Eau De Paris

The City of Light dazzles all the senses, particularly that of smell. So how to best capture that aroma? KATRINA LAWRENCE traces the scent trail of a lifelong obsession to find her beloved city in a bottle

- Katrina Lawrence

PARIS is a uniquely fragrant city. It’s redolent of cold, musty stone, dank with the weight of history; markets of piled-high peonies and roses, still teasingly tight-budded, smelling clean and green; bijou boutiques that entice with the olfactory equivalent of breadcrumb trails — luring you to warm, yeasty baguettes or pungent cheeses that ooze beyond their rinds, exuding come-hither pheromones; the sweet yet blushingly suggestive aroma of damp horse chestnut blossoms; Parisiennes trailing powdery, musky scent ribbons along with silken Hermès scarfs.

Many have tried to capture the essence of Paris. Just as countless writers attempt to crystallise the secrets to living à la Parisienne, perfumers have long sought to infuse the city’s swoon-inducing glamour in rose-tinted liquid — to perform a beauty alchemy that transforms alcohol, water and various molecules into pure heart-stirring magic.

My first fragrance was Paris in a bottle — literally. It was Christmas, and I was 12 — soon to enter the adulthood antechamber of the teen years. My stocking too was growing up. Instead of Barbie, it contained a much more sophisticated plaything: my first perfume. YSL Paris is a gloriously intoxicating bouquet of rose notes as only the full-blown 1980s could have delivered. My love for it remained in that decade, but the fond memories endure. Whenever I catch a hint of Paris in the air, I’m whirled back to my first fancy Parisian dinner out with my parents: the touch of a velvet bolero jacket, the saltiness of an oyster slipping down my throat, the heady scent of multi-coloured, lush-petalled roses swirling around.