A few days ago, we plunged into the lair of Monsieur Lutens for a most astonishing olfactory voyage. Perfumer Serge Lutens succeeds in surprising us with every creation, with fragrances that are unique in their complexity. This delicate, delicate fragrance is yet another astonishingly sweet olfactory surprise.
LAINE DE VERRE, FIVE QUESTIONS TO SERGE LUTENS
1°) Serge Lutens, you present your third Eau, Laine de verre!
The confrontation with a name, a title, is decisive. Without knowing each other, he and I are halfway to our face-to-face meeting. Only then will we recognize each other and give each other the keys to our hell. Laine de verre is the meeting of two opposites that are nonetheless complementary. One is transparent, brittle as truth, taking everything at face value, from the highest to the lowest centigrade. The other is wool. We knit it, we make stitches that go down a jersey; sometimes, it itches. Taken literally, glass wool is also an insulator.
2°) Insulating from what, from whom?
Something that feels like danger. I can’t explain it to myself, but I sense it. It rises like the coming of a domestic scene between my feminine and my masculine. Out of its hinges, it opens its doors to the insane cry of a madman, or to the relentless exercise of a physicist; a raging, stormy water. It provokes the flash of creation. It vibrates, it’s a fear, so it crosses it. In itself, if it’s mute, the perfume-product doesn’t interest me. Conversely, it’s an admission that I expect from it and that it wants from me.
3°) Your latest fragrances La fille de Berlin and its metal rose, then La vierge de fer and finally L’Eau,
Laine de verre, evoke a metallic facet. Is this a coincidence?
La fille de Berlin is the silver of a rose standing out against the silence of the snow. It’s her resistance
that captivates me. La vierge de fer (The Iron Maiden) is about the religion of iron, in other words, the religion of will and, in short, the religion of victory. This time, with Laine de verre, it’s the metal that physically takes shape in the scent. It’s not without reason that the image of chrome handlebars, attached to the steering bar
of a bicycle, over which a child leans to accelerate his race, and thus brings his nose closer to it, suddenly overtook me.
From source to mouth, the steel of a rope stretches this water. It’s not by rediscovering memories
tainted with nostalgia that we retrace our history, but rather, with vivid figurations, which at full speed, refresh the past in the present, and in fact, plunge us into the very depths of ourselves.
4°) When you look at the visuals attached to your Eaux, they’re a far cry from the
representations usually associated with perfume. Why did you choose this simplicity?
I know the difference between a Burgundy and a mineral water. A graphic choice is only worth making if it returns us to ourselves, or at least to a part of ourselves.
5°) L’Eau Serge Lutens was about cleanliness, L’Eau froide about freshness, in a word, if you had to
define Laine de verre?
A confrontation with one’s better half. It’s clear: there’s rivalry, but if this water is the consequence of a conflict, it’s no less pure. A disagreement between the feminine and the masculine is not a rupture; it erupts and – a necessary condition for any work – results in an agreement…
Thus, it was only after he had been traversed by winter that, surrendering his weapons, the Lord of Glass came to the feet of the Lady of Wool, to lay down flowers and ferns that had frosted over him.
GLASS WOOL
100ml – 105 euros
50ml – 75 euros
Available at Palais Royal – Serge Lutens, in perfumeries and department stores and on the website www.sergelutens.com
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