Chronotope Authoteory Issue: an overview
French musicologist Antoine Hennion writes that ''music lovers are never passive'', and I bet such statement is easily adaptable to the olfactory and its commonly neglected communities.
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| © The Bible of Niche Perfumes |
Chronotope is the first with a mainstream understanding of 'indie' perfume brand Reggie and I tried:
US based, currently a one man show project in terms of olfactory production under the direction of parfumer Carter Weeks Maddox,
it has this magical reminiscence of rare treasure to egoistically guard from ordinary consumption.
For the two of us, Chronotope opened a door to the fascinating world of US and Canadian indie brands rewriting Western perfumery.
And for me personally, it was weirdly an important part of my own personal development, in consumption and also political awareness.
Carter is kind enough to share his knowledge on feminist theory / epistemology often on his social media accounts,
a branch which I have to admit I often intentionally omitted in my studies and everyday due to its complexity and requirement of political awareness.
For a douchebag like me who escapes regularly in metaphysical deluriums,
it was a very difficult sphere to navigate and to sincerely face in terms of my own biography and political standpoint.
But Carter is doing something revolutionary for an illiterate like me,
intersecting consciously olfaction to the politics and the issues of bodies and belonging in modern society, which on the blog we will attempt to cover in the future by testing out his newest 'Silueta' and 'Intra Venus'.
I am strongly interested in learning to which extent his own biography and political education / beliefs are consciously (or not) represented in his work,
and for now,
I have to make it clear that mine here are pretty much mere speculations.
An important disclosure to make is that I am unaware to which extent he's also comfortable in making a discourse out of his work and if I'm allowed somehow to appropriate and rearrange the narratives around the scents as a consumer,
especially considering how Carter seems to want us (=the consumer) to know about how personal the inspirations and conceptual progresses of the creations are.
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| credits: Chronotope |
With this pretentious premise,
I want to reassure that the following impressions are far from any radical discourse.
In fact, the single overviews of the samples necessitate another important disclosure,
that is to say that my nose is not trained enough to fully capture the nuances and complexities of Carter's work.
When looking at the notes listed, I was often at the verge of a breakdown for being unable to smell and identify most of the unusual accords he uses.
Nard Hymalaian? Guava Blossom? Pimento Seeds? Help!
Hence why it's important to view my following thoughts as inconclusive and nonobjective.
For the first time though,
in testing olfactory creations in such despair,
I found an escapism that was distant from the usual methodic notes-accords-aromachemical evaluation system.
I tested the samples for circa a month and often did with a friend who's a painter and has synesthesia, and pushed me to cling into something different and less material in my inability to delineate fully the blends.
I was very embarassed at first in immediately making up images, sounds and plots associated to the fragrances, but then I realized how enabling it was for me in such poverty of olfactory language and compound knowledge.
Peter Beer in Punk Sociology says that often the discourses and knowledge around certain topics are produced in amateurial and non-institutionally recognized communities,
and there's nothing more correct in this, especially when looking at the world of smell.
The example of the fragrance community creativity in pairing often unusual subjects in order to create an idea, an image around something so commonly perceived as abstract and immaterial like smell is truly mesmerizing.
And I think adopting and appreciating new narrative modes around scent is only enriching olfactory culture and knowledge.
In this particular case,
I often found myself pairing Carter's creations with music, paintings and movies.
While I am not trained in doing so, I particularly enjoyed the freedom and creativity it allowed me in abandoning the usual evaluation rigour.
So what follows is nothing concrete nor static.
It embraces a fluidity in being highly subjective,
interpersonal and in so doing, wrong.
At the same, unfortunately it is potentially invalidating the actual work of Carter.
Hence why, last disclosure,
I recommend checking reviews by industry veterans such as Daly Beauty and Sunday Smell (please help me add more reviewers if you're aware of anyone else who covered the brand!).
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| credits: Chronotope |
You can browse the reviews singularly by clicking below on the names, or scroll down the article.
Autotheory Issue consists of 4 samples each of 2ml.
The creations included are (listed in order of appearance in the post):
Spite EDT: a Victorian mistery VEILED
IN Violet-ROSE WATER melanchoLIA
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| credits: Chronotope |
'' What we see and what we seem are but a dream,
a dream within a dream.''
- extract from Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock
A young Kirsten Dunst plays with water somewhere around the Petit Trianon while dissociating
from the despair of the incombining execution of her portrayed character;
a group of Victorian teen borders vanishes in the aridity of Australian wildlife;
Cocteau Twins vinyls play on repeat during an early June evening ...
... Spite EdT is all of this.
I speculate that it had no sort of arrogant conceptualistic intent in its formulation,
yet, due to its olfactory characteristics,
it is difficult for me to not draw on popular culture references in order to evoke its imagery.
There's a reminiscence of an almost toxicly idealized fantasy of some long-lost good old days,
an irrepressible escapist urge in the composition:
could be an unexpected and officially not listed / absent fresh, sharp paper note I so strongly detect as the scent's main protagonist,
or the morbidity, fluctuant wateriness of Victorians beloved flowers ...
Allow me to quickly reprise and attempt to explain what I mean with ''fresh, sharp paper note''-
It is a fil rouge in most violet-y aldehydes scents I frequently wear, such as Pani Walewska, Byredo's Blanche, and now Spite.
I suppose this should be self-explanatory enough to know what notes constitute this sharp, crisp feeling of white paper, yet with Spite EdT it is particularly tangible and equally difficult to collocate.
I attributed it at first to angelica, then maybe to its highly diluted rose water and its fizzy sugar, and now to violets and aldehyds.
Still, this is mere speculation. I haven't seen anyone else also referring to the Spite siblings as papery or cartaceous, so at this point I guess my nose must be rotten or something.
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| snap from Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1976) |
Wearing Spite EDT always provokes in me a lot of confusion and turbolent emotions, but in an almost sedated way.
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| credits: Grey Dog Tales |
Growing up persecuted by questions of gender identity and confinements,
only to be accentuated by a precocious watch of Peter Weir's masterpiece Picnic at Hanging Rock which explored topics of disembodiment, femininity and nature,
Spite EdT serves me as an olfactory communicative bridge ,
making the long-debated questions of feminine/masculine scents coexist.
WHAT SPITE EDT SOUNDS LIKE: Avril 14th by Aphex Twin, anything by Cocteau Twins, in particular Lazy Calm and Sea Swallow Me, Glass Chime by Inoyamaland.
SPITE EDT AS MOVIES: Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, Peter Weir's magnus opus Picnic at Hanging Rock, Agnieska Holland's Secret Garden (the latter on suggestion of @sundaysmells!)
BOOKS: Frost in May by Antonia White
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| credits: Chrontope |
It makes no chronological sense, but I cannot screw this from my mind.
While clearly connected to its EdT counterpart, there's no lightness to it.
In fact, Spite EdP is almost a claustrophobic delirium.
Its sweetness is slow to unpack and remains intentionally distant, and tacit.
The flowers - a selection of bittersweet carnation, chrysantemum and nasturtion- are so subtle to have a sort-of poisonous imaginary to them.
My friend Marta said:
"it smells like that fascinating person who you desperately want to be friends with, but they never allow you to get closer to them, to really know their nature.
It smells like wearing an invisible armor.''
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| snap from 'The History of Adele H'; from Tumblr; |
Dominant in galbanum, artichocke and in what really Carter accomplishes here by recreating a liquid portrait of rose thorns, it's still heavy in my self-proclaimed and not listed 'paper note' I love so much of Spite Edt, which I find it to be the main (if not almost only) note linked with its sister.
with an echoing extra dry vetiver in the background.
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| Artemisia Gentileschi's Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, c. 1620; credits: Oceansbridge |
It has a gothic soul, to the point that the 15 years old me obsessed with old monumental cemeteries and Joy Division must be somewhere feeling at peace after finally having found a severely dark flower scent that is able to capture some florals' bitterness and medicinal olfactory pigmentations.
Spite EdP is not an easy wear.
I'd argue that it is much more conflictual, outrageously angry and impetuous than its sister, even though it's important to note that according to Carter the EdP should be <<about adaptation>>, rather than <<selfishness>> or <<frustration>>.
During my undergraduate years, a professor once said that ugly feelings are important, if not necessary.
And I find Spite estranged siblings to be a necessary presence in the fragrance panorama,
both in their concept formulation and in their olfactory translation of such demonized ugly feelings.
In particular with the EdP, you can almost stream the burning flow of these emotions.
By being addressed through the olfactory language rather then confined to volatile isolation,
they don't lose meaning;
instead, they find a solution,
a pathway to self-growth, acceptance and methodic improvement.
music: Piano Concerto 5 'Adagio poco Mosso' by Beethoven,
Allonsanfan soundtrack by Ennio Morricone,
Miranda by Slowdive,
FKA Twigs' Mary Magdalene,
Murder and Crime & Cimmerian Shade by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine.
movies: Francois Truffaut's Adele H,
Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World,
Allonsanfan by Taviani brothers
''Sweet communion of a kiss'':
Buen Camino and the sublime
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| credits: Chronotope |
A burning spice explosion at first.
The immortelle, the most stunning I've ever smelt, capturing its renown honey tobacco facets, evolves with time , but reveals to be the main companion of the scent.
As it settles and the spiciness becomes of secondary importance,
a beautiful balsamic sweetness comes out.
Buen Camino is often described as a lavender perfume,
but as a lavender purist, my nose does struggle to be so sophisticated to grant it such simplification.
Its lavender has been dissected , ripped off its buds with only the stems being granted the final infusion.
Or, if the buds have to be considered, they're the dry lavender bouquet you have somewhere around your house since forever.
Its lavender is limited to the aroma captured through the camphorous facets left on the palms after scrolling in a lavender field.
Coffee is likely to be blameable for this lavender murder, but I don't find it a minus.
Instead, it actually works: the immortelle, the spices (anise? pepper berries? cinnamon? saffron? I can only speculate here), the lavender, they all gather under what Carter accomplishes by emotionally and almost photo-realistically evoking the smell of a spiritual pilgrimage, collecting the aromas along his journey to Santiago de Compostela.
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| Witches' Sabbath by Francisco Goya, 1789; credits: Wikipedia |
Buen Camino undoubtedly is influenced by Christian, and more specifically Roman Catholic olfactory heritage.
I here reprise Jane Daly of Daly Beauty and fully subscribe to her understanding in calling the scent ''holy''.
For someone who grew up in the Italian catholic mania and lived in-between of different familiar religious backgrounds à-laFanny & Alexander,
Buen Camino for me brings to memory the mauve candies my Catholic grandmother regularly purchased from Camaldoli monks that my aunt fought every time to make my cousins spit in disdain for the matriarch supporting the tax-avoiding institution.
Buen Camino is oileous,
aggressively balsamic,
graciously smoky and infectiously herbaceous.
It is among the best (and very few) fragrant analysis of religious olfactory heritage, inter-personal spiritual experiences, and scent memory.
In its fragility and sincerity, it makes all the fragrances marketed as 'church-inspired incense' etc. appear as mere gross exploitation and marketing-orientied vile simplication.
Music: anything by Judee Sill,
Nick Drake,
Fanfare for naran ratan by naran ratan,
How Big How Blue How Beautiful by Florence + The Machine
PlayAlinda:
A CONTEMPLATIVE TRIUMPH OF joy
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| Credits: Chrontope |
Not going to lie: my pretentious being almost had to fight with this one.
I just simply didn't want to accept the gentle brightness of this perfume.
Being the last one I tested of the issue, I thought I had a clear understanding of Carter's olfactory signature ( guesses were on aromatic, herbaceous and balsamic accords),
and Playalinda was the annoyingly good fruit-inspired exception,
and most of all, it had a bizarre and unsettling reassuring feeling.
Not that Carter's work is necessarily gloomy, but it seemed to this point to follow a story,
a well delineated storytelling trajectory,
predominantly made of contrasting, irruent emotions translated in mostly biographical olfactory analysis.
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| Woman Reading in the Reeds; Edouard Villuard; Credits: ART UK |
But it does so in a very subtle, profound way.
The first time I sprayed it I was re-reading Herman Hesse's Siddharta and later watched with my aunt Eric Rohmer's Green Ray.
It was one of my dad's favorite movies, and one of the last ones he introduced me to before unexpectedly passing away.
Both Siddartha, the movie and Playalinda came at a very strange moment of my life.
After a disgustingly painful process of loss acceptance, I had to face how in the past year I weaponized grief in my ordinary.
And Playalinda almost makes me believe in para-natural coincidences,
as if with its contemplative and calm nature could calm down my Napoleonic emotional and unstable soul.
A spray of Playalinda exercises a spell on me, subtly chanting that it all works out in the end.
It's not exploitative or blind positivity,
instead, it seeks for peace and self-love from an extremely empathetic, comforting perspective.
It's a sort of a cuddle, a mystical creature in its botanical peachy undertones and tranquility.
Playalinda doesn't have to be loud, or stereotypically fruity.
It perfectly captures the ripe stage of a mouthwatering juicy peach, a few days before going moldy.
It's the peach you're placing in your hemp basket on your way to a Baltic wild beach (or, for Carter, without any further appropriative narratives of mine, to Playalinda beach in Texas).
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| Sketch for Morning Splendour, Henry Scott Tuke (c. 1921) credits: ART UK |
Playalinda is a painting by Henry-Scott Tuke,
Sufjan Steven's most lullying love ballad,
loaded in the secrecy and mysticism of the ordinary with its emotional impetuosity.
It almost has a sound in it, with a sandy echoing background,
streaming gently with the surrounding air and calmness of the scene.
I am typing this on a gloomy late August day in North Italy, not too far from the river Rio.
And with incoming thunder and the sky packed in grey,
the scent is being transported with a gentle mountain breeze.
And it's simply magical.
I very much like how it doesn't evolve arrogantly,
and can still smell two hours later all the fine osmanthus,
the photorealistic peach,
and a tacit yet present jasmin sambac.
With these airy hints clashing on my skin,
the scent revives on my neck and accompanies me throughout the day.
Of all Chronotope's Autotheory Issue, I find Playlinda to have the most straightforward olfactory reading.
And this is exactly its beauty.
I don't know when I'll be able to place a new order from Chronotope,
but with Buen Camino, Playalinda is the one I am most regularly reaching for and have to start controlling myself over not enjoying it too much (especially considering Reggie hasn't tested any of it yet).
Its 2ml size is for now egoistically treasured in a kitschy shell-shaped box on a library shelf of my beloved minuscule childhood bedroom,
being surrounded by pale rocks collected during a holiday on the Adriatic Coast,
and when I feel like I'm starting to enter a new mentally consuming loop,
I reach for a few sprays and feel at peace.
There isn't an olfactory facet in Playalinda that wouldn't invoke serenity.
It's so aware of its contagious gracefulness to be liberating.
Especially following the trapiness of Spite EdP,
or the contemplative research in Buen Camino,
Playalinda actually feels like reaching the end of a story.
I am very glad I followed this random pathway in testing out the line, and left Playalinda at the end.
- Poem II by Derek Jarman
MUSIC: Sufjan Steven's Futile Devices,
Time by Angelo De Augustine,
Tezeta (Nostalgia) by Mulatu Astatke
MOVIES: Green Ray by Eric Rohmer,
Takovskij's Nostalghia,
Derek Jarman's Blue
