Thursday, December 17, 2009

SOTD: Chanel No. 19

A painting of a young red-haired woman in green, lounging on a sofa, looking slightly to the right with a thoughtful expression. Painting is a cropped portion of William Glacken's _Young Woman In Green_.
I realized today that Chanel No. 19 extrait has two roles.

First, it's a special-occasion scent, a celebratory scent. A scent for dressing up. In that role, it's also one of the scents that I most strongly defend from negative associations - normally, I only wear Chanel No. 19 on days that I expect to be very good days.

But it has a second role. It's also a "don't mess with me" scent.

In this role, I see it as a beautiful, not altogether human creature. She's lounging as she observes the source of the problem. Her green claws are sheathed but ready, and one eyebrow is raised just enough to inquire, without words, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

Like my image for Tubereuse Couture, I'm not that creature, but sometimes it's very useful to smell as if I am.

Review Roundup: Is here.

Cropped image of William Glacken's Young Woman In Green: Wikimedia Commons.

No comments:

Post a Comment