Return from the Crypt

This may just be a short Zombie moment. After spending 2019 with virtually no eyesight due to retinal issues I had to reorient myself jobwise in the middle of that pandemic you might of heard of and perfume took a back seat. In fact, it disappeared in the trunk. Things are still rather unsettled, but falling ill first with Covid and then suffering from Long Covid effects has ironically given me time to revisit the perfume world and my own collection. Not sure there's an audience left I'd be writing to, but perhaps this can serve as a public diary recording my thoughts on what I smell. So, let's fittingly start with a lost fragrance, good old Sienna by Crabtree & Evelyn, a firm that did not survive the Amazonification of consumerism and changes in taste in brick and mortar form and which is largely a virtual shadow of its former self these days.

Contrary to its retro Anglo image, Crabtree & Evelyn was actually born in the late Sixties in Woodstock, Connecticut from a hobby pursued by film distributor Cyrus Harvey and his wife. Harvey, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Poland, had started Janus films in 1956, based on his love of French cinema which he discovered during a short stint in Paris at the end of WWII. The Cambridge, Mass. outfit ran the Brattle theater and with his partner Harvey imported and distributed European auteur/arthouse films, introducing American audiences to the likes of Antonioni, Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa. He sold Janus in 1966 and moved to Connecticut to devote himself to gardening, breeding corgis and other English gentlemen's pursuits, but from the fascination with the hip stores he'd helped establish underneath the cavernous Brattle was born the idea to import soaps rather than movies. The venture, a home business at the beginning, was given an Anglo vibe and soon Crabtree & Evelyn became a brick and mortar store and ultimately a successful chain, marketing beauty products, foods and accessories in a hip country style. When Harvey sold C&E in 1996 there were 160 outlets in the US alone.

This backstory is well reflected in Sienna, perhaps the best cologne C&E ever made (besides the mythical original Sandalwood). To me it very much feels like a wonderful fantasy of an old school, old world men's cologne as it could only be dreamed up by a romantic American. Stilistically, it is firmly placed in the "more-is-better" era of the 80s, a typical green leathery chypre that touches base with many scents of that time and their complex DNA of citrus, galbanum, artemisia, clary sage, clove, floral accords, patchouli, amber, leather, oakmoss and more. It's not surprising that Sienna evokes Tuscany as well as Jermyn Street, it has an iridescence reflecting "italianità“ no less than "Britishness", reminiscent of men's tailoring with it's Anglo-Italian cross-references. The common denominator is, of course, gentility.

Siennas creator is unknown, my original 1990s bottle was made in England, however and that almost makes me wonder whether it might not have been John Stephen of Dukes of Pall Mall and Czech & Speake fame, this secret Elgar of 1980s English perfumery. It's feasible, considering that, while it was not expensive, Sienna is marvelously well constructed and rises above the field by the clever use of beeswax, which provides a gently sweet warm glow buffering the greens and the leather. It really does add an olfatory sienna note to the skin akin to a Tuscan evening sun dipping houses and fields in a golden ochre. And that, in the end, is the image Sienna evokes to me: a Europhile American taking a photograph of an English painter creating a canvas of a Tuscan evening. Sounds postmodern, smells beautiful.       

"Grand Opening": popping a vintage rosoli flacon of Johann Maria Farina Gegenüber dem Jülichsplatz Eau de Cologne

Acquired cheaply on ebay, this rosoli flacon harks from the 1950s, when Johann Maria Farina gegenüber dem Jülichsplatz, the city of Cologne's and thus the world's first and oldest Eau de Cologne producer was recuperating from WWII and a long era of 20th century decline. Eau de Cologne had lost its status as the paradigmatic fragrance, acquired in the Rokoko era, during the Belle Époque, when modern perfumery was born out of the confluence of technical and chemical innovation and the rise of a new white collar middle class that frequented urban(e) department stores, engaged in conspicuous consumption, and whose females were invited to reimagine themselves as Geishas or oriental seductresses via consumer capitalism.

Eau de Cologne became an industrial mass product,used for refreshment rather than refinement and 4711, a drugstore product, was soon better known than the venerable Farina it had once imitated (including name theft). By the 1960s Farina was apparently going into steep decline, as suggested by efforts to revamp bottles, change formulations from the zesty-dry bergamot to a sweeter 4711-style neroli and finally the sale of a controlling interest in the company to a Swiss low-end cosmetics manufacturer. When the firm was brought back under full family control in the 1990s the formulation was adapted to contemporary tastes and it now contains a healthy dose of ionones and other synthetics  which make it smell quite different from its original form - which, at this point can only be experienced if one manages to pick up a 1950s bottle. Full pre-war flacons seem to be virtually nonexistant, but ever so often 250th anniversary Rosoli flacons from 1959 that survived their owners - hidden away in the back of a drawer or cupboard, forgotten unwanted gifts - make an appearance on ebay.

Here, now is a small rosoli flacon from that era, which was perfectly filled - no evaporation. These flasks were covered with an aluminum cap fortified with what appears to be a very hard textile-cardboard-like covering. In this case, it did an excellent job of preventing evaporation and oxidation. After opening the flacon and decanting a small amount of Eau de Cologne I treated the bottle with a nitrogen gas sprayer normally used for wine preservation. The Osmothèque uses the more expensive argon for the same purpose - the heavier gas displaces the oxygen over the surface of the fragrance and thus prevents the perfume from turning.

Spraying some vintage Farina on my arm was delightful - this is the best preserved bottle I have ever smelled. It begins with a zesty-bittergreen burst of freshness - picture a gin tonic with a spritz of bergamot (and whiffs of  orange and lemon zest). This persists for some minutes, while hovering below is a faint suggestion of rose, sandalwood  and (nitro?)musk. A wonderfully elegant, light, but by no means trivial composition which clearly inspired aspects of Guerlain's Imperial cologne. File under "genteel blast from the past" and  "they don't make them like this anymore" - though vintage Farina would today easily pass as a stylish minimalist superniche scent.