Elisabeth de Feydeau

Hello, Elisabeth de Feydeau. You have a Ph.D. in history, you’re a perfume specialist and a writer. We have already mentioned one of your books, in an article about Thierry Mugler’s perfume workshops. Can you tell us a little more about yourself?

Since childhood, I have been guided by smells: whether they come from nature, from people, or from cooking. It’s a maternal heritage that taught me to apprehend the world with my nose. It turned into an overwhelming emotion when, at age 16, I discovered Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue. That perfume became so indispensable to me that it led me to try to understand the phenomenon, which is provocative but pleasant. A wave that carries me to a distant shore, like listening to a piece of music, or playing the piano, which I have studied since childhood. Music led me to perfume, too.

Your book about Marie-Antoinette and her perfumer has met with some success and has been translated into English, Spanish and German. Do you think that, like movie director Sofia Coppola, you were able to show another, more appealing and glamorous side of ‘the last queen of France’?

The book is also coming out on September 10 th in Japan, where the Queen has a great many fans. An operetta about her life has been playing to packed houses for more than 20 years in Tokyo, and mangas that recount the Queen’s eventful life and purported affair with the Count Fersen have been selling like hotcakes since the 70s! I admired Sofia Coppola’s vision of the Queen, and in my book, which was published in January, 2005, I tried to show another side of the Queen, and to emphasize how modern this woman, who has been slandered by history, really was. I also wanted to highlight her immense courage and dignity in the face of terrible ordeals. Archive material allowed me to discover facets of her personality that are particularly meaningful in our times: how she struggled to reconcile her public and private lives – her duties as Queen, of course, but also her drive to live her own life as a mother and a woman. She was generous, capable of compassion towards her humblest subjects. A real Queen of Hearts, totally unlike the distant, haughty personage painted by history. It’s what moved me most about the Queen, and it has also been revealed by the perfume M.A. Sillage de la Reine (N.B. an olfactory initiative of the Château de Versailles, designed by Francis Kurkdjian, with historical input from Elisabeth de Feydeau). An intimate, faceted, floral and carnal fragrance, totally unexpected.

When we talk about perfume nowadays, we almost automatically evoke the notion of seduction. Is that specific to our time, or has that been present in the history of perfume throughout the ages?

It has been present since time immemorial. Perfume, a word that comes from the Latin expression ‘per fumum’ goes back to khyphi, the first perfume whose composition is known to us: it dates back to about the year 4,000 B.C. That perfume, known as ‘doubly good’ was made by priests to be burned in temples in order to honor the gods. It was made from resins (like myrrh and frankincense), balms, honey, flowers and palm wine. The priests also noticed that it was excellent for calming nerves, and even then pretty women were using it to increase their powers of seduction. The etymology of the word seduction – ‘se ducere’, to be led elsewhere – illustrates this. Ever since, in real life as in literature, perfume has been presented as a seductress’s best weapon!

Can you tell us any historical anecdotes about that?

Absolutely. Cleopatra was a fervent fan of perfume. As a consummate seductress, she knew that her power over men was increased thanks to perfume. When she decided to set off to greet Mark Antony, to subjugate the man who had come to conquer her, she rode her most beautiful ship, whose sails she had had soaked in perfume. ‘…S o perfumed that / The winds were love-sick with them, ‘ Shakespeare wrote in Antony and Cleopatra. It is even said that they spent their first night on a bed of rose petals more than a foot and a half thick!

Do some perfumes incarnate the idea of seduction more than others for you?

Any perfume can conceivably incarnate the idea of seduction. Because the emotion is connected to memory. So if someone has a memory of a night of passion scented with eau de Cologne – usually considered a fresh, invigorating note – why not, after all? But in general, oriental scents, which are skin scents par excellence evoke the sensuality of an embrace. Chypres, with their hieratic, fatal accords, with a very Hitchcock-like fire-under-ice spirit, can also be arousing and sexy.

Certain ingredients or accords too perhaps?

Animal notes, undeniably, as they are directly related to the sexual imprint of pheromones: musk and ambergris, as well as civet and castoreum. But we mustn’t forget that white flowers also have an animal component, indole.

Eighteenth-century libertines knew what they were doing when they ended meals with a drink of ‘chocolate with triple vanilla and ambergris’ accompanied by a musk-flavored almond pastry. They enhanced their desire just before entering their lady’s chamber. Indeed, good lovers were said to be ‘as fine as amber’. That was saying a lot! Libertines, once again, also soaked their leather undergarments in infusions of musk…
As for gourmand notes, they taste like forbidden fruit. In any case, notes of chocolate, fruit, vanilla etc. can stimulate desire because they are connected to a pleasurable memory. It’s a sort of lovers’ cannibalism. Vanilla is also a sheltering note, tied to reassuring maternal memories. In fact, chemical analysis has shown traces of vanilla and musk in mother’s milk.

Re-releasing perfumes that were no longer available has become quite trendy lately, as can be seen at Lancôme, Givenchy, Piguet and Yves Rocher. How do you interpret this trend: is the phenomenon linked to fashion, to nostalgia, to a desire to get back to our roots or to consumers’ interest in perfume history?

I don’t think consumers’ interest in perfume history has led brands to the re-releases we’ve been seeing lately, even if everything vintage is in. Perfume consumers are turning into connoisseurs, however: they know more about perfume, and are more demanding as well. So they might choose a stunning old perfume that respects the principles of creativity rather than a modern, more commercial product that they may find too consensual. Alternative perfumery has been paving the way in that sense for over a decade now. It is also wonderful to see how brands are re-positioning perfume as a luxury item, as it used to be, before it became an everyday consumer item. Consumerism is evolving, and now it has to be made compatible with the notion of luxury. Looking back towards perfume history can help reconnect with that notion. History, with its magnified elements, can give body to dreams and meaning to perfume. When you copy, you always wind up creating, Picasso used to say.

What about you, is there a perfume that you would like to be able to rediscover?

Chypre de Coty, which was created in 1917. That visionary genius reinterpreted a very old perfume accord, L’Eau de Chypre, thanks to synthetic notes. They say that he even gathered the oak moss himself in the forest of Fontainebleau, to be sure to get the quality he was looking for. Other than that, I’m not particularly nostalgic about what’s gone. Although I do like to smell some unchanged formulas from classic perfumes I have loved.

What other era would you have liked to live in, and why?

Actually, I quite enjoy our era, and I’m perfectly content to be living in the 21 st century. As in any era, there are some terribly positive points, and other, more debatable ones. History is an eternal recommencement. Humanity is so unexpected and creative! But if you want to know some of my favorite periods in history, I love the 18 th century, the Belle Époque (1880-1914) and the Roaring ‘20s. They’re all times of progress and effervescence in intellectual, scientific, artistic and also ‘perfumistic’ terms!