Femme Rochas 1945 Parfum de Toilette

April 25, 1943
Dear Mama,

Paris has become sad and gray since the Germans arrived, but you will see, one day the guns will rest and the sirens will fall silent. Just wait, perhaps next summer we will harvest peaches and late plums again, laughing in the sunshine as their sweet juice flows over our hands. And no, don’t ask me what nourishes my optimism. I only pass on the little notes when I see the double cross. I am not cowardly, but I am also not crazy.

Do you still remember the man from the third floor, whom I told you about in my last letter? At first glance, he always seems so lost in thought, but I have long seen through what a keen observer he is. He never tires of hauling clinking bags into his small apartment, and sometimes he murmurs incomprehensible strings of letters and numbers to himself when we greet each other on the stairs. I often hear his window closing two floors below my attic room when the smoke from the paint factory drifts over again. As if the garbage dump on the other side of the house weren’t already bad enough... For a long time, I have thought that he cannot bear how ugly our world has become. Not to mention the biting stench.
Yesterday, he gently touched my sleeve on the stairs and pressed a mysterious little bottle into my hand. “This is for you, Mademoiselle. For a woman like you.” I only murmured a confused thank you, but he had already disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell. I studied the vial for a long time, and when I finally opened it, a scent emerged that was entirely me. I can hardly put it into words and have been wondering ever since: How could a complete stranger look so deeply into my soul?

Take care of yourself, dear Mama,

Yours, F.

***

One could accuse Edmond Roudnitska of blind escapism, as he had nothing better to do in the midst of World War II and during the siege of Paris than to create his first perfume. While the world around him sank into chaos, he set his mind on capturing the essence of beauty in a bottle, as if he could at least patch up the cracks that ran through his time a little bit. Raw materials were hardly available, but perhaps it was exactly this scarcity that spurred him to achieve greatness.
Femme leans on the structures of Guerlain's Mitsouko, and I strongly doubt that it is a coincidence that Mitsouko was born right after the first and Femme immediately after the second World War. The fragrance embodies the perfect balance between dark flowers, ripe fruits, creamy sandalwood, and cool moss. Femme smells of warm women's skin and ripe peach, and is surprisingly not sweet. It is sensuous and beautiful in a way that is almost painful. And every time I wear the scent, I wonder why I even need anyone else. But perhaps that is precisely the crux: Sometimes it brings my stubborn heart, which always carries so much longing, to its knees.

As with all older fragrances, the reformulation bug has naturally also gnawed at Femme. I do not know the 1989 version, which was made over Roudnitska's head and without his involvement, but the scent is said to be well done. The current version is rather anemic and has lost its curves. However, with a bit of imagination, one can still sense the old brilliance, and personally, I would prefer this version of Femme to none at all, even though I rejoice with every spray that another bottle of the original is waiting for me in my cabinet.