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I tried out a new perfume by Balenciaga today. It was the name that caught my attention: Florabotanica. The salesgirl said it was an infusion of roses. I asked her to spray it on the usual test card, and she gave me a small spray sample along with the test card.
"I do smell roses. It is subtle but persistent. But there's another flower there, and it is a little fruit/citrusy too, and the base is just a touch heavy," I said.
"No, no other flower. And it the vetiver and amber in the base that give it the citrus scent," replied the helpful salesgirl.
I wasn't convinced, I left thanking her for the sample spray.
I went online on Balenciaga's site and sure enough there is another flower: the carnation. And the fresh citrusy smell I could detect is mint. The heavy base is from the leafy caladium.
The perfume, as the Balenciaga site describes it, is a paradoxical soft and strong. Our modern age has to dilute whatever it presents to us, reduce its beauty, and uglify it. The perfume itself is just a ghost of the old classics, which didn't need some paradox to show us their strength. And perfume bottles were works of art on their own. This paradoxical concuction is bottled in a flask "which takes its design from laboratory bottles" according to Nicolas Ghesquiere, one of the perfumers.
That waif of a woman, Kristen Stewart, who became famous through a series of vampire movies, is Balenciaga's choice of a spokesgirl. Spokeswoman is a more apt title since Krisren is no girl, but a grown woman in her mid-twenties. Kristen's insipid personality is devoid of any strength, whether to combat gory creatures, or to represent Balenciaga's lofty ideal. Our modern era keeps producing these girl-women who fling themselves into dangerous roles, but who break down at the slightest difficulty.
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