Special thanks to Alix for helping with the photos, Hôtel de la Trémoille, Paris for the location, and Guerlain and Ykone for the opportunity.
It’s only really been a recent development on my part, from considering water + shampoo to be the ultimate l’eau de toilette (no pun intended!) to weaving through the perfume counters at the ground floor, not just to get to the elevator that will take me to 1) the toilet or 2) the food court. I do remember specifically though, that it was triggered by my brother, who dragged me around Selfridges looking for a ‘character smell’ that wouldn’t repel girls, and we ended up riding the bus home, drunk on the adjective ‘musky’ and feeling like mosquito melting in repellent. Since then on I’ve been on an informal quest to find my own smell, first preference being Candy Floss, but I hear the Jelly Belly factory stopped producing perfume… about time to grow up, I guess. Guerlain had contacted with a proposal for a mini collaboration, wherein I was to interpret the Shalimar into a photoshoot, and what with my olfactory age being about…six, I went for innocent, delicate, sensual as the key vocab for the shoot and here are the results. Actually there’s a lot more where this came from – lots of bedsheets, legs that just won’t stay covered… and a lot of ‘I’m wearing a white dress looking sad but also want to pounce on you’ faces. Scent-wise, there is a note of sweetness, but then it’s weighed down by a stronger velvety tang, and I must be honest and say that the Shalimar will sit on a higher shelf until I grow up a little to be able to reach without a kiddy step stool.
