Paco Rabanne- Calandre

One of the interesting things about Paco Rabanne's 1969 Calandre is how this pleasant aldehydic floral was considered edgy when it first came out. While there were plenty of flowery perfumes on the market (with or without an aldehydic opening), and green chypres were also quite popular, there was something about Calandre that registered differently and is a little harder to decipher today.

The first 20 minutes or so of this Paco Rabanne creation has what my husband refers to as a "vintage accord". Can you tell he's not generally a fan of aldehydes (or florals, really)? Truth be told I wasn't sold on Calandre the first time I gave it a full wearing until the green notes started to emerge. I also suspect that the citrus in the top notes in one of my older bottles are no longer in their prime, as I seem to remember Calandre as a little more lemony and only slightly bitter. But it all changes ones a very green hyacinth kicks in with something hay-like on its footsteps. It's softer than one would expect, probably because of the abundance of other flower in the heart, especially a dry rose. Paying attention to the perfume at this stage reveals just how masterfully its blended and how fitting it was with the Paco Rabanne fashion line.

As a chypre, Calandre has less of an oakmossy kick than some others. It actually dries down to an almost skin scent, just a bit green. It's not very strong but utterly satisfying if chypres are your thing. There's a casual elegance to this scent, as though you picked the bottle simply because it was there and it just fits with whatever your plans are for the day. I can see how at the time it was a great first date perfume, very appropriate for the office but never ever boring.

Calandre has an interesting history and back story. You can read more about it on this Perfume Shrine review. Please note that a few months after Elena wrote her post, Calandre was, indeed, discontinued and confirmed so by Puig, the company that owns the Paco Rabanne perfume license. Since then the prices online have been climbing up, though it's still possible to find a bargain here and there.

Images:
Calandre 1971 ad- vintageadbrowser.com
Paco Rabanne fashion photographed for French Vogue, 1969: fuckyeah60sfashion.tumblr.com (probably NSFW)

Paco Rabanne Lady Million

As someone who loves many of the classic Paco Rabanne perfumes, I was cautiously optimistic about Lady Million, the new release under Rabanne's name. According to press releases, several serious perfumers were involved in Lady Million's creation- from legendary Dominque Ropion to Anne Flipo and Beatrice Piquet. Smelling the fruits of their labor reminds me of the old adage that a donkey (or a camel, according to some sources) is a horse designed by a committee. I like donkeys and camels well enough, and this new Paco Rabanne perfume is as pleasant as a synthetic fruitchouli can get, but this is no horse.

The raspberry note in the opening is what kills Lady Million for me. It drowns everything else- citrus and flowers- that might be there in its sticky sweetness. When eventually things calm down a little I recognize a rather generic honey-patchouli dry-down. This perfume could have easily be the latest Juicy Couture, DKNY's Delicious-whatever or a Calvin Klein Euphoria flanker. I guess some consider this style to be sexy and alluring, but to me this is something to pour over my pancakes only if for some reason I'm desperate and out of real Canadian maple syrup.

There's something quite vulgar in both the name, the bottle and the ad campaign. It makes me wonder who exactly is the target consumer of Lady Million. Obviously, not those of us who hoard vintage bottles of Calandre, La Nuit and Metal.

Lady Million by Paco Rabanne ($65, 1.7oz EDP) is available from Sephora. Samples are handed there like candy on Halloween.

Top image is the cover of a 1964 Frederick's Of Hollywood catalog.
Lady Million ad (model is Dree Hemingway) from imagesdeparfums.fr

Paco Rabanne La Nuit

I was too young and nerdy in 1985 to partake in any real shenanigans. I haven't seen the inside of a real nightclub until 1987 or 1988, and even then it was all about dancing and hanging out with my friends. But maybe I was simply wearing the wrong perfume. If I had to do it all again my choice would be La Nuit by Paco Rabanne, the scent of debauchery.

Spanish designer Paco Rabanne was in his absolute best during the 1960s. He created some seriously sexy mini dresses, chic accessories and home accents that cause some serious bidding wars today (I considered selling my soul for a couple. It still was not enough). Salvador Dali called him "the second Spanish genius" and posed with Rabanne's creations. His earlier perfumes, from 1969 Calandre to the 1988 Ténéré all represent their era, and of course are now discontinued. But non of them was more out there than La Nuit.

I've seen La Nuit described as a floral-chypre, rose-chypre, leather-chypre. dry wood and who knows what else. It's kind of chypre-like, but the story here isn't oakmoss, it's civet. La Nuit is an animalic monster, once described by Luca Turin on his old blog as "Spray Tabu on a horse, and you’ll get the idea", and he meant that in the best possible way. The thing is that most versions and formulations of Tabu smell too cheap for my taste and no horse can fix that. La Nuit, on the other hand, smells like something one would wear to a scandalous Studio 54 party, especially if you want to hook up with Mick Jagger in the back room. Not exactly classy, but not Tiger Woods material, either.

I get a lot of honeyed leather, honeyed rose and honeyed wood before the civet and whatever other skank there show their teeth. It's nothing like Miel de Bois, but I won't be surprised if they have a common aromachemical. I wouldn't be surprised.

I've learned to wear La Nuit with a light hand- not more than a spray and a half. It lasts for 24 hours as it is. It's dirtiness is still shocking and I'm a regular wearer of MKK, Onda, Bandit and several other perfumes my mother would never have approved. This is not something to wear for a PTA meeting or around the "shower fresh" crowd. It would leave the average Sephora shopper speachless because most of them do not want to smell like that.

La Nuit, like most of the classic Paco Rabanne fragrances for men and women, is no longer in production. It can still be found online but the prices of this formerly common perfume have been climbing up- usually north of $100. The EDP is better than the EDT and there are rumors about a divine and long gone extrait de parfum.

I found both images on Flickr, I think, but forgot to note the original source. The first shows Andy Warhol and Jerry Hall partying at Studio 54 circa 1980. The second is of Salvador Dali and models wearing Paco Rabanne in 1960. It's from a book about the designer by Lydia Kamitsis.