Duet of Scarlet & Gold: The Perfect Hermès Arrival of Christine Nagel (& Jean-Claude’s Saffron-Infused Welcome…)

..When Valia asked me,

'When did you first set foot in the world?',

my laugh, like a rhubarb shoot

pokes its head through the snow of my mouth…

From A Few Lines About My Age by Kurdish poet Abdullah Pashwew

In 2013 it was announced at Hermès that in-house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena had chosen a scented successor. The news seemed a little shocking despite the rumours of Ellena’s impending retirement that had been drifting carefully around for a while.

Jean-Claude Ellena & Christine Nagel
(image ©Hermès) 

Step forward Christine Nagel, half-French, half-Swiss, an elegant and prolifically stylish perfumer with some fascinating work on her CV including big hits for Maison Dior, John Galliano and Guerlain under her belt. Her most intriguing portfolio perhaps best demonstrating her instinctive nuances and clarity is her work at Jo Malone London under the seemingly relentless PR machine of Estée Lauder. Among the twenty five successful and commercially viable fragrances she has composed for Jo Malone London there are some exceptional perfumes, complex odours I have loved and admired that have at times seemed to look to Hermès and Jean-Claude’s less-is-more approach. Her swan song Wood Sage & Sea Salt in particular was an especially poignant and minimalist adieu, sparse and scoured with subtle details and speckles of observed texture. An abstracted capture of distinctly English windswept beaches, driftwood and bundled cashmere-wrapped wanderings along deserted coastal stretches. It was a bittersweet sign-off to a rather brilliant and I think somewhat underrated body of outstanding work.  

From the Foxy collection
Jo Malone London: Wood Sage & Sea Salt,
Rose Water & Vanilla and Bitter Orange & Chocolate

  

Christine’s Rose Water & Vanilla, one of the original Cologne Intense series from 2010 is a scent I have loved since its launch. I was born in Bahrain and this it is nostalgic silvered Middle Eastern rose alchemy in a bottle to me. Sadly, Lauder decided to axe it from the line so I stocked up and have three 100ml dark flacons slumbering in the Foxy study. Christine’s Peony & Blush Suede was one of the brand’s biggest ever hits, a clever subtle riff on niche leather trends, sublimating it with a veil of rosy apple and drifting carnation. Iris & Lady Moore, a nice mix of powder and rubbed geranium was an unexpected delight in 2012, part of the London Bloom collection and I have always really enjoyed Christine’s foray into gourmand territory with offerings such as Ginger Biscuit, Lemon Tart and the divine Bitter Orange & Chocolate that was literally Terry’s chocolate orange in a bottle. I went through three bottles and have two more in storage.

Elegies of Fugitive Anomaly: Three Perfumes by Paul Schütze

‘The smoke’s smell, too,

Flowing from where a bonfire burns

The dead, the waste, the dangerous,

And all to sweetness turns.’

From Digging by Edward Thomas

As a writer I do from time to time receive requests from perfumers to review their scented work. I don’t pen negative reviews, so if I choose not to post my thoughts on something, it means I haven’t liked the scent or scents or found anything arresting enough in the olfactive composition or genesis to inspire me. Not everything has to be masterly or game-changing. I just need to be interested and surprised enough. On the Foxy blog I have said before I prefer to write on fragrances I have purchased, this act of simple aromatic commitment honours both perfume and perfumer. This may sound a tad simplistic but it allows me to avoid the poisonous vapours of gloomy and antagonistic reviewing.

WeAreCanvas: Five X Olfactive Fictions

I: Bulgari Black (Duncan)

I first saw him drinking coffee in a dimly lit corner of an airport Costa, face tinted blue by his laptop. My chair screamed as I pulled it out. He glanced up, smiled wearily and my heart lurched like a boat tied to stalwart iron tugging to flee.

    

Each Friday I travelled home to a cold northern city, to a house alive with family, to someone I’d loved for more than fifteen years; familiarity had perhaps dulled our edges, but the bonds, plastered, riveted, taped and put to bed were secure. We’d had moments of darkness, nights of war words; resolved in the light of pale morning, skin reeking of fuck and Dior. But I felt loved enough.

On weekly London commutes I saw him everywhere; at check ins, on trains to Liverpool Street, wandering scattered concourses, thumbing magazines in the warm, sugar-aired W.H. Smith. He trailed vanilla and a weird sniff of smoky plastic, mixed with businessman heat and exhaustion. It was intoxicating. I stalked his vapours.

‘Can I buy your coffee for you?’ He was standing behind me, exuding that sweet scent of Lego tires and chai. Such a casual request led us recklessly to a room in a hotel, sitting in loaded shadows, each of us wondering how the other tasted. It felt insane but my skin burned for him. ‘You smell of burnt tea and rubber, it’s driving me fucking crazy’. I stood and touched his face hard, pushing fingers over his lips and stubble. He flinched, then chewed and licked at my fingers. I leaned down and pushed my face into the gap of collar and neck. ‘What is this smell?’ I asked, nuzzling his throat, ‘it’s amazing’.

Exquisite Ceremony: ‘Geisha Noire’ & ‘Geisha Vanilla Hinoki’ by Aroma M Perfume

‘He had never looked forward to the wisdom and other vaunted benefits of old age. Would he be able to die young — and if possible free of all pain? A graceful death — as a richly patterned kimono, thrown carelessly across a polished table, slides unobtrusively down into the darkness of the floor beneath. A death marked by elegance.’

From Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima

This piece must begin with a story of a gift and the kindness that accompanied it. In the weeks running up to the gluttonous excess of Esxence in March this year a certain cookie-obsessed Viennese resident asked if she could perhaps look out for a couple of brands on my behalf as she was Milan-bound with friends Dr Fox and creatrix extraordinaire Vero Kern. A very generous offer from Val the Cookie Queen, as many of you know her, a remarkable woman, passionate, forthright and loyal. I say this, as I have no real desire to attend these events and I know how much Val dislikes them, so her offer was not only incredibly kind but also selfless. Val’s awareness of scent is quite forceful, she understands the way it works, turns, convolutes and bullshits but she has beautiful taste in scent. She wears Vero Profumo perfumes mostly, in fact almost exclusively; she and they and Vero have symbiosis.

Foxy's beloved copy of Mishima's
'The Sea of Fertility' 

So with Val’s offer in mind, I perused the list of attendees and chose only a handful of brands, some old friends, Mona di Orio, Masque Milano and One of Those (as Nu_be are now calling themselves) and a couple of brands I hadn’t tried before whose wares intrigued me, including UNUM and Homoelgans.

The Sanctuary of Cesious Dust: ‘Nettuno’ by Mendittorosa Odori d’Anima

‘..Long afloat on shipless oceans

I did all my best to smile

'Til your singing eyes and fingers

Drew me loving to your isle

And you sang

Sail to me, Sail to me

Let me enfold you

Here I am, Here I am

Waiting to hold you..’

From Song to the Siren (Music:Tim Buckley Words: Larry Beckett, Tim Buckley)

I have been coating and comforting myself in layers of blue refractive Nettuno most evenings these last few weeks before falling exhausted and troubled into bed filling the inert, unyielding mugginess of June nights with this most enigmatic and compelling of scents from the mind of quixotic olfactive siren Stefania Squeglia of Mendittorosa Odori d’Anima. Nettuno is the third of her charged and charismatic Talismans after the architectural patchouli rose curves of Le Mat and the sea urchin, booze and leather dream of Sogno Reale.

Le Mat, pulled from the earth, trailing dirt and life, Sogno Reale, a glittering oceanic oddity and now Nettuno an astral, alien thing, cosmic and weird, a glassy rose, rotating slowly in a cyan void. All three Talismans are the work of Amélie Bourgeois at Flair in Paris. Amélie and Anne-Sophie Behaghel created the entire Mendittorosa line including North, South, Id, Alfa and Omega. I reviewed Sogno Reale in December 2015; it was a scent that I’d craved reviewing and then it just surpassed my expectations:

Mendittorosa Odori d'Anima
Sogno Reale

‘It smells mysterious and unexpected. Reading any of the descriptions does not really prepare you for the curiosity of its gauzy ozonic games. It is a bizarre mix of Italian sea-food platter, awash with salt and iodine, shells, claws, rock and sand mingled with a fantasy of mer-people crowned in diadems of polished urchin shells in dazzling aqua shades.’ The Silver Fox. Dec 2015

Stefania is one of the most intriguing people in contemporary perfumery in this humble fox’s opinion, indulging openly in her passions for astrology, olfactive runes, fate and spirituality and pouring these desires into her collaborative odiferous work with Flair, glass makers, jewellers, poets, dancers, designers and a coterie of likeminded friends.