hortus conclusus

I am getting ready for another round of academic interviews for professorships and have been plotting my fragrance strategy, and I figured other people would be interested in my quandary: what does a woman wear to an important job interview? She needs to feel empowered, subtly womanly, and happy, but she should obviously wear nothing that could put people off (so out goes one of my favorites, Samsara , which isn’t everyone’s), but what other criteria should she use to judge which fragrance would be best? Here is a list of criteria I came up with, but I’d be thrilled to get your input! the scent should be classic—nothing too unusual, exotic, or oddball, i.e. Chanel’s Cuir de Russie , not Thierry Mugler’s Angel.  the scent should skew masculine. Consider wearing a classic men’s cologne, like Guerlain Vetiver , Geo F. Trumper’s Royal Fern, or Caron Pour Homme. Although it is wrong that we still live in a sexist world, you might as well play the game an...

Well. I ended up wearing Creed Spring Flowers to the baby shower, and I’m glad I chose that because the shower was full of baby talk and baby paraphernalia, but it was a gorgeous, powerfully bright early spring day. If I had worn something more powdery, I might have risked feeling overwhelmed by the atmosphere of almost suffocating maternal energy and babyish juvenilia. The Spring flowers kept me centered, reminding me that it was finally Spring and that this was all part of a vast phase of rebirth that all the people in the Northern Hemisphere were sharing right now. Spring Flowers isn’t my favorite white floral, but its elegant simplicity was a perfect choice for the luncheon, and its joyous and unapologetically feminine bouquet made me feel just as feminine as the other guests, but just in a different way.