Interior with a young woman- M. Drolling
There are many ways of discovering a new perfume love. There are all the easy, the obvious love-at-first-sniff- ones; but how about the ones that you refuse to recognize are meant for you, those that take their time, yes the ones you might even dismiss at first, or turn your nose upon, only to discover that you were oh-so-wrong.
When Lucy Honeychurch, the fictional heroine of E.M.Forster’s novel A Room with a View, first encounters love, she refuses to understand it, ignores it, and even designs several obstructions to avoid the love in front of her. It’s partly due to the fact that she feels bound to expectations that she seems to mainly impose on herself- with the virtues of the just bygone Victorian era- partly because she’s still in search of the real Lucy.
“In an open manner he had shown that he wished to continue their intimacy. She had refused, not because she disliked him, but because she did not know what had happened, and suspected that he did know. And this frightened her.”
The “he” in this matter is the tacit yet passionate George Emerson, a young man who was taught by his father, Mr. Emerson, “to trust in love” “Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity…” and it is with this trust in life and love that he meets and falls in love with Lucy at a pension in Florence, Italy.
Lilla Cabot Perry – Lady with a Bowl of Violets c1910
The first scene, in which violets are associated with romance and love, is only touched upon to be hushed up, and we don’t hear what it is, that causes the old Miss Alan to be so indignant by old Mr Emerson’s behaviour regarding said flower, until we are back in England seven chapters on. This is where the vicar explains “There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so pleased”
Piazza della Signoria- Giuseppe Zocchi
And it is the violets which lead us to the place where Lucy discovers her own true nature for the first time. On a picnic to the Italian country side, Lucy, in order to get away from her tiresome aunt and her friend, goes to ask the Italian driver for ‘Bouni uomini’, which she wants to mean ‘the clergymen’ Mr. Beebe and Mr Eager, instead the Italian driver takes her through a woody landscape of undergrowth and bushes, and on the way he picks up violets and hands them to Lucy in premonition of the scene to come. When the view opens before her it is to meet this; “Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end.” Up above her, standing in a tree is George, who on the sight of Lucy amidst the sea of violets exclaims “Courage” “Courage and Love”.
I think of this as both his declaration of love for Lucy as well as a plea to ‘love me!’ and I equally see Lucy in all her beauty and youth, as she too feels ‘love me’. And of course no other fragrance begs ‘love me’ like, well, Aimez Moi. Caron’s Aimez Moi created by Dominique Ropion in 1996, opens with a piquant mint, which I am thinking of as the slight chill in the north Italian April air, and the immediate blend of the sweet violet and anis, as the breathtaking view before her. As the mint loses its acuity, the violet becomes more candied and the anis mellows liquoricy rather than spicy. Other flowers make themselves heard, but in a supportive role to the violet, never to actually steal the show. The cherry almondy heliotrope next to the violet adds a fruity character for a short while, and while Aimez Moi is never quite cheerful, it is not moody either, it manages to simply be.
A balsamic, sweet and soft woody dry down rounds everything off, with the liquorice hanging on till the end, as a whisper; ‘love me’? “From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems collecting into pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam.”
Il Baccio (the kiss) – Francesco Hayez
Aimez Moi is endearing and yet not straight forward to love. If you were expecting a shy violet, well it’s not that, neither is it easy going or simply beautiful, it’s all that, and so much more, Aimez moi is unique. “George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and kissed her.”
A complicated plot develops before Lucy and George finally can be together. In the end they find themselves alone together, once again in Florence in a room with a view, and like the sweet embracing dry down of Aimez Moi, “Then they spoke of other things–the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other's arms.”
–Jasia Julia Nielson, Contributor
Thanks to Caron Fragrances Boutique in New York (Phyto Universe, 715 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10155, 2
We have a 50ml flacon of Aimez Moi for a draw. To be eligible please comment on Jasia's lovely tribute, name your favorite Caron fragrance or a fictional charachter you associate with a flower/perfume. Draw ends May 4, 2012.
Editor's Note: Aimez Moi was inspired by N'aimez que Mon (love only me!) , which was created in 1917 by founder Ernest Daltroff – nine years after A Room With a View was written.
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