Oud Maximus by Bortnikoff is a thoroughly enjoyable fragrance that veers between being an animalic floral oud, a floral oud leather, and a slightly gourmand, ambered fragrance. I truly did not expect to like it as much as I did.
Oud Maximus. This is a photo of an older bottle without the date, which the most recent 2020 fragrance has.
François Coty. Photo: Wikipedia
Fascism is the common thread that ties two important early 20th century figures: the perfumer François Coty and the haute couturier Lucien Lelong who, as fragrance director, made a number of excellent fragrances with the legendary nose Jean Carles. The critical point, however, is how each man responded to fascism.
The biography of one of the great noses of the time, Coty, is typically white-washed of his extreme white supremacy ideological beliefs, his raging antisemitism, and his support for fascists like Mussolini. That gap in his coverage is something I mean to fix today.
I also want to talk to you about one of my 20th century fragrance heroes, Lucien Lelong, who has been relegated to the deepest shadows of time despite having saved both Jews and the French fashion industry from the Nazis during the latter’s occupation of Paris in WW2. To put another way, he was the Oskar Schindler of Parisian haute couture. Plus, he had an intriguing personal life, like marrying a Romanov princess whilst secretly being gay.
Lucien Lelong, circa 1932. Source: Pinterest.
Vintage Miss Dior by Christian Dior is a fragrance loved by men and women alike. I finally understood why when I went back in time to try a 1950s/60s eau de toilette version. It was extremely different than the Miss Dior eau de toilettes that I’d tried in passing during the 1980s and 1990s. What an absolute stunner! It was a highly sophisticated, unisex, floral, smoky cuir de russie leather on me as much as a floral chypre
Oddly, however, when doing a comparative review with the same era cologne concentration, I had a dramatically different experience.
Vintage Miss Dior EDC, left, and Vintage Miss Dior EDT, right. Both from the same era.
A look at three fragrances from Pekji‘s first collection: Zeybeck and Battaniye, plus a mini review for Ruh.
Pekji Collection One sample set. photo: my own.