Terre d’Hermés and Jean Claude Ellena
I am finding that I tend to be a very sensorial person, scents and tastes are easy to identify for me and a flavor from the past can evoke memories that are as strong as the moment they actually happened. For instance, this past week, I found a bag of Swedish crisp breads that my daughters and I ate every morning for breakfast in France. Topped with creamy French Brie or Nutella (a chocolate and hazelnut spread) and peanut butter, we would sip our coffee and indulged in this simple pleasure. When we opened the bag this past week and recreated those breakfasts, we were immediately transported back to our days in Paris and delighted in the memories. The same thing happens each morning when I put on my cologne.
This is Jean-Claude Ellena who since 2004 has been the in-house alchemist for Hermés, making magical, transporting scents that have made the company a world class perfumer. It is his creation Terre d’Hermés that takes me back to my bedroom in my Parisian pied-a-terre where the finishing touch to my morning ritual was to make this scent my own. I stumbled upon it at Bon Marché during an elaborate introduction in 2006. It was being marketed as a “uni-sex” fragrance, although I think it leans a bit towards the masculine end of the fragrance spectrum being described as……sparkles with orange and grapefruit that blends with flint for a mineral note, and combines pepper, bay rose, geranium, patchuli, benzoin and vetiver around the the central note of Atlas cedar to enhance its Earthly tones (cosmeticnews). That is a long description for what boils down to, “it smells divine!”
Mr. Ellena’s signature is recognizable and has been described as simplicity, decorum, maximalism masquerading as minimalism; absolute modernity. ”To be in my time is the most important thing. In all my compositions I try to avoid melancholy, nostalgia and the past. My approach is the present-no future, no past, today.
I have the tiniest crush on this man as he is so connected with the world around him, embracing everything and the pleasure that he derives from that world is extended to his creations. I have him to thank for allowing my experience in Paris to surround me forever!
Additional information: Scent of a Man
Photo credit: Personal collection, Wallpaper
Tags: , b5media, Bon Marché, france, Hermès, Jean-Claude Ellena, paris, Terre d'Hermés, the paris traveler, travel, travel blogs, Wallpaper
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POSTED IN: Fashion, Miscellaneous
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