The Perfumed Dandy.

This isn’t the elephant in the room, nor is this the giant mammal in the jungle.

This beast commands the crowd, has its own palace and travels in splendour in the streets around the temple at the time of the festival.

This is the ceremonial Indian elephant. The Kerala pachyderm. Dressed up with somewhere to go.

From the very start of the proceedings the impression is overwhelming and impossible to ignore.

As if her enormous vanillic mass: metres high, tall and wide, were not enough there are her spiced up personal effects.

The ornaments and adornments of our lady of Guruvayur.

Golden head shields – nettipattam – glistening with clove oil. Bells and necklaces studded with mandarins and nectarines rendered in amber.

Atop her convex back the mahouts, her faithful attendants perch precariously holding silk parasols aloft – muttukuda – embroidered with the perfume of ylang ylang, gardenia and heliotrope.

Swaying white tufts – vencamaram – and peacock feather fans – alavattam – slice the air with scents of cardamon, caraway and cumin all to the rhythm of an ambulant orchestra.

This is chaos transubstantiated into communal devotion.

Personified in the glimmering deities some sons and daughters of the sahya carry on their circumnavigations.

This is spectacle beyond considerations of taste and the partialities of prickly western palettes.

This is, like the sub-continent itself, a vast sensuous vista of the sacredness and vulgarity of existence laid out like a feast.

This is a moment to put aside discernment and discretion.

This is a time only for surrender.

A great fashion editor once quipped that ‘pink is the navy blue of India’.

So Kenzo’s Jungle L’Elephant, for all we know, may be the eau de cologne of the sub-continent.

What to our noses is a great, brash, bold statement of sweet and spicy intent, may well seem as commonplace as cirise in a country where cardamon and cumin are mere condiments.

This is not a fragrance for the feint-hearted.

No caution has here been exercised in the deployment of great discordant symphonies of notes from mandarin, clove and caraway atop the stave through a middle section of exotic flowers to a dirty syrupy sweet and massively vast vanilla made darker with patchouli and saltier by amber in the base.

It would be easy to dismiss this scent as mad self indulgence put together with a poverty of ideas.

How wrong.

This incredibly amiable animal works to its own higher intelligence and a logic that is not circumscribed by notions of ‘neatness’ and ‘politesse’.

Catch it while you can for it may soon be sadly extinct.

I believe many of the pantheon of the Hindu faith some gods have neither sex, or both.

Can you guess who that fashion editor was and to what exactly she was referring?

The clue’s in the review.

Happy long weekending.

Yours ever

The Perfumed Dandy.

Dearest All

As you will know by now, The Dandy had a dashed lovely day out in the Park on Sunday last, well The Gardens to be precise and Kensington Gardens at that.

Thank you all to those of you who suggested some scents that might go with my humble snaps.

Perhaps the wisest proposal was that such sublime scenes of nature required no man made smell to assist them. Too true.

However, The Dandy was ever one to throw caution to the wind and so this week I am presenting some 25 scents to go with those same scenes and today we have the third wave…

1. Blossom and Children

One of the pleasures of London Parks in Spring are the children running everywhere, released from winter housebound hibernation.

Something though The Dandy has never understood is why children in so many parts of the world are so ill treated when it comes to fragrance.

Why should the wee ones wait until their teenage years before being introduced to the olfactory arts? And must their first rung on the perfumed ladder be some awful cup cake meets cotton candy car crash?

Happily in the Mediterranean, they have a much more civilised approach to the scenting of the young.

Merry cirtus and lavender “baby colognes” abound, ludicrously cheap and luxuriously plentiful in their tall plastic litre bottles.

In its concentrated form Agua de Colonia by Alvarez Gomez is the very quintessence of an aromatic elementary education.

Just as good for grown ups, who should be able to pick up a gentle green geranium hidden there too.

Delicious, served cool and in generous portions.

2. Orangery

From the Eighteenth Century onwards it has been the possession of an orangery that has marked out people of quality from the general crowd..

Places to promenade and entertain as much as to cultivate, they are nevertheless essentially palaces of fruit.

JoLoves Green Orange and Coriander is an Empress amongst citrus perfumes presiding over one of the most palatial of all orangeries.

A thrillingly realistic impression of the honourable orange in early season it has so much zest it can be tasted as much as smelt.

It is the olfactory equivalent of the first freshly squeezed juice of the year, a perfumed explanation of why an orange house, or scent at least, is still a necessary adjunct to anyone of fashion.

Zing! Tang! Bravo!

3. Palm

A palm tree in London in Springtime?

It could only be in a Palace Garden! And indeed so it is, in the formal gardens of Kensington Palace.

Inevitably, especially with the sensational colours of the floral surroundings, one thinks of The Tropics of exotic flora and fauna and, once again, fruit.

But it is still only May, so let us be enraptured by a perfume that is, to The Dandy’s way of thinking, a sublime synonym for the transition of Springtime into early Summer.

Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Lys Soleia by Guerlain opens with a bouquet of blossoming lilies and not a too little tuberose, before long though things have begun to heat up with a heart that is more ylang ylang, tropical fruit medley and even a hint of palm tree itself.

The time for tea is over, this is a commendable concoction fit for the cocktail hour.

4. Rosebuds

Now, in all honesty, The Dandy‘s not even convinced at this distance that these are rosebuds.

I’m sure that there were thorns at the time but everything now seems to have become corrugated leaf and Royal Palace.

Not to fear, for while the flowers themselves are yet to arrive it is never to early to be thinking of roses.

Indeed Van Cleef & Arpels unfairly underrated Feerie is an expert rendition of how the flowers of spring give way to the great blooms of June.

Starting all Parma Violet, the sweetness yields to a luscious rose that in The Dandy‘s imagination is a midnight blue as improbable and beautiful as the perfume’s flacon.

An occasion perfume worthy of a May Ball.

5. Trunk and Tree

Spring is not all gentleness and flowers.

It is , to The Dandy‘s eyes, also the time when the great beasts of botany reawaken.

Deciduous trees, the living dinosaurs of The Plant World, are all around returning to life.

The smell of dry wood and bark is in the air.

Soon they will be surrounded (one hopes) by the bees, bringing their excitement, their buzz, their honey.

Serge Lutens Miel de Bois is an impressive implication of the nectar harvest to come as the year transfigures the seasons. 

In it solid wood stands for the passage of time and honey is a cipher for the ephemeral fruits of labour.

A perfumed paean to nature’s permanence and the passing nature of plenty.

So, there we have the third quintet of scents to follow on from my weekend photographs.

Just ten more to come ‘twixt now and the end of the weekend!!

If you’d like to take a peek, why not spend a moment perusing the complete album of The Perfumed Dandy’s Sunday In The Park.

Any additional suggestions as to scents would be gratefully received.

Yours ever

The Perfumed Dandy.

The Dandy should point out that he received samples of this and other JoLoves perfumes from the company, though this was in no way be means of exchange or commercial agreement.

Honesty, however, is always the best policy.

Dear Friends

As some of you may have seen, The Dandy had a dashed lovely day out in the Park on Sunday, well The Gardens to be precise and Kensington Gardens at that.

Thank you all to those of you who suggested some scents that might go with my humble snaps.

Perhaps the wisest proposal was that such sublime scenes of nature required no man made smell to assist them. Too true.

However, The Dandy was ever one to throw caution to the wind and so this week I am presenting some 25 scents to go with those same scenes and today we have the second batch…

1. Swan

No other perfume will do for a swan!

The grandiose crystal bird bottle of years past may be gone but Gloria Vanderbilt’s Vanderbilt itself is still gliding by, transformed today into a ubiquitous drugstore tuberose cheapie.

For The Dandy no perfume, not Coco nor all the great florientals, so fully sums up a certain quality of the 1980s as does this sweet white floral aldehydic powerhouse.

Like the bird itself it can be beautiful at a distance but beware for up close and a little too personal (and frankly sprayed too vigorously) this scent can inflict a serious wounding.

You know, Vanderbilt really is not that bad, quite good really, and aldehyes in their abstract expansiveness has something of Spring air about them.

Being honest though, it is and always was all about that bottle.

2. Green Grass

In one of those totally chance encounters The Dandy came across this one whilst buying a bouquet for a friend.

Exquisite British florist Jane Packer has produced a small range of Eau de Parfums including this Green Orchid, Vetiver and Lemongrass.

The strange thing is for the life of me I can’t find any of those individual notes in this fascinating fragrance.

Instead, it entrances with an overall effect that is a magnificent meditation dewy morning grass in early spring.

Moist, alive and utterly green I fallen head over heals for this perfume as a way to start my scented day.

3. Folly

The slightly out of focus structure in bath sandstone in this shot is a folly.

A building with no other purpose but to look beautiful and to be beautiful in.

Follies speak of another age, of endless time and money for a fortunate few. Of elegance and elongated rituals.

Guerlain’s Eau de Cologne Imperiale too is an important part of history, perfume history that is.

Created by Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain, founder of the house, for France’s Empress Eugenie in 1853, it would earn him the honour of becoming royal perfumer and secure the fortunes of the company forever.

But this is no relic, Imperiale’s ethereal citrus accord swoops high above the wearer and is bound to elicit swoons in all admirers.

Critics rightly claim its charms are passing, but that is to miss the point: this cologne is an essential element of a fashion of living.

It is a refreshment, best taken before the serious perfume business of the day is applied, and The Dandy for one can think of no better accompaniment to his levee.

I will say no more for now as there will soon be words a plenty on this perfume…

4. Tea House

Beyond the luscious green leaf that looks almost good enough to eat, or at least brew, lies an handsome structure that was once a tea house.

Today this little red brick and Portland stone piece of Victorian fancy is home to London’s Serpentine Gallery, a small contemporary art space whose enormous reputation belies its diminutive size.

Perhaps it’s the colour of the brick, perhaps the building’s past use or maybe just the thought of a tea made with that leaf, but Bvlgari Eau Parfumee au The Rouge springs to mind.

Some people may associate a warming cup of char with winter, but what could be more refreshing come Spring than a sprightly cuppa after a brisk stroll along around the park?

Indeed there is a bracing edge to this revitalising and restorative perfume, a certain peppery punch and citrus zing before it yields to the delicious spicy fig and walnut of the heart.

The choice of the slightly racy roiboos for the tea note itself is inspired and lends a pzazz to an accord that can sometimes be pedestrian.

The last sharp breezes of the early morning before the suns heat sets in.

5. Conifer

It doesn’t look like a conifer does it?

But rest assured when you get up close this tree’s all needles and not leafs and has been green all the winter through.

Evergreen it may be, but this great plant is not immune to the season’s changes and now the warmer weather is here the sap is rising!!

Penhaligon’s Blenheim Bouquet starts as a delicious sherbert lemon of a scent all springtime zing and effervescence, then develops complexity and becomes a splendid peppery pine tree in a lavender field all without ever losing that lovely urgency and energy.

This is a perfume to give your day a distinct dose of purpose and pace and definitely one for everyone no matter what the marketing department might say.

So, there we have the second five fragrances to follow on from my weekend photographs.

Fifteen more to come ‘twixt now and Friday!!

If you’d like to take a peek, why not spend a moment perusing the complete album of The Perfumed Dandy’s Sunday In The Park.

Any additional suggestions as to scents would be gratefully received.

Yours ever

The Perfumed Dandy.