Etienne de Swardt and Chandler Burr, photo by Vanni Bassetti
Last year, at Pitti Fragranze in Florence, Chandler Burr ignited my passion for scent. This year, at the 14th edition of the world renowned fragrance fair, Etienne de Swardt made me fall in lust with perfume.
Olfactory curator, former NY Times perfume critic, author and eighth art activist Burr was kind enough last year, when I attended my first Pitti Fragranze, to clarify that scent is a work of art. What I came away with was a quote that I now refer to every time I need to clear my head about perfume, smell and scent. Think of it as the written word equivalent of that little beaker of coffee beans one often finds at perfumeries around the world.
Scent is something different from smell. Smell can invoke memories, like when you step into the Paris metro or off a plane in Bombay, but scent is an art form. And we lack the terminology to speak of it that way, we lack the right words but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated as such.
So when I discovered a talk between Burr and self-proclaimed "troublemaker and perfumer" Etienne de Swardt, founder of Etat Libre d'Orange at Pitti Fragranze, I knew I had to listen in. I craved to listen to these two powerhouses of perfumes.
Born in South Africa, sporting a lovely French accent and a rocking sense of humor, de Swardt talked about perfume with passion, simplicity and charisma. He described in particular a few of the scents included in his brand -- the name of which refers to a South African free state in the late 19th Century, a Boer utopia of sorts with its own currency and laws that came to an end in 1902.
What attracted me to Etat Libre d'Orange is this idea of perfume, personal scent, as a story we tell to each person we meet, through our skin. Everything becomes much clearer this way, and suddenly the reason we love someone immediately, or despise someone else at that initial meeting, depends deeply from a subconscious decision our olfactory sense makes.
It's very cinematic to me, this idea of falling in scent at first sight. Very rockstar too... And that makes sense in my world.
During the fascinating talk, the perfumer described 'Jasmin et Cigarette' a combination of two familiar scents which he called, "very Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich." It was fascinating to hear from de Swardt the source of inspiration for the scent, which ranged from "the film we discussed while making this was Blade Runner, the smoking scene," and the song "Thanks for the Memory, by The Platters," which he admitted was also "the code name for the scent."
Burr jumped in to give his own, colorful translation of the scent into words, by saying "it could be a photograph, something that is done by a Cindy Sherman... It would be a woman, a young woman, a French woman or a New Yorker." Burr also added, "it's intentionally somewhat cheap jasmine, she sprays herself with this perfume and she has a date, so she goes down and sits at a cafe and she smokes." 'Jasmin et Cigarette', he concluded, is "a portrait of this woman, an image that is astonishingly clear and astonishingly realistic -- the cinematic story."
I can always get behind a cinematic story, and when it comes to perfume, it's a match made in heaven. Equally elusive to describe and yet so powerfully sensual.
With the next fragrance presented, it was time for roses. 'Eau de Protection' is a fragrance inspired and created with the help of Rossy de Palma, the quirky Spanish actress best known for her work with Pedro Almodóvar in beauties like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
While de Swardt described 'Eau de Protection' as "dangerous and quite charming, possessing all the facets of the rose, and sweet chocolate," Burr found the hidden meaning of the fragrance. "I smell desperation and violence and terrible suffering, there is nothing feminine about it," Burr said. He also added that there is a hint of metallic blood in the scent, and concluded that the fragrance itself "is in a sense perverse because it takes violence and presents it to you as something beautiful."
With the next scent, 'Fat Electrician' came a backstory as outrageous as the title of a perfume which Burr called, "easily, the most beautiful work of perfumery done in my life." 'Fat Electrician' is vetiver scented and inspired by the lead of '70s arthouse film Pink Narcissus, gay porn star Bobby Kendall. One day, filmmaker James Bidgood said about Kendall "oh, he now is a fat electrician in New Jersey," and the name stuck.
Burr admitted he wears it all the time, because of its use of the main note, "vetiver, one of the most beautiful materials around and this is the best description of vetivers around." Instead, de Swardt provided the cinematic analogy for the scent, by saying that 'Fat Electrician' "is a tragedy, we call it the curse of beauty, that's the definition of that perfume."
There is also a perfume, co-created with actress Tilda Swinton, called 'Like This' and inspired by Rumi's famous love poem by the same name. A mix of Moroccan Neroli, with roses, ginger, pumpkin and spices thrown in, it's the perfect interpretation of a poem by the one poet of the Middle East who could actually help us solve all our world problems -- if only we united in reading him.
When describing his brand de Swardt said, "we are a beautiful blend of confusion, we generate emotion; we are on the skin, we spray on, so we are superficial but we are fundamental."
Fundamental. It was perhaps that word by de Swardt -- along with this cinematic view I felt while listening to him talk with Burr -- which made me run to the Etat Libre d'Orange stand immediately afterward and spray on some 'Jasmin et Cigarette'. The fragrance smelled as perfectly wonderful as I expected it to, with a twist of course, and I now yearn to have a full bottle. Thank goodness for internet shopping.
All images courtesy of Pitti Immagine, used with permission.