I am introducing a new feature here on Hortus Conclusus , in which a perfume bottle sings a little riddle, and it’s up to you, dear readers, to guess which bottle of perfume is riddling. To start us out on the best possible foot, My first poem has an easy solution! Which of you will be the first to guess, I wonder: I’m not a pentangle. I live in a square I bubble like golden champagne filled with air, My obscure beginnings are shrouded in mystery But that won’t stop people from telling my history. I fly through the air, I swim with the fishes. Scientists say I reside in all ditches. I go everywhere, and all know my fame therefore I know that you have guessed my name. I will never die; you keep me alive. By now you have guessed, I’m ________! Image of Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
What a revolutionary perfume Cuir de Russie must have been in its day! It is so masculine, so gender-bending, that I imagine it even would make a huge splash today--and ruffle some feathers. This is classy, classy, classy woman-as-man scent, and it has a certain theatricality to it, a sort of "I'm pushing the limits" cigarry, almost urinous, edginess, but then the florals swoop in, and it says, 'I'm only kidding; I'm just a woman, after all.' Like all classic Chanels, for better (Bois des Iles) or worse (No. 5), this is a super complex thing; it tells a very upper-class story. I imagine one of those virago femme fatales that populate Wodehouse novels wearing this; brassy, horsey, masculine, yet deeply feminine, with hidden urges towards female role-playing that need only the right situation to bring them out. A tour de force, truly, something that both sweeps one's imagination into the past and fits in perfectly into our own postmodern world.
Love Cuir de Russie -- it has such elegant line and such a seamlessness to it. Much is made of its plush leather quality, and though that's there, I feel it's balanced out extremely well with a clean musk that makes the whole thing feel very well laundered. Exquisite, classy, and a perfect unisex scent, if not even a tad bit more of a great masculine. Love it.
ReplyDeleteME TOO, oh so much!
ReplyDeleteI want a bottle unopened, I am getting a half full bottle 1/4oz. but I want the vintage form. in unopened package, anyone??? Thanks. Brad.
ReplyDeletetransformed50@gmail.com