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07/15/2021
Intersport
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Intersport
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Horny algae
No genre has been so fervently disliked and reviled for years as the so-called aquatic. How long the term has been in use is beyond me, the history of the infamous Camilli, Albert & Laloue Ketone 'Calone' is also covered here in the database and reviews. Aramis' New West for Her (Skinscent) is often mentioned as a first with the Tropional/Calone combination. Another reference that came across as more maritime than aquatic was Goutal's Vétiver in which Isabelle Doyen used Algenone in 1995. Through ongoing encounters with neo-aquatics - nice word - from trashy to spiky to quaint, I hooked one recently - here's a look at maritime proto-aquatics, no New West Skinscent for her, no Kenzo pour Homme; neutral: Horizon.
No Escape. When Horizon was released in 1993 there was almost no escape, the extensive advertising campaign photographed by Herb Ritts, including video clip, was omnipresent, staff in perfumeries always ready to suggest Horizon. Drakkar Noir's massive success certainly provided a perfect springboard to promote Laroche's experiment. In addition to water-underwater imagery, there was another, historical motif that Guy Laroche somehow got his hands on or meticulously re-staged: George Hoyningen-Huene's 1930 photograph "Divers (Horst With Model)," a swimwear motif in which Horst P. Horst and Lee Miller are models. Great.
Visible is also notable in the bottle, one of the most thoughtful of the early 90's - a reprise/reuse of the shape of the Drakkar bottles, only this time made of scuffed transparent blue rock. Although the slightly rubbery lid seems a bit cheap, this cleverly picks up on the surface texture and complements it beautifully.
Advertising and packaging clearly speak to water, sea, distance: all themes that have been incorporated into the Aquatik complex, yet Horizon is an idiosyncratic experimental fougère construction, bursting with synthetics and iridescent more green-blue or blue-green than its appearance suggests. The whole thing could also have come from a tropical fruit shop in the entryway of a swimming pool, dripped as shower gel resin from an incised pine tree, or flourished in an alpine garden aerated with copious aldehydes, next to imaginary pine trees, ensnared by lavender, mint, currant, and geranium, all chilled on menthol. This change of scenery may also have been the starting point for Jean Paul Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria Gentiana - despite gentian bearing striking similarities to Horizon.
In its genealogy, Horizon was perhaps conceived - albeit at a distance in time - in a line with Cool Water, New West for Him, and Kenzo pour Homme, but seems more artificially playful overall, and more complex with fruity-floral and bitter-herbal components plus a set moss/patchouli/conifer base. Proto-Aquatik remains for me, at least in its first attempts, a thoroughly modern project in which (isolated) protagonists did not so much propose an image evoking water et. al. as advertise a new direction and otherness. Horizon, despite its slight eccentricity, is more classical and a building block of this time, more ambiguous in profile than the round of neo-Aquats who lose themselves in an unrealistic realism that could also be the subject of an IPISCA midterm exam.
What is ultimately responsible for the proto-aquatic impact in Horizon remains open. Calone cleverly hidden or, as with some that smells, pheromonics, as argued by Richard E. Moore, a chemist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in 1976 - 'Volatile Compounds from Marine Algae'?
No Escape. When Horizon was released in 1993 there was almost no escape, the extensive advertising campaign photographed by Herb Ritts, including video clip, was omnipresent, staff in perfumeries always ready to suggest Horizon. Drakkar Noir's massive success certainly provided a perfect springboard to promote Laroche's experiment. In addition to water-underwater imagery, there was another, historical motif that Guy Laroche somehow got his hands on or meticulously re-staged: George Hoyningen-Huene's 1930 photograph "Divers (Horst With Model)," a swimwear motif in which Horst P. Horst and Lee Miller are models. Great.
Visible is also notable in the bottle, one of the most thoughtful of the early 90's - a reprise/reuse of the shape of the Drakkar bottles, only this time made of scuffed transparent blue rock. Although the slightly rubbery lid seems a bit cheap, this cleverly picks up on the surface texture and complements it beautifully.
Advertising and packaging clearly speak to water, sea, distance: all themes that have been incorporated into the Aquatik complex, yet Horizon is an idiosyncratic experimental fougère construction, bursting with synthetics and iridescent more green-blue or blue-green than its appearance suggests. The whole thing could also have come from a tropical fruit shop in the entryway of a swimming pool, dripped as shower gel resin from an incised pine tree, or flourished in an alpine garden aerated with copious aldehydes, next to imaginary pine trees, ensnared by lavender, mint, currant, and geranium, all chilled on menthol. This change of scenery may also have been the starting point for Jean Paul Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria Gentiana - despite gentian bearing striking similarities to Horizon.
In its genealogy, Horizon was perhaps conceived - albeit at a distance in time - in a line with Cool Water, New West for Him, and Kenzo pour Homme, but seems more artificially playful overall, and more complex with fruity-floral and bitter-herbal components plus a set moss/patchouli/conifer base. Proto-Aquatik remains for me, at least in its first attempts, a thoroughly modern project in which (isolated) protagonists did not so much propose an image evoking water et. al. as advertise a new direction and otherness. Horizon, despite its slight eccentricity, is more classical and a building block of this time, more ambiguous in profile than the round of neo-Aquats who lose themselves in an unrealistic realism that could also be the subject of an IPISCA midterm exam.
What is ultimately responsible for the proto-aquatic impact in Horizon remains open. Calone cleverly hidden or, as with some that smells, pheromonics, as argued by Richard E. Moore, a chemist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in 1976 - 'Volatile Compounds from Marine Algae'?
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