Blind Sniff Roulette #3: Silences by Jacomo (1978)

The last round of the Blind Sniff Roulette could be everything but a 1978's vintage that makes me unveil also the lead of this year's edition: iris. The third mystery scent hidden in an elegant black disk is Silences eau de toilette by Jacomo, iconic newyorkese store founded in the '60s by James Kaplan and Gerard Courtin. This green chypre concocted by Jean-Charles Niel (Magie Noire di Lancôme) and Yves Tanguy (Magie Noire, Anne Klein II) never happened to be hit in Italy maybe because of its connection (some of you got it right) with Chanel No. 19 and Balmain Vent Vert totally opposite to Opium's narcotic sillage broken out right before in 1977.

So Silences is a vibrant assertive fragrance with galbanum and hyacinth (All about Eve, Athena, D'Annunzio) suited for a discretely elegant woman, almost severe (Richard Neutra, trousers suit, noble garden, Laura, Audrey Hepburn) with an independent character (cat) where the precious iris (green velvet, peacock, golden bracelet, symphonic music) doesn't turn to No. 19 powdery leather but rather plays a minor key with dark earth giving off the smell of cypress, moss and roses in the rain (Rapsody in blue, La pioggia nel pineto). Nitro-musks slightly warm up the woody accord blowing a mystery sensual breeze (society parties, cello suite).
Silences has been relaunched in 2004 but the current fragrance has lost its androginous brightness falling victim to the relentless IFRA regulations and the mise au goût du jour (maybe they're two sides of the same scissors, aren't they?). Again bravo for being able to listen to what each fragrance whispers and thank you for playing together!

Giampaolo Jicky Baldoni
This third act of the Blind Sniff rises the curtain on a very refined fragrance as long lasting, prickly and heady as a rose. Light and shade live together sketching a strong independent woman. Powerful green notes, humid and sparkling (galbanum, aldehydes, vetiver?) together with a muted and discrete leather making the perfect base for various florals (jasmin, hyacinth?). The result is a highly realistic rose.

• if it would be a colour? It would be a formal, velvety dark green.
• if it would be an animal? I think of a siamese cat, independent par excellence.
• if it would be music? It would sound like G. Gershwin's Rapsody in Blue conducted by Leonard Bernstein.
• if it'd be a place? It'd be a post-modern house designed by Richard Neutra, squared, made of hard, cold materials yet with open spaces connected somehow to the outer space, to nature.

Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2014

• if it'd be a cloth? It would be a trousers suit, again speaking about independence, comfort and rigour.
• if it'd be a movie/book? All about Eve, the famous Bette Davis's classic because the fragrance makes me think of Margo Channing.
• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? No doubts, Ayn Rand, the controversial writer of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Goldenswallow
Among the three, this is the only fragrance I'd like to wear and that I'd call a true classic. Self-standing, it doesn't need affected chitchat, slideshows or imagery to deserve its own dignity. It is beautiful, balanced, tridimensional and skilfully structured and ads charm to its wearer. I already said everything about it, but since the game has its rules, let me go on.

• if it would be a colour? If it'd be a colour it would be green fading to beige and then to gold. So I picture the pungent greeness of galbanum softening with iris and sandalwood and with the old fashioned aldehydes rendering the golden ribbon unrolling the theme.
• if it'd be an animal? It would be a model cat: crafty and opportunistic.
• if it would be music? It would be Georges Delerue's Thème de Camille (in the OST of J.L. Godard's Le mépris and M. Scorsese's Casino).
• if it would be a place? It would be a society party.
• if it'd be a cloth? Actually it would be a precious accessory, a watch or a bracelet.
• if it'd be a movie/book? If it'd be an artwork, due to its above mentioned self-sufficiency it would be Athena's statue sculpted by Phidias.

Ancient copy of Phidias Athena Parthenos (Athéna Varvakeion)

• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? If it'd be a famous personality it'd be Petrarca's Laura.

Malefic Blonde
Galbanum, galbanum! Chypre, chypre! Guerlain style, Guerlain style! Smiling and guessing as I play the game, but these are my first impressions while smelling the third mystery scent. This is a scent to connoisseurs, a vintage or a work from a composer who likes a lot vintage atmospheres. It's not to my taste because it has a cruel touch keeping me away from it, I don't know why. Anyway I understand the beauty of this composition that's to my nose a nice mix of ethereal or even aquatic green notes, white flowers and sap, raindrenched mosses and shade with a dry footprint probably given by vetiver.

• if it would be a colour? All the shades of green, but above all moss green, darker and darker.
• if t'd be an animal? It would be a peacock making its wheel: rare and beautiful animal carrying a not so sunny symbolism, it moves in perfectly kept noble gardens showing all the shades of green, from dark forest green to bright green. This scenario well pictures the spirit of this fragrance.
• if it'd be music? I'd say J.S.Bach Suite per Violoncello solo n. 1.

• if it'd be a place? It would be a thrilling hedge maze inside a noble garden under the first stars at dusk.
• if it would be a cloth? It would be an ivory white pair of gloves for a woman that can fondle but also kill without leaving footprints.
• if it'd be a movie/book? If it'd be a movie, it would be Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract: top level aesthetics with immoral characters.
• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? If it'd be a personality, it would be Gabriele D'Annunzio reading in a loud La pioggia nel pineto right after smelling a precious flacon with laudanum.

R. P. Dario
Refined, sharp, clean and at times soapy: these are some adjectives that describe well my experience with the Blind Sniff Roulette fragrances No. 3. While on the blotter it stays sharp, on skin it softens after half an hour, losing its strenght to morph into a soft inviting aura. I feel this perfume quite compelling and I can figure it worn by a severe classy woman who wants to impose her presence: the aura it develops surrounding her gives her self confidence and glamour.

• if it would be a colour? It'd be white.
• if it'd be an animal? It would be a Dalmatian.
• if it would be music? It would sound like something symphonic.
• if it would be a place? Paris.
• if it'd be a cloth? It would be a suit.
• if it'd be a movie/book? If it'd be a movie, it'd beBlake Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany's.
• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? If it'd be a personality, as a consequence it would be Audrey Hepburn.

 

 

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