Aedes de Venustas; geurtempel in New York

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Als je binnenkort in New York bent, moet je echt deze parfumtempel even bezoeken….

 

 

 

Het is de meest maffe, leuke, opvallende parfumwinkel die je ooit hebt gezien. Alsof je een barok paleis betreedt. En je snapt het al; ze verkopen er echt de meest bijzondere, nooit-van-gehoorde-geuren.

Ik heb even journalistiek wederom heel stout het verhaal uit NY Times geknipt…

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Secrets From the Temple of Scent By CINTRA WILSON

AEDES DE VENUSTAS, the quirky fragrance shop on Christopher Street at the corner of Gay Street, is just a few doors down from the site of the historic riots in 1969 that marked the first battle for gay rights. When you walk by on the sunlit sidewalk, 40 proud years of midnight camaraderie and spilled drinks spring to life.

The "temple of beauty" is precocious for having been born in 1995; it appears to have aged into an old European patina. The window looks incense-buttered like the storefronts of old fortune tellers, a display ready to be inhabited by a Caravaggio youth or a Joel Peter Witkin corpse. It's such a visual feast of dusky Renaissance colors you can practically taste the linseed oil and dusty grapes; fat mauve roses just beginning to wilt; dried pomegranates; and stuffed white pigeons with glass eyes.

Gold-dipped reliquary trinkets are crowded artfully on heavy damask around treasures that the stores owners, Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner, have archaeologically prized out of the Old World. There are gem-cut bottles of some of the oldest and hardest-to-find European perfumes: Santa Maria Novella (the 400-year-old line originated by Florentine monks, whose Acqua di Colonia was created for the wedding of Catherine de Medici); Acqua di Parma, developed in 1916, beloved of 1950s movie stars; and other antique rarities of a luxe and scented variety.

Inside, Aedes is all papal sumptuousness: velvety, claret-colored curtains and carpeting set off branches of cherry blossoms just turning papery; bottles of amber oils under glass bells; cloudy crystal chandeliers; an impressive feat of white peacock taxidermy. A remarkably unified assortment of Second French Empire vitrines, inlaid wood with gold flourishes, have been ingeniously repurposed as armoires, retrofitted with glass shelves and subtle backlighting to make the perfume bottles even more bewitching.

Hey, the Italianate apothecary of Napoleon III, right off of Sixth Avenue! Whodathunkit?

"I want you to try this – yellow roses," one of the owners said, spritzing a white cardboard stick next to a woman with a deep tan and a Day-Glo yellow parka. I sidled over to eavesdrop (nosedrop?).

"Isn't it wonderful when you finally find your scent?" the woman asked me.

"Yes! It practically takes half a lifetime of research and development."

"Then you have it for a while, and 10 years later, you want a change."

I wondered what perfume the owner would have recommended to her if she had been wearing a plaid coat.

Aedes is a great go-to source for opulent little quelque choses, perfect for the rich associate you are afraid to buy anything for.

I liked a carved wooden ball full of amber resin ($145). It looked like something Gauguin would have on his coffee table to compliment the nude Tahitian.

The ancestral tea company Mariage Frères has begun an expansion into home décor with Darjeeling, Lapsang Souchong and other pleasantly tea-flavored candles for $68, ideal for those who can't bear the scent of real tea.

Aedes collaborated with Molinard to resurrect an old classic: Une Histoire de Chypre (pronounced SHEE-pr; not cheap). It's heady and complex: an exorbitant fusion of bergamot, mandarin, iris, neroli, jasmine, Bulgarian rose, patchouli, oak moss, musk and amber, packaged in a black box with gold lettering and a Lalique bottle with a black spray-bulb.

The owner seemed to object to my description of it as pleasantly "after-shavey." I understood his reaction a bit better after reading the "olfactory ode" to Chypre on the Aedes Web site: her aromatic corset unlaced "the demure tendrils of her timeless spirit." (Chypre, the French word for Cyprus, is not an ancient goddess, but it might be a hot new octopus.)

"I love woods and mosses," I told a sales assistant. "Anything else turns into Love's Baby Soft on my skin."

She nodded. "Baby powder, you know, smells like this," she said, sticking a heliotrope-scented candle under my nose. Eau bébé.

We explored the monstrance devoted to the fragrances of Serge Lutens. Diam Blond was described to me as "suede-y." Indeed: like huffing a saddlebag full of star anise.

The Cedre had a mouthwashy top note. "Pepsin!" said my sales assistant. Dead-on. Bazooka Joe trapped in a sauna.

Most interesting was Escentric Molecules, a German fragrance in a Bauhaus-y bottle.

"The designer, Geza Schoen, feels he has replicated the human pheromone. It actually has no scent at all!"

She assured me that the lack of liquid in the bottle was due to the popularity of the tester and not that this fragranceless fragrance is a complete test of faith.

Neighborhood ladies swanned in and out with their cellphones and Rhodesian Ridgebacks, grabbing Diptyque candles, but mostly popping in to discuss Carla Bruni's new Jackie O. Sarkozy look and inquire about a birthday gala that I divined was being held in honor of an owner's dog: a motionless blot of white fur in a black armchair.

"Oh, I thought she was more taxidermy!" I blurted artlessly.

"No, she's very much alive," said the gentleman in a chilled tone.

Scent, that most powerful of mnemonics, is a sensitive and personal business.

I bought incense – packets of Esteban's woodsy Pin (pine) and Cedre and ($27) to transform my apartment into a roaring log cabin.

I once read that the French believe a woman isn't truly beautiful until she is touched by decay. Societies older than ours, decorated by the detritus of collapsed empires, have a deeper appreciation for entropy and its wisdom, fungi and ferment. Soft cheese, mushrooms, wines, older women and little luxuries – purified essences that evoke sensations of the past – make the certainty of mortality just so much sexier. Add dried pomegranates and taxidermy, and you've got a little slice of heaven.

 

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