Moment Supreme is difficult.
After years of thinking of “lavender” as the sweetish stuff in hand lotion, I grew some. It took time to flower. When it finally did, the bitter scent of those spikes made me recoil. The beautiful purple fields of Provence smelled like this?
It was a taste I wasn’t ready to acquire.
Moment Supreme is all about lavender, and it, too, brought up associations I wasn’t ready to have until now.
My bottle is old, even for extrait. I think it was bought in 1960. It’s a beautiful bottle, the real thing, engraved Patou logo on a ground glass stopper and curved Art Deco lines. Last night, for the first time, I applied it generously, decanting some to spray onto my clothing.
At first, I thought it had turned. It smelled like hairspray and nail varnish. I knew, though, that this time I had to wait it out. Time passed, and those old lavender notes finally struggled up to the surface.
I was eight, and my parents were going out. My mother had come into my room to kiss me good night. Her full-skirted brocade cocktail dress rustled as she leaned over me. This was her perfume.
We didn’t get along. Both of us were of our times. She came of age in the second world war, landed my dashing fighter-pilot father, and took on the tough life of a not-quite-military not-quite civilian wife and mother, moving every year or two, packing up the house and kids, doing what she signed on for.
I came of age in the late Sixties, and questioned everything. Most of all, I questioned female artifice; the hair, the nails, the stockings, all of it. And I questioned her dogged acceptance of it, the insistence on that flawless presentation to the outside world. I was into honesty. Reality, I thought. For years, I didn’t even shave my legs. She did not approve, and we fought, often.
She died six years ago, surviving my father by less than a year. She took her illness like a Centurion, and she never let herself go, not for a moment, not even in her last moments.
It fell to me to settle their affairs. When going through her things, I found this bottle of Moment Supreme. I couldn’t bring myself to try it then, but now, I finally can. It smells like her, of course; and this is no lush Joy or shrinking violet. It’s dry, deep and tough. Rather than overwhelm his bitter herb with rose, as many perfumers would have done, Henri Almeras chose a peppery geranium and, finally, that real-French-perfume base of dark resins made pungent by a harsh climate.
This is the perfume she chose for herself. Of course. And this is what I finally understand.
A short history of Moment Supreme: Jean Patou, the designer who launched it in 1929, was a real innovator. He brought to market tennis skirts and the first suntan lotion (at a time when tanned skin still meant you were a peasant). He displayed his logo on some of his couture clothing and designed the first knit bathing suits. The perfumer, Henri Almeras, was a Basque; he also created “Joy”.
Notes for Moment Supreme, now discontinued, include lavender, geranium, rose and amber.
Moment Supreme, in EDT strength, was re-released for a short while in the 1980’s as part of Patou’s “Ma” collection.
After years of thinking of “lavender” as the sweetish stuff in hand lotion, I grew some. It took time to flower. When it finally did, the bitter scent of those spikes made me recoil. The beautiful purple fields of Provence smelled like this?
It was a taste I wasn’t ready to acquire.
Moment Supreme is all about lavender, and it, too, brought up associations I wasn’t ready to have until now.
My bottle is old, even for extrait. I think it was bought in 1960. It’s a beautiful bottle, the real thing, engraved Patou logo on a ground glass stopper and curved Art Deco lines. Last night, for the first time, I applied it generously, decanting some to spray onto my clothing.
At first, I thought it had turned. It smelled like hairspray and nail varnish. I knew, though, that this time I had to wait it out. Time passed, and those old lavender notes finally struggled up to the surface.
I was eight, and my parents were going out. My mother had come into my room to kiss me good night. Her full-skirted brocade cocktail dress rustled as she leaned over me. This was her perfume.
We didn’t get along. Both of us were of our times. She came of age in the second world war, landed my dashing fighter-pilot father, and took on the tough life of a not-quite-military not-quite civilian wife and mother, moving every year or two, packing up the house and kids, doing what she signed on for.
I came of age in the late Sixties, and questioned everything. Most of all, I questioned female artifice; the hair, the nails, the stockings, all of it. And I questioned her dogged acceptance of it, the insistence on that flawless presentation to the outside world. I was into honesty. Reality, I thought. For years, I didn’t even shave my legs. She did not approve, and we fought, often.
She died six years ago, surviving my father by less than a year. She took her illness like a Centurion, and she never let herself go, not for a moment, not even in her last moments.
It fell to me to settle their affairs. When going through her things, I found this bottle of Moment Supreme. I couldn’t bring myself to try it then, but now, I finally can. It smells like her, of course; and this is no lush Joy or shrinking violet. It’s dry, deep and tough. Rather than overwhelm his bitter herb with rose, as many perfumers would have done, Henri Almeras chose a peppery geranium and, finally, that real-French-perfume base of dark resins made pungent by a harsh climate.
This is the perfume she chose for herself. Of course. And this is what I finally understand.
A short history of Moment Supreme: Jean Patou, the designer who launched it in 1929, was a real innovator. He brought to market tennis skirts and the first suntan lotion (at a time when tanned skin still meant you were a peasant). He displayed his logo on some of his couture clothing and designed the first knit bathing suits. The perfumer, Henri Almeras, was a Basque; he also created “Joy”.
Notes for Moment Supreme, now discontinued, include lavender, geranium, rose and amber.
Moment Supreme, in EDT strength, was re-released for a short while in the 1980’s as part of Patou’s “Ma” collection.
