Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Bob Dylan Samples 'Whisper'

And says: "It's an amusing little 'fume, with a quiet but complex personality."

Lucien Lelong produced many, many perfumes, and was perhaps the first master of gimmicky packaging. Lucien also named some perfumes after letters of the alphabet for awhile (trying to compete with Chanel's numbering system which had worked so well for them.) He abandoned the simple elegant bottles, and began naming scents after dessert items, musical instruments, or whatever would suit a packaging idea. His perfumes sold well, becoming collectibles for some, and if you make enough perfumes, eventually one or two will stand out and become wildly popular. Possibly the only truly big seller Lelong had in his lifetime was a perfume called Indiscret (said by some who wore it to be vaguely reminiscent of Shalimar.) While Lucien was not a clothing designer himself, he ran a good design house and had great personal flair when it came to fashion. He worked through his designers, and had a definite trademark "look." His father had been in the textile trade and his mother had a real eye for fashion, but his true love it seemed was perfumery.
Here is a partial list of Lelong perfumes.
Flippant
Tailspin (still available)
Sextet
Abra Ca Dabra
Havoc
Turbulent
Tempest
Round Trip
Hearsay
Big Moment
Double Life
High Time
Robin Hood (for Men)

and there was Ting-a-Ling, which was packaged with bells. Everything old is new again, too many scents, too much cutesy packaging, quantity wins over quality when a trend is going full-force. Back in the 1920's, 30's and 40's people were pushing the fad of the moment and collecting collectibles just as they do today.

By the 1950's Lucien was in poor health, and when he passed on to that great perfumery in the sky, his third wife married the ex- husband of the wonderful French writer, Colette.

"There are no ordinary cats."
~Colette


"The endless road and the wailing of chimes,
The empty rooms where her memory is protected,
Where the angels' voices whisper to the souls of previous times."
~Bob Dylan