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08/30/2020
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What's in a name..
Sometime at the beginning of the 20th century, clever perfume sellers, who today would be called "marketing specialists", came up with the idea of dividing perfumes into two categories.
Woman - man. Pour femme - pour homme...
While the great "Jicky" by Guerlain did without such a label in the beginning and Diaghilev sprayed his backdrops for the Ballets Russes with "Mitsouko", the club of clever gender markers probably slowly formed in the background.
Categorisation facilitates sales and advertising to specific target groups.
In addition, the naming is also easier. While grandiose creations by Germaine Cellier, whom I admire so much, were called "Bandit" and "Vent Vert" at the beginning of her career, i.e. gender-neutral, her fragrance "Jolie Madame", a perfume with a distinctly feminine connotation, was released by Balmain in 1953 Well, the 50's are notorious for their smugness and tightness. Just think of the almost absurd role models, which from today's point of view, were especially conveyed in advertising at that time ("A modern woman has two problems: What do I cook today and what do I wear?" - TV commercials on German TV).
What image does the name "Jolie Madame" evoke? Is the perfume even "pretty" and possibly even pleasing and harmless?
Not at all.
Rarely have name and content fitted together worse than in this case. With "Jolie Madame", Cellier created a perfume that is in no way inferior to the great "Bandit" in terms of depth and radiance.
It is one of those works of art that cannot and need not be broken down in detail.
(Yes, perfume can be art. Exactly when the perfumer can do more than just deliver solid craftsmanship!)
But if you are expecting a "pyramid down" from me, you can end your reading here.
(By the way, I freely admit that I don't care about these "pyramids" here at all. I always test without studying the alleged ingredients beforehand and try to find out for myself what I smell first)
Cellier used (as the specialists à la Luca Turin write in their guides) so-called "ship bases", i.e. prefabricated, specific base notes on which she then placed her perfumes.
"Jolie Madame" smells to me incredibly elegant and complex after an abstract bouquet of flowers, which is definitely purple in my imagination. At the same time, the fragrance has bitter notes and a certain leatheriness. A light furniture polish effect also resonates, paired with a dark, cool earthiness.
It is a completely serious and perhaps even melancholic impression that emanates from this perfume.
And of course it is wearable for all people who are attracted to it and will complete their charisma.
So Cellier, the genius, blew up the established categories even in the 50's.
Her creation was called "Jolie Madame", but would be sold today as gender-neutral if it came from a niche label.
Although I don't always cry out euphorically (for completely different reasons!) when it comes to niche fragrances, I must say that it is very beneficial and positive when companies generally abandon the traditional gender definitions of perfume.
Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne recently reported in a Guardian article that she stopped dividing her fragrances into "for women / for men" about 20 years ago.
A customer had been enthusiastic about a perfume that wore "for women" in its name and now felt "kind of embarrassed" with his choice.
In the 21st century we should no longer be embarrassed if we as men love rose scents or as women (like me) love leather and dark spices.
Calvin Klein with his "CK1" basically only continued the time before the big marketing - gender - mark.
"Jicky" was unisex. 4711 anyway. And in oriental countries, it was and always has been customary for men to use very floral and strong perfumes. No one would deny them their masculinity because of it.
Unfortunately, there are still countless manufacturers who rely on colour codes and names. Pink and orange shades for the ladies, dark colours for the boys. Even the razors are pink when they are designed "for women". And they are also more expensive than men's products - the classic mainstream - women's fragrance too, by the way.
But that's another matter.
It's our own fault if we have nothing else on our minds but to be "jolie" and are willing to pay more for it.
By the way, "Jolie Madame" was dressed in a noble gray... - très chic, totalement "unisexe".
Woman - man. Pour femme - pour homme...
While the great "Jicky" by Guerlain did without such a label in the beginning and Diaghilev sprayed his backdrops for the Ballets Russes with "Mitsouko", the club of clever gender markers probably slowly formed in the background.
Categorisation facilitates sales and advertising to specific target groups.
In addition, the naming is also easier. While grandiose creations by Germaine Cellier, whom I admire so much, were called "Bandit" and "Vent Vert" at the beginning of her career, i.e. gender-neutral, her fragrance "Jolie Madame", a perfume with a distinctly feminine connotation, was released by Balmain in 1953 Well, the 50's are notorious for their smugness and tightness. Just think of the almost absurd role models, which from today's point of view, were especially conveyed in advertising at that time ("A modern woman has two problems: What do I cook today and what do I wear?" - TV commercials on German TV).
What image does the name "Jolie Madame" evoke? Is the perfume even "pretty" and possibly even pleasing and harmless?
Not at all.
Rarely have name and content fitted together worse than in this case. With "Jolie Madame", Cellier created a perfume that is in no way inferior to the great "Bandit" in terms of depth and radiance.
It is one of those works of art that cannot and need not be broken down in detail.
(Yes, perfume can be art. Exactly when the perfumer can do more than just deliver solid craftsmanship!)
But if you are expecting a "pyramid down" from me, you can end your reading here.
(By the way, I freely admit that I don't care about these "pyramids" here at all. I always test without studying the alleged ingredients beforehand and try to find out for myself what I smell first)
Cellier used (as the specialists à la Luca Turin write in their guides) so-called "ship bases", i.e. prefabricated, specific base notes on which she then placed her perfumes.
"Jolie Madame" smells to me incredibly elegant and complex after an abstract bouquet of flowers, which is definitely purple in my imagination. At the same time, the fragrance has bitter notes and a certain leatheriness. A light furniture polish effect also resonates, paired with a dark, cool earthiness.
It is a completely serious and perhaps even melancholic impression that emanates from this perfume.
And of course it is wearable for all people who are attracted to it and will complete their charisma.
So Cellier, the genius, blew up the established categories even in the 50's.
Her creation was called "Jolie Madame", but would be sold today as gender-neutral if it came from a niche label.
Although I don't always cry out euphorically (for completely different reasons!) when it comes to niche fragrances, I must say that it is very beneficial and positive when companies generally abandon the traditional gender definitions of perfume.
Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne recently reported in a Guardian article that she stopped dividing her fragrances into "for women / for men" about 20 years ago.
A customer had been enthusiastic about a perfume that wore "for women" in its name and now felt "kind of embarrassed" with his choice.
In the 21st century we should no longer be embarrassed if we as men love rose scents or as women (like me) love leather and dark spices.
Calvin Klein with his "CK1" basically only continued the time before the big marketing - gender - mark.
"Jicky" was unisex. 4711 anyway. And in oriental countries, it was and always has been customary for men to use very floral and strong perfumes. No one would deny them their masculinity because of it.
Unfortunately, there are still countless manufacturers who rely on colour codes and names. Pink and orange shades for the ladies, dark colours for the boys. Even the razors are pink when they are designed "for women". And they are also more expensive than men's products - the classic mainstream - women's fragrance too, by the way.
But that's another matter.
It's our own fault if we have nothing else on our minds but to be "jolie" and are willing to pay more for it.
By the way, "Jolie Madame" was dressed in a noble gray... - très chic, totalement "unisexe".
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