Thursday, September 16, 2010

Savoir Faire avec les Parfums Worth

With inspiration coming from my last post on the House of Worth, I have been tempted to take maybe a little bit of artistic licence with this one and have done a bit of a relaunch of my own.

As mentioned Worth are poised to relaunch their classic Je Reviens fragrance. This has long been one of my all time favourites and I have worn it for years. Unfortunately with most classic perfumes the current edition available is just a shadow of its former self. So let us hope that Worth gets it right this time.

While doing a bit of research for the Worth post I came across an interesting story of previous perfumes launched in the 1920’s through to the 1930’s including Je Reviens. With the names of 5 perfumes Worth created a little hidden poem on love.

Dans La Nuit (1924) in the night

Vers Le Jour (1925) towards the day

Sans Adieu (1929) without bidding farewell

Je Reviens (1932) I will return

Vers Toi (1934) to you

Given this I was wondering how to illustrate this poem and have taken a few liberties of drawing images from Helmut Newton and various other sources to do this. Mind you my interpretation is a little darker than what Worth might have had in mind; however I am happy with the result. I did have a little trouble sticking to just one image for each perfume, as you can see.


Dans La Nuit


Vers le Jour


Sans Adieu


Je Reviens


Vers Toi


7 comments:

  1. David perfect images chosen!! I agree with you on the perfume. One area where I don't want changes from the original!

    Karena
    Art by Karena

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bravo! Beautifully done!

    ReplyDelete
  3. THEY WOULD BE PERFECT FOR THE SNOW ;)

    I love these sorta images i have 3 huge James Dean photo frames up in my room there all amazing ;)

    x

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am a great admirer of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. The photos seem to capture an image of continental, erotic elegance, and a fascinating decadence that raises their artistic level much above most fashion photography.

    I understand that classic fragrances are reformulated from time to time, and purists object to this. I believe it has to do with availability and costs of some of the rare or even endangered ingredients. I don't think I'm one of the noses that can tell the difference!

    It seems that fewer people are wearing fragrance because of allergies etcetera, and that theatres and concert halls now prohibit wearing scent. I'm not an expert but wonder if this has to do with the complex and new chemicals they are now made of.

    I think fragrances made of pure essences can actually be healing and therapeutic in the spa sense; aromotherapy and such....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Karena and Cote, Many thanks for your praise, it took a while but am happy with it.

    Sam, they must look great!

    Mr SWF, Yes I too am a big fan of Newton and Bourdin. I always remember seeing their photographs in fashion magazines of the day and was so impressed by the subtle eroticsm. Not like the blatent sex of today.

    Reformulation happen as you say through certain restrictions on price, ethical issues such as animal cruelty and changing moods, which is a shame as some of the great fragrances have been lost forever. I also think that the increase inallergies etc is due to the chemicals they use nowadays.

    ReplyDelete
  6. David,
    I loved this!!! I seriously can't not imagine life without perfume, so it's very sad when beloved scents and formula's are altered.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Acanthus, glad that you liked this. I guess we just have to move with the times sometimes!

    ReplyDelete

Blog Widget by LinkWithin