Gabriella Chieffo of Maison Gabriella Chieffo (Photo: Maison Gabriella Chieffo)
Gabriella Chieffo’s Collection ’14 was one of my unexpected surprises of this year. A small white bag of samples arrived unannounced (arranged by EIC Michelyn Camen) accompanied by an extravagant and esoteric mission statement that was frankly pretty wtf?… .a convoluted and deeply personal mix of art, sensuality, feminism, food, psychoanalysis, maternity and olfactory obsession. There was an overwhelming sensation of whiteness about everything… bleached, leached, albino, tones of bone, ash, wing and snow. Packaging, samples, paper, even the initial hits of scent. All have a trademark vanillic opacity. There are four fragrances in the collection: Ragù, Camaheu, Hystera and Lye, all of them emotionally linked to Gabriella and her unique aromatic interpretations of her biographical world. One of the things I like about these scents is their implied femininity. Gender is not something I really pay heed to in fragrance, but occasionally certain collections are imbued with a powerful sexuality as to be strikingly different. It is quite hard to avoid Gabriella Chieffo’s powerful blend of matriarchy, motherhood, childbirth, kitchen, gender and nurturing creativity.
Ragu, Lye, Hystera, Camaheu…Gabriella Chieffo as four different feminine archetypes (Photo: Gabriella Chieffo)
The fragrances are personified by elaborately staged portraits of Gabriella herself, posing in Cindy Sherman-esque tableaux, surrounded by the iconography of each perfume. For Ragù, she channels Monica Bellucci, as a braided and provocative kitchen wench dreaming of elsewhere, gazing off into the past or future. Behind her, tethered owls and winged monkeys cavort and tell of dreams and madness. Camaheu is an essay in overflowing whiteness, flowers, lace, weddings, communion, and shroud. A bared shoulder hints at a more wanton nature amid the cornucopia of blondness and offered blooms. In her hand she tenderly holds one giant rose like a beautiful weapon. Hystera is protection, Gabriella wrapped in a glassy womb, her blurred nudity floating amid blown-up vein forms of eyes, trees or rivers, an artistic echo of her own teenage pregnancy. Lye is the oddest image, Gabriella as strega biancha, a white witch, winnowing ashes on a deserted beach, clothed in tones of bone and bride, hair. This image is ritual and spell, goodbye and remembrance
Sophia Loren 1971 Cooking with Love
Ragù is the scent however that really stunned me, I have never smelled anything like it. Gabriella has captured what she refers to as ..‘A gentle sweetness that tastes of home. A family perfume’. As its name obviously implies it is a scent of home, kitchen and treasured recipe, inspired by the eight hour long slow cooking of the classic Neapolitan ragu sauce for pasta. A scent of a carefree weekend, a Sunday of women: sisters, mothers, daughters preparing a sauce of supreme elegance and power. Tomatoes, basil, garlic, oregano, thyme. Floured hands rolling perfect small balls of meat to be dropped into pots of bubbling crimson sauce. The secret of the sauce is in the longevity of the cooking, drawn out over lush simmering hours. Tomatoes caramelising, sugars oozing out into thickening pulpy mix of aromatic herbs and piquant pepper.
Sophia Loren 1971 Cooking with Love
The fragrance opens on a dry, dazzling burst of spicy pink pepper and orange that segues into a complex crumbled mix of sweet black pepper, nutmeg, elemi, cloves, saffron and cardamom. Despite the obvious spicy overtone to this section, the blending creates a near perfect facsimile on the nose of dried rubbed oregano, simmering amid the garlic and sweet tomatoes of the sauce. There is a touch of woody darkness to desiccated herbs that appeals to me and it's this I can smell in the herbaceous aura of Ragù. The base is loaded with cypriol, woods, patchouli and the wonder of Cashmeran, a disturbing softener of edges, bringer of shimmering translucency.
Photo: The Silver Fox
Ragù is a fabulous collision of mama, food, skin and wistfulness. Gabriella Cheiffo’s olfactive sleight of hand is admirable; the skin smells just savoury enough without the scent becoming a parody. There is great delicacy at work here, the notes combined with the finesse and finish of a recipe that has been handed down and made by a hundred hands on a hundred stoves. Odours of home, hearth and return are very powerful. We all harbour smells we recognise as markers of childhood and growth. The kitchen is a crucible of olfaction, scents mingling, crashing and pressing in on our evolving senses. These are the smells that call the soul home.
Disclosure – Original samples kindly received from Gabriella Chieffo, subsequent samples and bottle of Ragù from my own collection.
Editor's Note: Gabriella Chieffo launched at Pitti Fragranze 2014 this past September. I chose the fabulous photos of Sophia Loren to complement TSF review.
–The Silver Fox , Senior Editor and Editor of the Silver Fox
Thanks to Gabriella Chieffo we have a draw for any reader of the world of a sample set of Ragù, Camaheu, Hystera and Lye. Please leave a comment about TSF review of Ragu, where you live and which sounds the most appealing. Draw ends December 18, 2014.
We announce the winners on our site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option…or your dream prize wil be just spilled perfume