Caught in Traffic

My apolgies fellow bloggers for the lack of posts recently, I just seem to be frightfully busy of late. Caught in traffic like our young man below!

The Father of Modern Day Perfumery

Mention the name Coty and you have a name synominous with modern day perfumery. Once at the forefront and on everyone’s lips, the company still exists however only serving as a platform for the manufacture and marketing of other brands.

Francois Coty was both a talented perfumer and a brilliant marketer. He was the first to recognize that an attractive bottle was essential to a perfume's success. Originally collaborating with Baccarat for the packaging of his perfumes, Coty's most famous collaboration was with the great ceramist and jeweler René Lalique. Lalique designed the bottles for Coty's early scents, such as Ambre Antique and L'Origan, which became bestsellers. He also designed the labels for Coty perfumes, which were printed on a gold background with raised lettering.

Coty once said; “Give a woman the best product to be made, market it in the perfect flask, beautiful in its simplicity yet impeccable in its taste, ask a reasonable price for it, and you will witness the birth of a business the size of which the world has never seen.” And how true this is!

However at first Coty had a hard time getting his fragrances on the market. So like the true visionary that he was he set off to the department stores of Paris seeking shelf space where his perfumes would get better exposure and sales.

The story is told of how the buyer at a major Parisian department store, Grands Magasins du Louvre, refused to take Coty's new perfume. On leaving the store, Coty let drop a bottle of his fragrance, La Rose Jacqueminot. Striking the hard floor, the Lalique crystal exploded like a bomb, filling the crowded store with the scent of ... La Rose Jacqueminot.

As the scent of La Rose Jacqueminot filled the air and the store a number of frenzied women (hired by Coty?) rushed around the store asking where they could buy this marvelous fragrance. The buyer for the Grands Magasins du Louvre called Coty back and a deal was made. Within days, 500 bottles of La Rose Jacqueminot were sold.

Other stores got the message and hurried to obtain Coty's perfume. By 1914 Coty was a wealthy man and his company was the world's number one seller of perfume.

By the early 70s the company had languished until being taken over by Pfizer and subsequently sold to Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH, which owns it today.

The 70’s were about the last time Coty (the company) actually cared about making real perfumes instead of regurgitating lame formulas for even lamer celebrities. The notes for Complice were left by Francois Coty before his death in 1934, hence the direct reference to him on the bottle and box. The bottle design was also made to evoke the days of yore, when Coty perfumes were poured into Lalique bottles.

Do we thank Monsieur Coty, for what he has done in making fine perfume available to the masses?

Family Ties par Mon Peche

Family Ties were never like this!

http://monpeche.blogspot.com/2012/01/family-ties.html

Age Cannot Wither Her

As readers of Savoir Faire would have noticed that Marchesa Casati has featured quite frequently on the pages of Savoir Faire. Even though she died in 1957, she has long continued to be a source of inspiration to new generations of artists, designers and people with a hankering for savoir faire and personal style.

After mounting debts (around $326 million in today’s terms) and an auction where her most treasured possessions were sold off she fled to London. At one stage the most wealthy and scandalous woman of her times, she died virtually penniless in London in 1957. Living off the charity of friends and family and in a variety of rented rooms, she lived out her days, not forsaking any of the savoir faire that she was known for in her past. She was even rumored to be seen rummaging in dustbins searching for feathers to decorate her hair.

Her last days were also spent making collages from cut out magazines. Here the tables are turned and this time she is the artist.

She still had presence though. Quentin Crisp left us a thoroughly wonderful description of her in this period

“Quite suddenly and simply by chance, I once met a bizarre lady while taking tea with some friends in London. She arrived wearing black velvet from head to foot, her mouth painted blood red, and carrying a very tall umbrella with a decorated handle. And, you must understand, this ensemble was being worn in the middle of the day. This picturesque ruin of a woman was very tall and thin, and gave the impression of formidable strength. It was then I was introduced to the Marchesa Luisa Casati for the first and last time. She had made her entrance into that room looking wonderful and saying very little. She wasn’t beautiful—she was spectacular. Here was a woman possessing a presence one would never forget. “

Her biographers Ryersson and Yaccarino tell us, "A later acquaintance recalled how Luisa invited him for gracious dinners of tinned food, and of her habit of telephoning him to ask with adventurous enthusiasm: 'I have ten shillings. Shall we have a bottle of cheap wine or go for a taxi ride?'" This was a life where money may have been squandered, but pleasure was not.

She died at her last residence, 32 Beaufort Gardens in on 1 June 1957, aged 76 and interred in Brompton Cemetery. The quote "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety" from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra was inscribed on her tombstone. She was buried wearing not only her black and leopard skin finery but also a pair of false eyelashes. She shares her coffin with one of her beloved stuffed Pekinese dogs, which she was in the habit of getting stuffed when they died with the bills sent to her daughter for payment.

Joy to the World

The Mirror Crack'd

I am not too sure how many of you are familiar with Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalottt”. For those of you that are not it is a Victorian poem by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

It is one of my favourite poems and has been the inspiration of many artists, writers and musicians.

It was loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, as recounted in a thirteenth-century Italian novella titled Donna di Scalotta. Tennyson focused on the Lady's "isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two subjects not even mentioned in Donna di Scalotta."

The Lady of Shalott lived in an island castle in a river which flowed to Camelot. She had been cursed and was doomed to constantly weave a magic web without looking directly out at the world. Instead she looks into a mirror which reflects the busy road and people of Camelot which pass by her island. Her world is changed forever when she sees the reflection of Sir Lancelot in her mirror. She stops weaving and looks out her window, toward Camelot, bringing about the curse. Which brings us to my favorite stanza in the poem.

Out flew the web and floated wide-
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalottt.

She then leaves her island tower, finds a boat on which she writes her name, and floats down the river to Camelot. She dies before arriving. Upon the people who see her, is Lancelot who thinks she is beautiful.

There can be many interpretations to the poem from the dilemma that faces artists, writers, and musicians: to create work about and celebrate the world, or to enjoy the world by simply living in it. I myself love it as a highly romantic and tragic story.

With many interpretations from a written sense it has also been the inspiration for many an artist. One artist JW Waterhouse painted 3 different pictures depicting different episodes in the poem all very different from each other. They are above in the chronological order in which they were painted.

The first done in 1888 is one of my favorite paintings. The third and last painting is in the Art Gallery of Ontario, hanging next to my favorite picture of the Marchesa Casati. A treat for them to be both together.

The verse containing the words "the mirror crack'd from side to side" gave the title to one of Agatha Christie's detective stories and parts of the poem are referred to several times throughout it. The cover by Tom Adams slightly modifies one of the Waterhouse pictures, to create an intriguing bewitching cover.

I always like to re-imagine things I have seen or written so how would it be if our main character were a man? Food for thought!

Over at Mon Peche

It is a Pas de Deux by Newton