From Asia Minor via Adriatic, Alps, Old Amsterdam, Atlantic, Old New Amsterdam and trans-continental railroad he has arrived to seek his silver screen stardom in the golden sun shining state.
He has brought with him the bare essentials: the shirt on his back, two more in his bag, dancing shoes and feet, a way with women and smouldering good looks.
His arrival is announced with something, and some things, of the souk.
His shirts, though small in number are fine Egyptian cotton and laundered in the French style with flower scented water.
Meals, though frugal, are spiced with the savour of the Levant. Wholesome pulses and nutty grains come with cinnamon, coriander and cardamom: all conceived to convey the Arabian sub-continent.
His words, though few in English, are chosen exquisitely: notes in a minimal symphony.
Movement is tiny too and exact.
Here is a man who can turn walking across a room into a three act tragedy.
Oh, and the eyes.
Eyes, in first glance ordinary, that are in the gaze sublimely glowing orbs in pools of the heavy dark dust they call kohl.
The dust of three thousand years weighs heavy as settled incense on his every limb and make him languorous to the point of inspiring near universal lust.
That this reality: this exotic, erotic, feeling man should be loved by the camera and women in equal measure is, the producer will years later remark, “the greatest coincidence of the early cinema”.
On set, unaware of his own ambiguous attractiveness to practically all, he sips rose tea sweetened with honey and waits patiently for artistry to occur.
It inevitably does.
If a perfume ever felt it had a divine right to be considered beautiful it could be Mitzah from La Collection Couturier Parfumeur by Dior.
Formed with the easy precision of a skilled pattern cutter’s hand, it is an apparently simple composition that only assumes its true form when worn.
From the start it is mainly smoke in the couturiers’ mirrors. Billowing clouds of incense take their time to clear. Clouds that come from cones heavily flavoured with coriander, cinnamon and cardamom, rich and spiced in their swirling.
When the dust does finally settle our newly dressed gentleman lacks only one thing: a floral buttonhole. A mistake rectified with the quick provision of a rose, one that continues to emanate its Damascene scent the rest of the day.
Only one element now remains: a sweetness to add humour to this show of the dark arts.
Here come the bees in their honeyed hoards to bring a sepia tint to the scene.
An icon is an icon and exudes sexuality rather merely having a sex.
Mitzah is a fragrant icon of the silent olfactory screen.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
The Perfumed Dandy. 