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Notes06/25/2020
Cravache
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Cravache
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Sous le Vent de Berlin - the magic of olfactory gross motor skills
Sous le Vent is my favorite scent. One of the greatest, most emotional fragrances. A perfume in which every facet is an olfactory revelation.
And then there's Berlin.
A city that has been fought off, somewhere between Büsingen on the High Rhine and Divitz-Spoldershagen. And the flacon of the Lehmann fragrance also looks so Berlin-like. Loveless glass atomizer, intimate deodorant spray head, three particularly lovelessly clapped labels on the atomizer, each of which was applied more slanted than the next.
Lehmann's fragrances stand out for two main characteristics: they are fabulously inexpensive and often just as fabulously olfactory grossly hammered together. But there are also radiant pearls from Lehmann. One of them is Surabaya. Surabaya is a sensitive Lehmann-Berlin implementation of the fragrance images of Sous le Vent.
Both scents, Surabaya and Sous le Vent, are green-spicy chypres. Surabaya is slightly more floral-floral than Sous le Vent (jasmine) and has a warm brown, oriental twist with a warm clove and a small pinch of cinnamon. Lavender gives Surabaya a southern French early summer spice.
Some aldehydes can be found in the heart in Surabaya, but much less than in Sous le Vent. The subtle floral-herbal sweetness and subliminal pungency are reminiscent of the smell of slightly moist, unscented pipe tobacco. At this stage Sous le Vent is drier and more shrubby. The base of Surabaya is bedded on contemporary narrow-breasted oakmoss and slightly earthy patchouli. Surabaya shows little fragrance progression, only the colour changes gradually from tweed green to tweed brown.
Surabaya smells old. According to craftsmanship tradition, like a Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. And like Guerlain's Derby after 1980s olfactory historicism: you smell the post-colonial façade of the 1930s or 1940s.
The main differences to Sous le Vent are two. After spraying Sous le Vent shines like a bright star in all directions. Surabaya always remains in the subdued green-brown of Harris-Tweed. And Sous le Vent is a fragrance that unfolds three-dimensionally, while Surabaya remains fresco-like two-dimensional.
Sous le Vent is more complex, intricate and multi-layered than Surabaya. Less easily accessible. As dry-wood, floral to herbal chypres, Surabaya and Sous le Vent stand for seriousness and warm tropical winds, for joie de vivre and melancholy in equal measure.
The scent images of Sous le Vent that emerge are contradictory. One sees Paul Gauguin's South Sea pictures. Always beautiful weather, vivid strong colours, erotic women with flawless bodies. And yet the melancholy lies like a veil over their faces.
Surabaya is almost equally melancholic, true to life, but not of the latently bitter or black poetry of Sous le Vent. The sky in Surabaya is not immaculately cloudless, the light is more diffuse, the colours dimmed, the sky cloudy. Surabaya is not located in the South Seas, but in an old backyard in the faceless Indonesian city of Surabaya. Or Berlin.
Surabaya is not a Dupe of Sous le Vent. Surabaya fires up the melancholy that Sous le Vent has long since ceased to exist. And by this fact alone, an underrated fragrance.
And then there's Berlin.
A city that has been fought off, somewhere between Büsingen on the High Rhine and Divitz-Spoldershagen. And the flacon of the Lehmann fragrance also looks so Berlin-like. Loveless glass atomizer, intimate deodorant spray head, three particularly lovelessly clapped labels on the atomizer, each of which was applied more slanted than the next.
Lehmann's fragrances stand out for two main characteristics: they are fabulously inexpensive and often just as fabulously olfactory grossly hammered together. But there are also radiant pearls from Lehmann. One of them is Surabaya. Surabaya is a sensitive Lehmann-Berlin implementation of the fragrance images of Sous le Vent.
Both scents, Surabaya and Sous le Vent, are green-spicy chypres. Surabaya is slightly more floral-floral than Sous le Vent (jasmine) and has a warm brown, oriental twist with a warm clove and a small pinch of cinnamon. Lavender gives Surabaya a southern French early summer spice.
Some aldehydes can be found in the heart in Surabaya, but much less than in Sous le Vent. The subtle floral-herbal sweetness and subliminal pungency are reminiscent of the smell of slightly moist, unscented pipe tobacco. At this stage Sous le Vent is drier and more shrubby. The base of Surabaya is bedded on contemporary narrow-breasted oakmoss and slightly earthy patchouli. Surabaya shows little fragrance progression, only the colour changes gradually from tweed green to tweed brown.
Surabaya smells old. According to craftsmanship tradition, like a Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. And like Guerlain's Derby after 1980s olfactory historicism: you smell the post-colonial façade of the 1930s or 1940s.
The main differences to Sous le Vent are two. After spraying Sous le Vent shines like a bright star in all directions. Surabaya always remains in the subdued green-brown of Harris-Tweed. And Sous le Vent is a fragrance that unfolds three-dimensionally, while Surabaya remains fresco-like two-dimensional.
Sous le Vent is more complex, intricate and multi-layered than Surabaya. Less easily accessible. As dry-wood, floral to herbal chypres, Surabaya and Sous le Vent stand for seriousness and warm tropical winds, for joie de vivre and melancholy in equal measure.
The scent images of Sous le Vent that emerge are contradictory. One sees Paul Gauguin's South Sea pictures. Always beautiful weather, vivid strong colours, erotic women with flawless bodies. And yet the melancholy lies like a veil over their faces.
Surabaya is almost equally melancholic, true to life, but not of the latently bitter or black poetry of Sous le Vent. The sky in Surabaya is not immaculately cloudless, the light is more diffuse, the colours dimmed, the sky cloudy. Surabaya is not located in the South Seas, but in an old backyard in the faceless Indonesian city of Surabaya. Or Berlin.
Surabaya is not a Dupe of Sous le Vent. Surabaya fires up the melancholy that Sous le Vent has long since ceased to exist. And by this fact alone, an underrated fragrance.
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