Literature for Fashionistas -- The Sartorialist

The PTB at Penguin must have known it was my birthday soon, because I got a review copy of "The Sartorialist" last week. I've talked about Scott Schuman's blog here before, and if you have even a passing interest in fashion you probably read it at least periodically, if not daily. Schuman has become extremely influential in the fashion world, at least that's what conventional wisdom tells us. Time magazine named him one of the top 100 design influences. People reference his photos constantly, he's become quite the "get" in editorial fashion photography, and the blog itself has spawned an entire online genre. The number of "street style" blogs that have burst into life like microwave popcorn in the last couple of years is truly astonishing -- every city in the world (including mine) apparently has one.

Schuman himself freely acknowledges his debt to the Grandmaster of "street style" photography, Bill Cunningham, who has been photographing brilliantly-dressed men & women on the streets of New York for the Times since... I dunno, since cameras were invented or something. These two men share a real delight in the visual presentation of people and their clothes, and that makes their photographs fun to look at. Neither of them is trying to promote a specific look or style or designer -- they just like looking at people, and showing them to us.

Of course, the thing that a street style blog tells us the most about isn't what's in style or what's all the rage -- it's what catches the eye of the photographer publishing it. At bottom it's less about "street style" than "Scott's style." I don't think this is a bad thing -- and it's true of any style blog -- probably any kind of blog at all. This whole bloggy business is subjective in the extreme. So when you think of it that way, yes, he is extremely influential. According to the press materials, The Sartorialist gets 125,000 hits a day (I don't believe I've had that many total in the life of my blog -- spread the word, you people!), and a lot of those folks are using Schuman's photos for inspiration. including, more than once, me.

I think the thing I like most about Schuman's blog is that he is a slavish devotee of good tailoring, and his is probably the only blog out there -- at least the only big one -- that shows as many photos of men as it does of women. Schuman is a dead sucker for a good suit, especially one with echoes of vintage tailoring or fabric.

The man can wax positively lyrical about a pocket square. And he has a tremendous soft spot for Italian tailoring, preferably when sported by silver lions with possibly a family crest on their cufflinks.

He's not a snob -- he can be just as enamored of a suit that some guy ganked from his grandpa's closet as the newest Raf Simons, and he's also a big fan of women's tailoring, as well.

He admires anyone, especially a man, who can aggressively work color.

(As do I. I tell ya, I LOVE this.)

He's also terribly fond of wrinkled and beaming old dudes who work in professions like barbering and housepainting.

Which is cute.


One of his favorite subject is this young woman, named Eva.

He takes her photo a lot, and I really can't blame him because she always looks marvelous. I love her high-fashion gamine thing, and I really want the curly version of that haircut (Not to mention the feathery blue skirt. ::swoon!::). I don't know who she is or what she does, but there is a nice fat bank account behind Miss Eva -- not for her the clever re-working of a thrift-store bargain, it's all high-end-recently-off-the-rack from Barney's or whatnot. Still, she does a great job with it -- she's never a fashion clone.


Schuman also loves a good eccentric

and he isn't condescending about them.

And, being a red-blooded American male fashionista, he doesn't skimp on the leggy French chicks.

Lots of leggy French chicks, including, every so often, Garance Doré, a fellow blogger and his significant other.

(And who could blame him?)

There's not a lot of text in the book, very few explanatory notes or captions, no names for most of the subjects. And the index in the back that theoretically tells one where on the blog the photo might be found is egregiously un-useful. (What I'm guessing is that the notations in the book tell when the photo was taken, not necessarily when the photo was posted. This is not important, of course, unless you're writing a review of the book and trying to find photos from it online in order to include them in your own post.) It's also a much smaller book than I would have anticipated -- it's really only trade paperback-sized, which means it's quite thick and difficult to hold open. I'm assuming there's a hardbound version available, but they're not tossing those around like cookies to podunk bloggers & reviewers comme moi. It's certainly a nice book, and I'm glad to have it. It'll be great on the guest room bedside table. It would make a lovely gift. I'm not sure I'd call it indispensable for the Fashionista Bookshelf, but it's charming.



Images: The Sartorialist

Style Spy Book Club

Okay, so I have no hope of being as influential as Oprah, but I really think you ought to read this book.

The Clothes On Their Backs: A Novel

It's by Linda Grant, who writes The Thoughtful Dresser, one of my favorite blogs. It's a wonderful book; Linda writes with an intimate, intelligent voice that's a joy to read. I devoured this during the week of madness and emotional rollercoastering that was my mother's move to Austin, and every night I so looked forward to snugging up in bed and disappearing into it for an hour or so to unwind before I went to sleep. It's not a book about fashion, but it's a book by a woman who loves fashion and understands what clothing can mean to a woman and how it can mark the places in her life. It was shortlisted for the Booker prize, so you don't have to take my word for it -- lots of folks way smarter than me thought it was good, too.

So if you're looking for a yummy read to curl up on the couch with during these cold midwinter days, click on the link above. You'll thank me.

Literature for Sniffers -- March 24

Smell may be the sense most difficult to write about descriptively. Part of the reason is that we give linguistic short shrift to our sense of smell. We have an enormous vocabulary for our visual sense, the sense we're most tied to and dependent upon. We've all heard the old saw that the Inuit have a raft of words for the substance we English speakers simply call "snow." I don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly illustrates the idea that we spend language on what is most important to us. We have very specific words for color (blue, magenta, ochre) and shape & line (triangle, spherical, zigzag).

(Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie)

It's possible to paint a very accurate portrait of the way something looks using words -- witness the amazing work that police sketch artists do.

Smell is also the sense that most people probably pay the least attention to. If you've ever played the "What Sense Would You Give Up?" game, you know most people choose smell, because they think it would be the easiest to live without.

Lastly, smell may be the most subjective of our senses, because it is so very person-specific. With the exception of the very most isolated or "primitive" people, in this day and age all humans have a shared vocabulary of images and sound, from movies and television, popular music, books and magazines, museums, education. We all pretty much recognize Mickey Mouse at this point in history, and we all know Elvis Presley when we see or hear him.

(Or not, as the case may be.)

Smell, on the other hand, cannot be transmitted except via an actual object. No one is broadcasting smells around the world. And so everyone's smell history, if you will, is completely different. Depending on factors like where you live, your ethnic background, your age, your occupation, and a squillion more, your smell history is specific only to you. Imagine the differences in the smell experiences between a person who grew up in Omaha compared to someone from Mumbai. Or Khartoum. Or Paris. Since no one can go everywhere and do everything, there are just some things you're never going to smell. I was in my 30's before I ever encountered the smell of kimchi and to this day my best description of its odor (besides "yech") is "Ummm, it smells like kimchi."

(Again I say, yech.)

And the whole thing is even further complicated by the issue of taste, of like & dislike. It's not hard to give a visual description of something without passing a value judgment, but the first thing most people say when describing a smell is whether they think it good or bad -- and there is a wide range of opinion on what smells nice or nasty. Take my above example of kimchi. I find that odor positively evil, but there's a good chance that if you're from a Korean family that smell has the same effect on you that the smell of freshly-made pasta does on me: it reminds you of comfort, family, your grandmother -- general goodness.

What all this boils down to is that it can be the very devil to describe the way something smells without referencing something it smells like, and even that is only useful if the audience is familiar with Reference B. (It's not really helpful for me to tell you that L'Air du Desert Marocain reminds me a lot of Ambre Sultan if you've never smelled either one of them.)

So smell is tough to write about.

Unless, apparently, you're Tania Sanchez or Luca Turin. Their new book Perfumes: The Guide is a book about perfumes even a non-Perfumista can love because they write in clear, evocative, not-terribly-jargony English about one of life's most elusive and delightful pleasures -- the sense of smell.

Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez

The bulk of the book is made up of reviews, complete with star ratings and two-word genre classifications. If you're like me, the first thing you'll do when you get your hands on it is go straight to the entries for your most-loved fragrances to find out what they have to say about them. However, the first 50 pages are devoted to essays by Sanchez and Turin on perfume criticism and history, as well as thoughts on masculine vs. feminine scents and, especially if you are not a hard-core Frag Junkie like me, you should read these first, because they lay important groundwork for the reviews. Sanchez makes a wonderfully lucid argument for the importance of perfume criticism to the continued existence and growth of perfume itself: criticism of art -- discussion of art -- leads to greater familiarity with the art. "Would we go so often to the movies," Sanchez asks, "If we couldn't talk about them, if we had no clue whether a film might be good or not?" And the more we know about it, the higher will be our standards. "The perfume business will certainly fare better in a world of genuine public love than it would in a world in which everyone dismisses its product as nonsense."

Sanchez & Turin lead you gently through the history and chemistry of perfume, outline the main genres of the field, and impart some important practical information that will make embarking upon the Perfumed Path easier and more fun. And the reviews... oh, the reviews! Take this, from Turin's review of Chanel's 31 rue Cambon (5 stars, "floral ambery"), a perfume I adore:

I cannot remember the last time, if ever, a perfume gave me such an instantaneous impression of ravishing beauty at first sniff. There is an affecting softness, a gentle grace to 31 that beggars belief.

(It's expensive. But I'm going to have to have some. Beyond lovely.)

I had exactly that same reaction when I sniffed it (and still do, every time). And here is Sanchez talking about Ormonde Jayne's great Ormonde Woman (5 stars, "forest chypre"):

It has the haunting, outdoors witchiness of tall pines leaning into the night -- a bitter oakmoss inkiness, a dry cedar crackle, and a low, delicious, pleading sweet amber, like the call of a faraway candy house. Lulling and unsettling in equal measure, and truly great.

(You have to go to London to get it. Totally worth it.)

See? You want to smell that now, don't you? (Following the perfume-name links will make that possible.)

It's not all hearts and flowers, of course. Sometimes it's biting and often it's hilarious. I defy you to find me a book about perfume that will make you laugh out loud with such reliable frequency. Both the authors can deliver a killing blow with considerable dispatch. Take this from Turin about Iceberg Homme (1 star, classified as "sad shampoo"):

That's him all right. Now put him back in the freezer.

And perhaps my very favorite, from Sanchez, on cK IN2U Her (1 star, "fruity amber"):

OMG PU. Insanely strong fruit meets insanely strong woody amber. KTHXBYE.

Followed immediately by her take on cK IN2U His (also 1 star, this one "7UP amber"):

IM IN UR BOTTLE BORIN UR GF.

I laughed hard enough after that to be asked what I was reading. You can imagine the questioner's dubious look when I replied, "A book about perfume."

Of course, part of the fun of reading expert reviews is to have your own (superior) tastes confirmed, and so I was delighted to find that Turin loves Piguet's Baghari (4 stars, "orange chypre") as much as I do. Fascinatingly, though, Turin finds it a dark fragrance, whereas when I wear Baghari I feel enveloped in a nimbus of white light. See? Subjective. And, of course, sometimes there will be areas of disagreement. I do not find Hermes' Rose Ikebana (3 stars, "polite floral") "dull and effete." I find it zingy and energetic. So there you go.

It's a wonderful book. It shouldn't be missed. Regardless of how much you already know about perfumes and fragrance, if you're even remotely interested in smelling good this book is a valuable resource. And don't worry, the authors are not fragrance snobs in any way -- several of the most positive reviews in the book are of scents one can find in any department store -- some you can even find in discount stores. Turin and Sanchez can find you a good smell at any price point, and offer proof that perfume is our most affordable luxury. I don't see how anyone could read this book and not want to drop everything to immediately go out sniffing -- the authors' passionate enjoyment of good perfume is contagious, and by the time I'd gotten to the "D's" in the reviews I'd cast aside the notepad whereon I was writing a list of things I wanted to sniff or re-sniff and was simply marking entries with a highlighter. One new bottle had joined my collection within 24 hours of the book's arrival -- after reading Turin's paean to Bulgari's Black (5 stars, "hot rubber"), I marched myself up to Neiman Marcus and found myself bewitched.

(Seriously, go -- with an open mind -- and sniff this stuff. Wow.)

I am ashamed to say that I probably would never have tried this fragrance without this little nudge, so as far as I'm concerned, The Guide has already earned its keep.

Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have not only written a delightful entertainment, they've performed a service that those of us who love perfume must be grateful for. Anyone who reads this book will be better-informed and more discerning. The bottles of dreck will stay on the store shelves. The perfume companies will have to bring their A-games if they want to compete. The world, hallelujah, will smell better.


Perfumes: The Guide will be released on April 10, but can be pre-ordered here.


Photos: moma.org, answer.com, eng.korean.net, PerfumePosse.com, OrmondeJayne.com, Fragrancenet.com

Literature for Sniffers -- February 20

I just finished reading this book:

The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York

and I must say, I really enjoyed it. I liked it more than I thought I would, based upon my prior feelings about Chandler Burr's writing. Burr is the perfume critic for the New York Times Magazine, and the author of The Emperor of Scent, a book about fragrance genius Luca Turin and his explorations into the science of scent. The Perfect Scent is a combination of articles Burr wrote for two different magazines about the development of two very different perfumes, UN JARDIN SUR LE NIL by Hermes andLOVELY SARAH JESSICA PARKER .

I found Burr's writing in The Emperor of Scent a little breathless and fan-mag, and his adoration for Turin often came off like a schoolboy crush. There's slightly less of that here, and the stories he's relating are very compelling, especially if, like me, you really love perfume. The inside peek into what goes on during the development of these two products is fascinating. There's just enough science and industry arcana to make perfumistas feel like we're really getting some good scoop, but it's presented in a way that I don't think would be at all confusing to the random consumer of fashion & beauty industry news. If you're a fan of Jean-Claude Ellena, the composer of Jardin Sur le Nil (and I most definitely am -- he's created a few of my very favorite fragrances and I admire his work immensely), your opinion will be cemented by this book. The same goes for Sarah Jessica Parker, who comes across as a genuinely decent young woman subject to none of the common Hollywood star foibles. The book is relatively short and very easy to read, it only took me a few days to go through it.

My problem with Burr's writing stems from his inability to keep from making himself central to the action of what he is reporting. Perhaps this is inevitable (and a bit hypocritical on my part, given the writing I do here) due to the extremely subjective nature of something like the sense of smell, but I do wish for a bit more journalistic distance in his writing. He still comes off as a bit star-struck. He doesn't just report an interview with a subject, he details his experience of and feelings about the interview with a subject. Some might find that a great way of connecting with the reader, but I find it obtrusive. I'm also extremely annoyed by any writer's attribution of motive or subtext to a subject when they do not actually have any proof other than their own gut instinct about it: at one point Parker pays an offhand compliment to Kate Winslet and Burr spends the next third of a page explaining that this is a "tiny bit of management, the line she was supposed to say because she's a careful professional." Well, perhaps that is true. Or perhaps Parker just happens to think Kate Winslet is gorgeous. I mean, most of us do, after all.

Still, the book is worth reading for the information you get. As a lover of fragrance, I was sent running to my perfume collection to sniff bottles and samples several times to reference different scents Burr mentions. I also strongly recommend having samples of the two central fragrances to sniff while you read. (They should package two little sample vials with the book -- wouldn't that be fun? Since they don't, click on these links if you want to get a sample or decant of Jardin Sur le Nil or Lovely from the good folks at The Perfumed Court.) I had some Nil at my disposal, but Lovely is a perfume I don't know and I was kicking myself all through the book for not planning ahead and getting some before I started reading.

For the record, Jardin Sur le Nil is a fragrance I really love, and yet for some reason have never purchased. I'm still trying to work out why that is. The perfume is based on Ellena's experience of the scent of green mangoes in Egypt, and I think at base that is what stops me from wearing it. In my heart I prefer "perfumey" perfumes; I'm not a big fan of what sniffers call "gourmand" accords, basically, fragrances that echo foods. (All the chocolates and vanillas and berries and cotton candies on the perfume market the last few years mostly just turn my stomach.) This is not to say that Nil will make you smell like a bowl of fruit salad -- it's much deeper and more sophisticated than that. Just a comment on my personal taste.

Now. The perfume book that I am really waiting for, eagerly rubbing my hands together like Snidely Whiplash plotting something particularly dastardly, is this one:

Perfumes: The Guide

which is being released April 10. This book is written by Luca Turin, the subject of The Emperor of Scent and the author of The Secret of Scent(confused yet?), a book I loved and have talked about here, and Tania Sanchez. I'll do a little celebrity name-dropping and mention that I'm acquainted with Tania via the Perfumista Interwebs. She's a very bright, funny, perceptive person who writes incredibly well, so the combination of these two authors bodes happily for this book and I can't wait to get my hands on it. (Yes, I'll pre-order. 'Cuz I'm geeky that way.)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hit myself with a nice spritz of one of my favorite Ellena perfumes, Angeliques Sous la Pluie. How about you? What did you spritz today?

Literature for Sniffers

I know most folks don't tune in to a style blog for book recommendations, but hey -- I'm a rebel. (And if it's good enough for my BlogHero, it's good enough for me.) What I'm reading now:

(Totally delighted by the design of this cover. Did you get the perfume reference?)

This was a delightful and unexpected Christmas gift from my darling friends Ben & Mike, who know I'm a big ol' Frag Hag (Sniffer, Perfumista, whatever) and love me anyway. I'm about halfway through it and it's probably unprofessional of me to review a book before I've finished it, but A) I'm not a professional book critic and B) I just like it so much I want to tell you about it.

It really is a delightful read. Turin is a biologist by training who fell in love with fragrance many years ago, has written professionally (and beautifully) about perfume quite a lot, and some time ago turned the considerable powers of his scientific mind to the question of How Does Smell Work? You may not know this, but while there are pretty ironclad theories on how our senses of sight, hearing and even taste work, a Unified Theory of Smell has yet to be agreed upon by the scientific community. Turin has his ideas, and he's pretty convincing.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that there have been several paragraphs on the chemistry of smell that I've had to go back and re-read, but I must stress that this is due more to my own poor scientific education and habit of reading in bed before I go to sleep than Turin's abilities as a writer. He actually explicates this stuff with remarkable clarity and humor. Even more fun, his writing about perfumes and smells is so lyrical and descriptive that I'm half-crazed to find & sniff the ones he talks about that I haven't tried (seriously -- someone pleasepleaseplease send me a sample of Nombre Noir before I run mad), and to re-sniff the ones I have.

You don't have to be a Perfumista to enjoy this, though, just a curious person who enjoys finding out new things. (If you mis-trust my literary judgment, you can check this review from a more reputable source.)