexpected ways and Dryad
is a complex, dense work. I have a few issues with the thyme and tarragon; they
feel just a little overdosed to me, much as one might over tip the hand in cooking.
The anisic bite of tarragon and shrubby thyme whilst obviously green and
herbaceous just pull my attention away from that fascinating central galbanum
thread.
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| Fern Dress by Catherine Latson Image©DawnWatsonPhotography |
It’s a minor quibble
and perhaps a flaw the composition arguably needs in order to justify the
citric top and the viscous yellow detailing of narcissus and jonquil. As my
mind finally caves into the greenery of Dryad,
my repeat wearings brought me close to the delicious sueded verdigris scent of
Deertongue in the base mixed with benjoin styrax and Peru balsam. These resins
warm and rise through a mournful lavender that smells to my nose like so much
talcum spilled on cold grey marble.
As with all of Liz’s
intense creations they have the imprint of stagecraft, planned around
meticulously fleshed out olfactive characters and dramatic odiferous
situations. Intrinsic to drama is narrative and because her work and materials
bear a maker’s mark at all stages, Liz, in many ways is her own narrative.
Fragments of her DNA and persistent psychology enter the perfumes and imprint
the process. If you consider the forest home a stage, it is populated by a cast
of vibrantly alive human and animal players who come and go, laugh, eat, sleep,
stay, grow, leave, fight, cry, get injured, heal, entertain, rebel and love,
most importantly of all, love. A dangerous daughter gets tattooed and sails the
seven seas, tiger cats have humbug babies, pythons have eerie white and yellow
snakelets, owls are trained, roofers roof handsomely, surgery is had, a
shoulder heals and fragrances gestate and slowly emerge. It is quite a show.
But one with huge heart and fire.
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| Dalry Cemetery, Edinburgh Image by Gabriel Nalepa @instagram.com/gabrielnalepa/ |
The backdrop is the
eternal forest, an emerald, celandine, viridian, Brunswick, Hookers green place
suffused with English luminescence and drunk on triumphant rain.
For many of us
forests and trees are connective and emotive spaces that have an unquantifiable
sense of power, an aura of chthonic vibration that elicits some unsettled
response from us. Some people prefer wide-open spaces, finding forests and
woods claustrophobic and menacing. I am someone who finds the eeriness and
gnarled grasp, especially of old woods both intimidating and thrilling; the
dappling altercation between shadow and sunlight, the sensation of aching root
systems binding the earth beneath me, the enclosed nature of noise, bird-sound,
leaf-fall, bark-stretch and sap-rush.
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| Liz & Ghost |
Liz’s arboreal
wanderings, solo or with Ghost her beloved owl are the reminder for me that she
works in a very particular way. She is more connected to soil, weather and
bloom than many of us, it radiates out of her complex perfumery. Salome and Tobacco Rose are provocative, evolving works on skin, with moments
of dirty uncertainty and moody needful beauty. Anubis was her first perfume and still now the one that resonates
the most for her; in many ways its odd clash of ambered heat and dry fickle
spices echoes down through all of the creations in one form or another, a
depiction of a sensual war in olfactive terms that perhaps reflects the reality
of life for a woman who lives and works immersed in a naturally infused and
beautifully chaotic life.
Dryad is the apotheosis of this; Liz’s way of communicating her
fierce connection to the green surround that soothes, protects and pierces her.
I wonder sometimes if she wanders amid her beloved oak trees listening to
leaves twitch and bark stretch; does she yearn to step inside ancient trees and
vanish quietly into sap, fibre, chlorophyll and roots? The intensity of the
perfume suggests contemplative struggle and a complex gathering of emotions
against this forested backdrop.
I have obviously
been wearing Dryad a lot as I write
this essay. There is a point about an hour in when something so beautiful
unfolds; a sense of feral closeness, a perception of someone else soaked deeply
in Dryad who holds me tight and won’t
let go. It is an erotic dislocation played out by the costus, milky orris and
ashes of smoky styrax. A genuinely startling moment of ghost-scent embedded in
hair, warm neck and discarded underwear.
Dryad travels, well journeys really, there is a subtle difference. It’s not much to ask of a fragrance, but increasingly I find so much so much stuff laced with sulphurous tricks and brutal synth flower mimicry that my senses no longer register any genuine harmony and orchestral beauty. True composition is being left behind in the scramble for dull profit and glossy PR provocation. I’m aware that some perfumers believe that discordancy is a style and done correctly, understanding your chords and materials, opposites and complimentary on colour wheels, it can be exhilarating. However in my experience of sampling, collision and heavy-handed contrasting is best left to those with a very intensive knowledge of how materials interact.
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| Image © Kilian Schoenberger @instagram.com/kilianschoenberger/ |
Dryad travels, well journeys really, there is a subtle difference. It’s not much to ask of a fragrance, but increasingly I find so much so much stuff laced with sulphurous tricks and brutal synth flower mimicry that my senses no longer register any genuine harmony and orchestral beauty. True composition is being left behind in the scramble for dull profit and glossy PR provocation. I’m aware that some perfumers believe that discordancy is a style and done correctly, understanding your chords and materials, opposites and complimentary on colour wheels, it can be exhilarating. However in my experience of sampling, collision and heavy-handed contrasting is best left to those with a very intensive knowledge of how materials interact.
Journeys are
unpredictable and perfumery is no different. Dryad has vast complexity; I return to it over and over as one’s
hand reaches out to an old tree to feel moss-clad bark, lichen and knots,
caressing and imagining the created surface to Dryad of citrus and apothecary herbaceous protection that like Salome offers up something of a pagan
shock to reveal below, a sap and chlorophyll boudoir ambush that takes hold and
doesn’t let go.
Each time I wear Dryad I prepare for this bitter vegetal
glitter that tendrils off the skin, the oakmoss a tangible inky fall and
confrontation. You plunge into the forest’s embrace and dirty echoes of the past
undone and flayed by Liz’s uncompromising attention to detail. The sensual
flourish of bigarade, cedrat and bergamot that illuminates the opening is far
more sophisticated than the usual by rote citric overture. The bittersweet and floral mingling of the citrus oils
resonate far beyond expectancy, reaching for the orange blossom and lavender
and gently casting glow on Dryad’s
remarkable pagan heart, that union of narcissus, jonquil and mottled oakmoss.
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| Foxy's Séville à L'Aube (Image ©TSF) |
Costus dirties and disturbs
the beauty of things. It is a disruptive but compulsive guest at the assembled
table. There is force and a kind of ugly magnificence. The rut beneath the
façade. Remember Séville à L’Aube, Bertrand
Duchaufour’s collaborative masterpiece with perfume expert and writer Denyse
Beaulieu for L’Artisan Parfumeur? A scent that captures an instant of
abandonment against a glittering indolic backdrop of religious Easter
festivities in Séville. Two strangers fuck under an orange blossom tree, lost
to carnal desire, devoid momentarily of reason and responsibility. The
powerfully combined orange blossom, Luisieri lavender and oozing beeswax were erotically
charged by the costus, suggesting raw skin, surface, scalp and hair, the image
of two people so close as to be smelling each other’s ears, necks, hairlines
and eyelashes.
In Dryad it is the unsettling presence in
the forest drawing Liz toward a subconscious dissolving in the green-mulched
silence. It lingers at the edges of her notes reminding us that perfumery
despite its projected auras and acclamations of beauty can often perturb. I’m
not sure how much of Dryad was
deliberate isolation, but I know Liz battled its creation. It feels marked with
interrupted intensity, which I think has imbued the curve and orbit of the perfume
with beautiful doubt.
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| nightgreen (digital image ©TFS) |
As I often wrote
late into the night I like to wear something to fall asleep in, or try to, a worrisome
mind soothed by icy swathes of murmuring electronica or mournful soaring choral
voices. I became quite preoccupied with Dryad;
it was on pillows and t-shirts I slept in, on fragrance strips on my desk: I
started smelling it everything. A phantom lover, asking me to lay my head in
branches and let leaves cover my eyes.
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| Untitled (Bebe Marie) early 1940s by Joseph Cornell |
This is emotive
exemplary aroma from a perfumer who chooses to work against herself in many
ways. Refuge is sought in the clamour of family and the routine of animal
husbandry. She is adored and loves in return. There is however a need for
silence, a green, canopied wander that both calms the spirit and allows the
traffic of the day to drop slowly away. Liz has increasingly withdrawn from the
more conventional ways and mores of traditional perfumery making and the
accompanying hype of PR, trade shows and societies. Is she losing sleep over it?
I doubt it. Has she lost sales over it? Perhaps, but at the end of the day it
is about personal integrity and knowing what you do has worth and moral weight.
Ultimately we return
to the word dryad itself, the idea of
a passionate, possessive tree guardian spirit who is bound by her nature to her
oak tree or the trees that define her. The concept itself is loaded with double-edged
notions of feminine force, bewitchment and mystery; but also of containment and
tethering. The nymphs cannot stray far from their trees for fear of dying. They
are bound to the woods, to a lifecycle of protective verdancy, witnesses to
season upon season turning over like the pages of moss-stained manuscripts.
There is sometimes think a sense of guilty war within Liz, the pull and
friction of forested silence vs. the demands of gorgeous family and the
demanding cycle of artisan perfumery.
Dryad is the green queen, the spirited surreptitious phantasm that
has roamed around Elisabeth Moores, Mistress Perfumer for a while now, a
whispering, compelling thing that has talked soft and low in leaf song for
years, waiting to be made. There have been tiny flickers of it in the others,
but with Dryad, she gives back not
just to the forest that inspired her but also to herself, a gift of watchful
sensuality and power, redolent with pagan hex, something a sylvan mistress
might wear stepping through the veil from one world to another.
The final words on Dryad will be by Jasmine Moores, who wrote a sensual hymn to green and her mother as the perfume launched. This excerpt is beautiful...
It is often lamented, the weight of my tongue?
Or the vetiver ash that rests in my lungs?
Wordless in woodlands, my senses can sing.
Sound is not needed
to speak from within.
I press soft flesh to bark in the evening's gold dusk,
to breathe hues of a satyr's musk.
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| Image©TSF |
©TheSilverFox
29 October 2017
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