|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
Scents in Time
| Article
# : |
14628 |
|
|
Section : |
LIFE
|
| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1988 |
1,042 Words |
| Author
: |
Judy Wade
Judy Wade reports on adventure travel for Shape, Braniff
Destinations, and Caribbean Travel and Life, and is the
touring editor of Cyclist magazine. She packs and unpacks in
Van Nuys, California. |
Perfume can stimulate the mind to recall clear images of times gone by, evoking the mood of the art, fashion, and life-styles of particular eras.
Those whiffs of the past go straight to the brain. We respond instinctively to specific smells because the olfactory nerve is the only one of twelve cranial nerves leading directly to the cerebrum. That explains why the smell of lily of the valley can poignantly remind us of sweet first romance, or why the essence of violets has the power to recall the image of a beloved grandmother.
According to Annette Green, director of the Fragrance Foundation in New York, there are definite trends in fragrance, just as there are in fashion. "We've just gone through this sort of hard rock, openly sexual period, and the popular fragrances such as Poison and Obsession have very strongly reflected that freedom," she states. When Revlon introduced Charlie in 1973, a definitive fragrance with a man's name, it was the perfect echo of the women's liberation movement, Green asserts. "Now, because of what's happening with communicable social diseases, we're moving into a more romantic, less obviously sexual period, and the fragrances will be softer and subtler, reflecting that trend," she says.
Historically, the first two decades of the twentieth century followed romantic and oriental themes in fragrance such as Parisian couturier Paul Poiret's Nuit de Chine and L'Etrange Fleur. Guerlain introduced L'Heure Bleue in 1912 and its Mitsouko made its appearance in 1919.
Women's lives changed irrevocably during the First World
... (1997 of 6352 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
