FTWeekend has lost some of its appeal, so many articles are advertisements in disguise (advertorial). So it was refreshing to read Jonathan Heaf’s piece on men’s smells.
“What should the modern man smell like?” is his opening gambit. I found his opinion on Viking, a hyper-masculine smell by Creed (£265, creedfragrances.co.uk) rather candid. Creed describes Viking as “a fiery men’s fragrance that bottles the fearless spirit of boundless exploration for the modern man who goes against the grain”. Although £265 is a bit expensive it will be worth it to be able to pose as a brave Brexiteer but read on. Jonathan spritzed enough on his pulse points to stun a giraffe, he says, and asked his girlfriend what she thinks.
”You smell like the back of a West End cab on a Saturday night.”
How refreshingly honest, although the FT ad department may not be too pleased.
In the same edition there is My perfect summer … formulaic interviews with people I have never heard of. Gabriela Hearst (fashion designer) is asked what the best thing she’s eaten on holiday.
“Too many but here are a few: Paris baba au rhum in the Ritz (they took it out of the menu). Chivitos At Tikal in Uruguay. Carpaccio at Harry’s Bar in Venice. Pechugas de pollo at Gardiner in Buenos Aires.” Pretentious, moi?
The opening question is always “how are you spending the summer?” Here’s my answer.
At home enjoying Opera Holland Park, the Proms and my garden; getting together for lunches in the garden and at restaurants; going for rambles across London. I saw a heron catch a small fish the other day – never seen that before. I will be away for three days towards the end of August, but less than three hours drive from home.
What’s your best memory of childhood summer holidays? Going to a rented cottage on Lough Corrib in 1963, walking across the fields to fetch milk, “water-skiing” on the lough on an old door with bedroom slippers for our feet and being with my mother, brother, sister and her boyfriend (now my brother-in-law), my uncle and aunt and two first cousins.
I heard this on Desert Island Discs yesterday.
Gabriela Hearst’s answer reminds me of a similarly formulaic ‘interview’ thing at the back of, I think, the Sunday Times supplement a few years back. It was called something infantile like ‘What I like to do on my holidays’ and the interviewee was Jerry Hall, who claimed that her summer vacations were always taken up by re-reading Proust’s ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ in full.
Really?
What a succinct and evocative description (still with room to apply one’s own memories or imagination of just what the mix of smells in the cab might be). If memory serves, Creed has always been a bit dodgy, with the hard-to-verify supposed royal/imperial/historic associations and claims that this or that golden-age Hollywood actor wore Green Irish Tweed, etc. “Viking” sounds like something created by the marketing department, rather than by a parfumeur who understands how someone might want to smell.
Your present summer sounds idyllic (as, indeed, do those past, though one notes that everyone in the photo looks rather bundled up: your London summers are a bit warmer, I’d guess), and I look forward to reading more about the operas you see.
Consider the paradox: the ruinously expensive scent (and other such advertorials) are representative of our constant brooding over the things we think we must have in a consumerist twenty first century. Contrast this with the rather more insouciant image of a family holiday in the wilds of the west of Ireland. The photograph has not been staged, and yet it portrays an idealised family image of the carefree days of youth, enjoying valuable time outdoors.
The most valuable things in life are those which tend to cost little, but leave a treasure of lasting memories.
(Aunt Cicely makes a striking pose, Caroline appears characteristically impertinent, Bru looks a typical heir apparent, and the author……………conspicuously uninvolved).