loewenherz

If we are honest, the fragrances from the house of Ford were New Money from the very beginning and an expression of a consumption of prestige that cannot be described as understated. Tom Ford has always been loud. However, consistently developing and expanding this as a brand image is a statement that has found its place and its fans, and since the products have long been academically interesting, implemented to a high standard and carefully curated as an overall portfolio - who cares?

But now - which may or may not coincide with the takeover by Estée Lauder, my guess is the latter - the fragrances from Ford are no longer 'just' New Money, but increasingly influencer, oligarch or player women. At the same time, originality, craftsmanship and curation have suffered greatly, and I feel a pang in my chest that the Tom Ford label could lose me as a fan in the foreseeable future.

My central regret is the lack of originality - most recently, the cherry theme picked up on a trend that was still as innovative at the time as a stripped-down circus horse - as well as the outrageous decline in the quality of craftsmanship. The private blends of the first generation offered complex fragrance journeys that followed an almost unanticipated development over several hours. In contrast, the fragrances of the present day are little more than the infamous chamber note A.

I am almost as bored by the overly forced and bold provocation of the chosen names. Yes, slippery and ambiguous - *chuckle* - we get it! Word games like Lost Cherry and Rose Prick may make teenagers in Texas blush with embarrassment, but they are not Ford's target group. And I actually wonder if at least the gambler's wife with the (tasteful!) nude egg photos still finds something like 'vanilla sex' funny.

Explanation for the very innocent here: 'Vanilla sex' in English refers to the standard version of togetherness: lights off, get naked, oral foreplay, up on the mommy, lights back on and that's it. Anything that requires additional accessories, spanking or similar is no longer vanilla. Of course, the name could also be interpreted as a highly sexualized version of the vanilla fragrance chord - so much for Tom Ford's raunchy and creative play on words. Funny.

Vanilla Sex - I find it almost a little difficult to write down the dreadful name - is actually not a bad fragrance. To my nose, it's more bitter almond than vanilla, but not a one-dimensional turbo gourmand for those who like this kind of sugary scent. No comparison, of course, to greats such as Guerlain's Spiritueuse Double Vanille (which Tom Ford has already 'borrowed' with Vanille Fatale), but it is on a par with Heliotrope by Etro, for example, which I own, appreciate and sometimes still wear. Its sweetness is nowhere near as artificial as the ingredients listed suggest, which - when viewed in the light of day - are almost all just bastards of vanilla. And yet 'Vanilla Sex' is now simply one silly, puerile perfume name too many.

Conclusion: we are slowly losing sight of each other, the perfume brand Tom Ford and me. Which is also, but not only, due to the fact that I'm no good as a player's wife.

The journey to Hogwarts, the boarding school in the north of Scotland where the story of the famous wizard student Harry Potter takes place, is mainly made by train, starting at platform 9 3/4 of London's King's Cross station. The last part of the journey, however, is made by boat across the lake and by - apparently - driverless carriages. It is only later, in his fifth year, that Harry realizes that these carriages do not drive all by themselves, but are pulled by black, emaciated creatures whose shape is borrowed from reptilian horses. These creatures are called thestrals, and they can only be seen by those who have witnessed the death of a human being.

So far, so bad. But thestrals are also creatures of darkness - frightening at first in their appearance, especially when you see them for the first time and then realize why - they are, after all, maimed, silent creatures of the night. Their gaunt bodies and large wings, reminiscent of bats, are as dull as silk and neither warm nor cool. Their demonic head resembles that of a dragon, their eyes pupil-less and seemingly empty. When tamed as a mount, however, it is said that a thestral can find any place its rider desires to go. And so Harry and his friends arrive at the Hall of Prophecies in the Ministry of Magic on thestrals when time is of the essence.

Lutens' Poivre Noir follows a very similar narrative - an initial moment of flinching and then only silence and darkness far beyond categories such as cold or warm - which already carries both - the biting sharpness and the darkness - in its name. The opening accord of crushed pepper is bright and pungent and almost disturbing - like the realization of the black winged horses and why we are now seeing them for the first time. But the duration of this opening is limited, and it fades into a hollow, strangely nameless echo - like dry hay that has lain in the shade for far too long, or old, yellowed and cracked paper (that's the immortelle!) - too cool to be warm, and too warm to seem cool.

Conclusion: Pepper fragrances are sometimes polarizing - as is this one, whose opening is sharp and biting and almost provocatively unpleasant. But beyond that, Poivre Noir is a dry fragrance full of pale darkness and silence - no comfort and no sweetness - just like the lean, black winged horses with the dragon's head that only those who have already seen death can recognize.

Here we have a false friend. In linguistics, a false friend is a word of which the non-native speaker of that language is apparently certain of its meaning - after all, it is similar to an analogous word in his or her own language. For example, Germans may think that the English word 'pathetic' is the equivalent of 'pathetic'. In fact, however, it means 'pathetic'. Interlinguistics knows many such false friends in almost all languages, and time and again we fall for one or the other.

There are also such false friends in perfume - some quite accidentally and unsuspectingly, some deliberately - even if the analogy is perhaps a little off the mark. Tom Ford's Soleil Neige is such a candidate, because 'Soleil' (sun) and 'Neige' (snow), as well as the silver-white of its bottle, suggest a cool, luminous winter fragrance - like ethereal, white, dazzling sunlight pouring over freshly snow-covered fields. Nothing could be more misleading here, nothing could be more false - because Soleil Neige is neither cool, nor dazzling, let alone ethereally white.

Soleil Neige is a white bloomer - with everything there is to love and fear about it. The initial bergamot and the hint of animal and resin in its base are unable to disguise the fact that this fragrance is a creature of jasmine and orange blossom - sweet, dainty and, for those who don't like white bloomers (me!), downright shrill. There is no snow here, nothing silver, nothing ethereal, blindingly cool. This is not a badly made fragrance, but when something is promised that the product is unable to deliver, you are left with an unmasked false friend.

Conclusion: Soleil does not mean sun here, and Neige does not mean snow. Instead, it's a summery white bloomer - solidly crafted and without any big surprises, but with the famous Fordian dazzle, that excess of everything that you either love or you don't. And a real false friend. And a real false friend.

This is the name of an old Scottish tune, originally written as a lullaby and cradle song. Today, however, the piece is usually performed seriously and with dignity on the bagpipes at the graves of fallen soldiers. During her lifetime, Elizabeth II ordered in the so-called Operation London Bridge (the detailed planning of her funeral) that 'Sleep, Dearie Sleep' should be played at her funeral - legend has it that this was on the recommendation of her personal piper, Major Paul Burns, who was very close to her.

Sleep, Dearie Sleep. There is comfort and sadness in these words - and the end of duty and toil and privation as well as the promise of long awaited rest and tranquillity. And comfort and sadness and rest and peace may have been the inspiration for Hylnds - Isle Ryder, one of those quiet fragrances that D.S. & Durga dedicated ten years ago to the brittle land in the heart of Scotland, on the edge of which lies Balmoral Castle, the summer palace of the British royal family where Elizabeth II died late last summer.

Sleep, my darling, sleep. D.S. & Durga's Isle Ryder quotes much from that quiet Scottish lullaby and mourning song. The brittle, the rough. Sketched out by the burst and dry undergrowth of needles. The unapproachable, rugged. Rendered by a dull, strangely dull green that lacks any freshness and youth. And finally the conciliatory, the calm. Illustrated by a sweetness that is more resin and honey than flowers. And a wounded tenderness - like a rapidly approaching light, yet still suffused with lament and loss.

Isle Ryder is not a difficult fragrance if you don't want to find it difficult. Then it is gray-green-brown and woody, reserved and perhaps a little strange. But if you open yourself up to it, allowing the brittle and rough, the aloof and rugged to come through as well as the conciliatory and sweet - like the notes of those distant bagpipes - then it gives you much more. Dry upland moors and deserted heath. Delicious tranquillity and an unexpectedly soft fund. And the memory of a queen in her beloved castle on the edge of the Highlands.

Conclusion:
'Dearie lie down on your wee pickle straw -
it's not very broad and it's not very braw but
Dearie it's better than nothing at all -
Sleep, Dearie Sleep...'

I sometimes miss the Tom Ford Private Blends of the first generations. I miss how they were conceived and made - and who they were, and the stories they had to tell - which the recent products of the Tom Ford label no longer do. In top, heart and base notes - immediately after application, after an hour and at the end of a long day, these are often completely different fragrances that develop, unfold and blossom. You have to know this, you have to want it - because what the top note promises is often nothing more than a hunch and a promise, followed by a journey that can be challenging, sometimes difficult - but offers much more than 'just' Chamber Note A.

The newer Private Blends - the iconic bottle shape has remained, but their colors are now strangely different, sometimes garish - no longer tell such stories, at least not with the dramaturgy and depth of their predecessors. The fragrances are still quite beautiful and not unsoundly crafted, but comparatively monochrome and one-dimensional - and there are far too many ®s where there used to be none. I know, the naïve idea of Bedouins wrapped in cloth collecting resin in silver vessels under the light of a pale desert moon is just that - naïve. But when everything just looks like ®s put together by artificial intelligence, I miss something. Very much.

Myrrhe Mystère is myrrh through and through. You can argue about 'Mystère'. It is a thoroughly appealing, yet monothematic resin and desert scent, medium in volume and range. It is made of loud ®s, where I would have liked dark myrrh and oily woods - just more than just chamber note A. Myrrhe Mystère promises something that it is not able to deliver: where 'exciting' is promised and then only 'solid craftsmanship' comes, a vague feeling of disappointment will always remain. Because Tom Ford can do Orient, can do desert, can do Mystère - he proved it in Sahara Noir and Vert d'Encens. Estée Lauder can - apparently and unfortunately - not.

Conclusion: a 7 in my nose, maybe a 7.5. That's decent, and I mean it. But a desert fragrance from Ford has to be a 9, at least! Hence, as Judy Garland sang so incomparably and so unforgettably in 'The man that got away':
'No more his eager call, the writings on the wall,
the dreams you dreamed have all gone astray...'