Fragrance Review: Nina Ricci L’Air du Temps

"And only dreamed imagination Had drowned in the empty dark Its flitting visions' pale reflections, The soul fancy's easy mark?" Aleksandr Sergeievich Pushkin

Carnation blossoms thickly overlaid with wintergreen and dusky bitter notes. It captures a moment before autumns falls into the winter and winter into the spring, a sense of something new and unsettling in the air. Its combination of earthy vetiver and nostalgic iris makes me think of fin de siècle parks filled with marble statues. A rich veil of chrysanthemum-like bitterness—a smell of leaves rubbed between fingers as one passes through the overgrown brambles absentmindedly caressing remaining flowers—folds over the composition. Created in 1948 by Francis Fabron, L'Air du Temps was one of my mother’s favourite fragrances.

Fast forward to the present. I lift the beautiful lid of intertwining doves off the bottle, spray the content on my arm and… Nothing happens, other than a whisper of something barely resembling the old beauty. It is faceless, utterly forgettable, filled with light and likable notes that together do not sing. If my grandmother’s bottle of L’Air du Temps is still preserved, I will wear it, otherwise I am not going near the reformulated version.

Poem: Aleksandr Sergeievich Pushkin (1799-1837), a greatest Russian poet of Romantic period. The excerpt is taken from "To the Fountain Of the Palace Of the Bakchisarai."

Photo: Pushkin's favourite statue in Tsarkoe Selo, a town near St. Petersburg, which was Russian tzars' summer residence. Pushkin studied in the town’s Lyceum from 1811 to 1817.

Comments

[Tania]

Do you know what year the reformulation was? I have an eBay watch on "vintage l'air du temps" but I don't know how old a bottle has to be before it's worth my dollar.

[Diane]

T, I believe the reformulation was in the 1990s, as I have a '80s formula and it's quite true to how I remember it on my aunt. V should have a more precise date though.

V, is that your own personal photo? It's wonderful. Take plenty of photos this summer, sweetie!

[Victoria]

Tania, I think Diane is right. The reformulation is not older than 1980s. I hope that you will win your bottle. Please, share your impressions then. By the way, thank you is spasibo in Russian and djakuju in Ukrainian.

D, I definitely will! Mr. P brought a nice little camera for me to record everything to share with him later. :)
xoxo

[Octavian]

The smell of Air du Temps was so popular that the cosmetic industry used its fragrance (but in a more cheaper version) to perfume various cosmetic preparations. It's called the trickle down effect.In fact if you smell various hair spray / lacque / fixatives from the '70s & '80s you'll see how in period of time that fragrance was everywere. Unfortunatelly the present perfume lost some of its richness. 2 perfumes directlly inspired from Air du temps are Fidji & Anais Anais.

[Victoria]

This is interesting, as Fidji and Anais Anais are the other two fragrances I remember well being worn among women of my family. Fidji in particular was preferred. I have not sampled it in a while, however I am afraid, because I expect that it has been reformulated just like everything else. Do you know anything about it?

Also, I have a question about Joy by Jean Patou. Have you tried the fragrance made before and after 2001 (P&G purchase of Jean Patou)? I wonder if there is a difference. Thank you for your insight--very interesting and informative.

[Miriam]

As always, I love your evocative thoughts, V. After you finish your doctorate, you might want to think about writing a book about perfume! Or perhaps editing an anthology of articles (we could co-edit. . . ;-)

Reformulation is a grotesque thing. In the same way that, as Bakhtin says, the grotesque seems to retain elements of the real, but distorts and extends them in subversive parody, these reformulations can only be called modern grotesques.

I've smelled most of the Patou reformulations and none of them even come close to the originals. Sadly, the parfum versions of the pre-1950s scents (Ma Collection) have been lost in the sands of time. My mother has worn Moment Supreme since the 1970s, and has detected a thinner quality, as well as a more citrusy ("trendy") top note since 1999 or so. Moment Supreme is a lovely lavender-amber scent, with a heart of rose and top notes of bergamot and geranium. It will forever be associated in my mind with the warmth and comfort and style of my mother. When I went to the old Patou shop in 2001 to bring back a bottle for my mother, I was told that only EDTs were available. And apparently the new shop doesn't sell them at all. . . However, a good friend of my family, a jeweller and sometime perfumer named Joel, has purportedly found a bottle for my mother, though of course how he did so, must remain a mystery. . .

[Victoria]

Dear Miriam,

How I love your mention of Bakhtin, especially since I have been reading "The Dialogic Imagination" over the past few days. Of course, I cannot agree more with his take on the grotesque, and your extrapolation to perfume.

I used to own an entire Ma Collection, a re-edition, and I ended up letting it go, because I would be disappointed by the thin nature of EDTs. There was something bland and citrusy in the opening notes, and while the drydown managed to achieve depth, the first olfactory impression was of something pale. I am glad that your mother was reunited with Moment Supreme afterall.

As for your suggestion, I would love to co-edit with you, although this would have to wait till I am done with my doctorate. I can just imagine how enjoyable it is going to be!

[Romina]

Bless you for weaving Pushkin into that.

However, everytime i see the bottle I remember the scene in "Pillow Talk" where Doris Day is putting on finishing touches before Rock Hudson, aka "Rex Stetson", comes to pick her up for a date, whilst grumbling about her obnoxious lady killer of a party line share, Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) :)
L'Air du Temps perches on her vanity. ;)

[loolveclage]

Make peace, not war!

[mieux]

And don't forget, Clarice Starling wears it too.... (Or so the good Dr. Lecter informs us)