SECRET DE ROCHAS OUD MYSTÈRE
by ROCHAS
ingredients: mango, patchouli, oud
When the giant soaper company Procter and Gamble bought Rochas and Patou over ten years ago, it was described as Fiat buying Ferrari, though a more apt comparison might have been Caterpillar buying Rolex, since P&G initially seemed hesitant and clumsy in handling its tiny, storied luxury brands. This was not through lack of in-house skill: functional fragrance at the level of excellence pursued by P&G is every bit as tricky as fine fragrance and infinitely more technical, involving endless testing and ruthless performance comparisons. To appreciate this, consider the fact that soap powder from thirty years ago, which can still be found in some places, is vastly inferior to the modern one whereas the opposite is true of fragrance. By coincidence the chief perfumer at Patou and now Rochas, Jean-Michel Duriez, author of the imperishable Yohji Homme, came from the hard school of soap, and his training was likely very useful to him in a period of shrinking palette and formula costs.
I have not smelled the unmodified Secret de Rochas [without oud] fragrance, and I disapprove on principle of these usually perfunctory nods to the Middle Eastern market. But the French ability to take an idea from afar and give it an elegant, airy spin should never be underestimated. The modern trend of western “orientalist” fragrances falls into two categories: the hippy-jossticks variety which usually adds very little to what can be found everywhere, better and cheaper, in the Arab world; and this, the costume-ball style where the intent is not imitation but quotation. This has been a tradition in French music since Rameau’s Indes Galantes [1735], via Bizet’s Carmen and Ravel’s Schéhérazade, and in perfumery since at least Coty’s Emeraude [1921]. It can also be seen in good French restaurants when, for no particular reason, an attenuated but weirdly delicious curry sauce sometimes comes with, say, tagliatelle.
What Duriez has done with this Secret variant is remarkable. Many, indeed most, fragrances create in one’s mind an impression of a solid surface, or a succession thereof, fading into each other as the fragrance dries, as in a slide show. This one, right from the start, gives a beguiling impression of a space in which one enters wondering what is behind the next corner. Within the now draconian limitations of modern perfumery it creates, properly speaking, a feeling of mystère that I value above all others. What is also impressive about the composition is that despite its shifting perspective, the overall effect from afar is a remarkably coherent accord uncannily like the delicious smell of labdanum resin. These days fragrances, like politicians’ careers, always end in failure, but this one does far better than most, and gracefully tapers off to a presentable masculine accord of woods. A very fine piece of work.
woody oriental
