Smell can evoke memories in the most overpowering way. A whiff of hospital detergent and you’re back in the terror of taking your first baby home, the scent of coriander and you’re on holiday in Vietnam, the aroma of Madelines soaked in tea and the next thing you know you’re writing a masterpiece in seven volumes.
Smell can also mean big money, as fashion designers, actresses and ‘celebrities’ attach their names to scents that can make millions, or bomb in the most humiliating way and end up on the 75% off table in Farmers.
Chandler Burr is the perfume critic for The New York Times (who knew there could be such a job?) A few years ago he wrote a book called The emperor of scent, on Luca Turin, a scientist with an incredible sense of smell and an obsession with perfume and who wrote the most fascinating scent blog until he got too busy figuring out how the nose works and how scents are detected.
In his latest book, The perfect scent: a year inside the perfume industry in Paris and New York, Burr follows the creation of two perfumes; one a middle-market celebrity scent by Sarah Jessica Parker and the other a scent for the luxury goods firm Hermes.
Using alternating chapters to tell the story of the two creative processes, he crafts a compelling story of a ridiculously frivolous product that earns the real money for some of the most famous design houses in the world. The outrageous frocks get the publicity but the fragrances are the foundation for it all and that is why companies are willing to gamble huge amounts of money in the hope of creating the next big smell.
Burr loves his subject and treats it with respect but he is not blind to some of the absurdities involved in making a perfume, nor to the pomposity of some of the people. Suspense, drama, big personalities and big money – they’re all here and they make for a great read.
If Burr sets you off on a smell jag, try the unique novel Perfume or a non-fiction look at French feminine fragrances like Perfume legends. Then there are books about the sense of smell itself, like Scent of desire.
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