Violette Précieuse Caron 2017 Eau de Parfum

In 1913, everything was at its best. Europe looked back on a glorious past and a bright future. Culture was in full bloom, technology was developing at a dizzying pace: cars, airships, airplanes, electric trams, radio technology. Any remaining poverty would soon be eradicated by the economic growth that had been unbroken and highly dynamic for decades. Diseases would soon be defeated by advances in medicine and hygiene. For almost a hundred years, there had been no truly great war in Europe. Certainly, there were flickers of unrest here and there, and the general staffs were planning for all eventualities. But surely, no one would allow something as old-fashioned and crazy as a war. After all, we were no longer living in the times of Napoleon! Pulsating trade and a rising industry connected the great metropolises of Europe, luxury trains sped at top speeds between Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, and those who traveled first class spent their days and nights, no matter which country they were in, in the newest grand hotels with French chefs and unheard-of amenities like electric light and flushing toilets. The whole world was European, and if there were countries outside Europe that might one day compete with Europe in a hundred or two hundred years, perhaps China or Japan, it would only be to the extent that they could appropriate European science, education, and culture.

Sensitive observers could see the cracks, contradictions, tensions, and abysses. The rising tide of nationalism everywhere; ideological racism and anti-Semitism; a nearly universal lack of women's suffrage; a sharper suppression of homosexuality than in the Arab world; workers without rights; unresolved national questions everywhere: not only in the Tsarist Empire and Austria-Hungary, but also in Great Britain, which at that time still included all of Ireland (which was beginning to fight for independence). Then there were the enormous armament efforts with the development of ever deadlier weapons; the atrocities and exploitation in the colonies, poorly concealed behind phrases of a civilizing mission. But there was probably almost no one who was not confident or hopeful that these underlying tensions could be defused in the name of enlightenment, progress, reform, reason, and science.

In 1913, it was not enough to be a pessimist to foresee that this magnificent, vibrant year would be the peak year of the European world, a tipping, final, and turning year. One had to be a true apocalyptic to even sense a hint of the whirlpool of self-destruction, the shrieking delirium into which the continent would sink over the next forty years, how it would not be able to stop unleashing its immeasurably grown energies against itself until it reached deadly exhaustion.

Since I love Europe, I often think about what it might look like today if it had succeeded in setting the course in a different direction in 1913. If European economies had not regained the strength of 1913 until the 1960s - trains in Europe have, by the way, never reached the speeds of 1913 on many routes again. If all those who perished on the battlefields and in the hells of camps, all those who went mad or were mutilated, who had to emigrate, could instead have continued to love, learn, dream, give birth to children, and work in Edinburgh, Metz, Königsberg, Thessaloniki, and Kharkiv until they died satisfied with life.

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Violette Précieuse, the precious violet, was released in 1913 by Caron. I do not know how its original formula was, how the corseted ladies and mustachioed gentlemen felt when this scent wafted into their noses. Caron reissued a fragrance of this name in 2017, of which the Parfumo editorial team could not determine whether it was based on the original scent or merely took its name. What has surprised and saddened me is that this beautiful 2017 fragrance, for which I sincerely thank Sniffsniff for the sample, has already been discontinued. Even after turning the entire internet upside down, I could find no trace of an offer to purchase fresh bottles of it.

Violette Précieuse is a brilliantly bright, yet intensely violet glowing fragrance that, when turned a little, can also shine in a summery, powerful (somewhat unreal) light green. The scent is perfect harmony, a classically weightless balance. Crystal-clear notes of lily of the valley, violet, and raspberry form a perfect triangle, a scent mirror on which no speck of dust can settle. The wood brings no hardness, only firmness and structure. The musk brings no softness, only the necessary fullness. Violette Précieuse is a cool scent, but not a cold one. It is simple, but anything but banal; it is nothing less than soulless, oh no! - but it is so with the utmost precision.

With the year 1913, the fragrance shares that it is archetypally European: the best classical Western fragrance tradition, firmly floral anchored. An Apollonian scent: rational and optimistic. It has something of completion and self-assurance, a long history lies behind it. It wants nothing to do with abysses and nervous exaggerations, with decadence.

In another respect, Violette Précieuse rather points forward to the 1920s, to which the enchantingly beautiful Art Deco of the bottle (perhaps my favorite design era) is related: the pursuit of brightness and clarity, the aversion to flourishes and ornaments. The fragrance is not necessarily bobbed hair, cigarette holder, and men's suit, for it is still too classically and traditionally feminine (although it can work on men). But even less is it a corset. So what is it then? The perfect fragrance for the headband with feathers and for the sexy Charleston dress of 1923. Or perhaps to the elegant nudity of the Little Mermaid, which was unveiled in 1913.

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Written in the Banat, once an aspiring European core landscape until 1913, now a fragmented borderland between three states since 1918.