Back to Black Part II: Noir Perfume by Weil

Noir, or if you prefer it in English, Black. What did this name mean to Jacqueline Fraysse and why did she choose it for this perfume?

Today, the term 'noir' conjures up images of 1940s film stars striking fierce poses, trapped in dire situations. Prior to that however it was most likely connected to ideas about the color black, as in fashion. But from the 1800s, even much earlier and through to the 1920s, black was something of a rarity in women's clothing.

 1880 mourning outfit

Black was reserved as a color to be worn for mourning, exclusively. There were strict protocols concerning the mores of mourning fashion; plain cotton or wool, solid black for the first year and a day, with only solid black accessories allowed. Women were rarely seen in public wearing this full mourning black. For the next period lasting nine months, black satin was permitted. In the last three months of mourning women graduated to somber dark tones usually shades of deep purple sometimes with purple or lavender jewelry.

 1884 Madame X, John Singer Sargent

In 1884 John Singer Sargent set out to change all of that when he showed his doomed painting Madame X. He hoped the supposedly anonymous picture would launch his portrait career but instead it tanked. The painting failed partly because everyone recognized the subject: Virginie Amélie Gautreau. Born in Louisiana in 1850 Gautreau was as well known for her rumored infidelities as for her great beauty. But it was her appearance, the fit of her dress, and especially the color- a stark column of black velvet against an expanse of glaring white skin- that was most widely and hotly criticized.

But somehow in the eye of history it didn't matter. The tide had turned towards black. It's elegance, economy and flattery to the female form, particularly in photographs and on film, was undeniable. Then in 1926 American Vogue ran a picture of Coco Chanel's newest creation, the little black dress and hailed it "Chanel's Ford".  Her claim to the LBD was not undisputed; Nettie Rosenstein is championed by some as its true innovator but through the eyes of history Coco clearly won this one.

Wallace Simpson was an early, well known proponent of wearing black for the sake of fashion alone. She is quoted as saying of the LBD: "when it's [right], there's nothing else to wear..." In 1937, Noir continued to exist primarily as a color choice of fashion's avant garde.

The Elsa Schiaparelli black wool hat, fitted bolero and dress above was designed for an elite clientele, circa 1937 from the Conde Naste Photo Archive.

A decade later in this 1947 fashion shot Richard Avedon showed us the daring drama of a cocktail dress in black. Fifteen years later the mod club kids in London took to wearing it  usually with jolts of white and Andy Warhol filled the Silver Factory with his beautiful people dressed in black.

Finally movie stars like Audrey Herburn and teen model Twiggy made noir over into something gamine, impossibly young and fresh. And that was how black became cool.

In 2011 it's easy to forget the difficult journey noir traveled to become our uniform and our comfort zone.

This year Santa brought me a sealed bottle of Weil's Noir Perfume for Christmas. He couldn't have known at the time how well he did. I couldn't either because once Noir landed in my hand I was crushed to discover the stopper was firmly wedged into the neck of the perfume bottle.  Like a true perfumer fiend, I quickly went to my bookmarked favorites and opened Dimitri's post about unsticking stuck stoppers. I re-read it before clearing a workspace for myself. I assembled my tools- a plastic pipette, some vegetable oil, a clean cloth. I applied the oil just so and waited the required time before carefully placing the wrapped bottle into the [frost free] freezer, waited some more and in 30 minutes or so with the bottle thoroughly chilled, proceeded to carefully made my first attempt at opening it. And: nothing. Again, all steps were repeated. And again: nothing. I paced a bit; I thought about whacking it like a mole. I even had sort of a mini tantrum and debated boxing it off to someone else, like Dimitri- not that he knows me or anything about the perfume but, maybe someone else could work some magic on it and get it open. Someone should enjoy it, right? Ah, the things we go through for our perfume fix!

I enlarged the above photo so you can see the little tiny hole in the bottom. Yes we had to drill into it. Now I won't pretend it was an easy-peasy process. It was actually kind of a major pain what with balancing the bottle and drilling over a bowl in case the bottle shatters way under the pressure of drilling, constantly lubricating the bit with oil and stopping to  check progress every minute or so. It took some patient work to get through the glass, and near the end I just tapped through with a pin-thin metal file. Extracting the perfume from such a small hole was a whole other challenge- save yourself the heart-ache and just go get a syringe equipped with a needle before you start.

I finally decanted the perfume into a pretty little Coty bottle but probably lost at least a ml or two trying to empty the bottle without the syringe! On the whole it was a trying process; and in the end I really hate not having Noir in it's correct container. But the alternative of not experiencing Noir wasn't happening- not on Christmas! And after getting into it, there was a rich reward; a soul-satisfying scent the likes of which I've not experienced since discovering Chanel's own Cuir de Russie (1924).

Noir is a perfectly executed tender-yet-seductive floral leather.

Like a great little black dress Noir goes on easy, at first. Orange blossom, bergamot and mandarin combine sweetly while Rose, jasmine and iris hum and thrum along. A thin green ribbon of vetiver laces up the leather, amber and styrax notes... Admittedly these notes are cribbed from Chanel's CdR yet it is also what I visualize upon smellng Noir. There is a sweetness in Noir that is lacking in Chanel's masterpiece but it is restrained. There is also a distinctly milky peach skin like effect that plays against the darker notes like a view of white skin against a rich black gown.

As I worked to clean up the tools and traces of perfume debauchery, the space around me was filled with an exquisitely delicate cloud of leather. Soft, suede like, the leather is more of a fur scent, exactly like the smell of a fine sable paintbrush complete with the snap-sharp odor of lacquer/glue that clings to new brushes; I find it quite addictive.

Through a veil of iris and balsams comes a clear impression of make up; the vision of a woman seated at her vanity. She dips a marabou puff into her Caron powder scented with the finest Rose de Mai. In the ashtray, incense papers smolder while Nina Simone plays in the background. She dabs on Weil's Noir parfum and anticipates her plans for the evening. Noir ends with the strong, raw musk of an intimate encounter; only traces of flowers, leather and powder remain all hidden under the spice that keeps it just wearable in public.

Brassai Le Corset Noir 1934

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

images:
natalie portman as the black swan at thecontrarianmedia.com
coco chanel in black at viaconanso.blogspot
1880s mourning outfit at millionthingstosay.tumblr
double indemnity at metaphilm
John Singer Sargant's 1884 Madame X at lynetteable.org
Duchess of Windsor - lost reference
Mods at HouseofKhan.blogspot
Andy Warhol at lakbzuhela.blogspot.com
Audrey Hepburn at thelittleblackdressforless.wordpress
twiggy at simplychic.blogspot
Victoria Beckham at HarryPottering
barbara stanwyck from myspace.com
lady at vanity at kitsch-slapped.com
Brassai Le Corset Noir at blogaboutablogabout.blogspot

Noir Part I

Many thanks to Katie of Scentzilla and through her, Jill Martin Clements (aka rockinruby throughout Ebay/Internet circles) among others for many of the details and specifics of Weil Parfum history.

Weil Fur Ad 1920

Weil Fur Ad 1920

Weil Fur Ad 1925

Weil Fur Ad 1932

Furriers by trade, perfumers by destiny. Since 1920 Alfred, Jacques and Marcel Weil enjoyed great success as designers practicing in the trade of fur at Les Fourrures Weil. Then in 1927 a wealthy client requested a perfume designed especially to sweeten fur without damaging it and Parfums Weil was born. The brothers hired talented nose Claude Fraysse to create the first Weil parfums. Fraysse had trained at Firmenich; he was considered to be the very top nose at Yardley, which was one of the largest commercial perfume houses at the time. Fraysse was famous not only for his own work as a perfumer but because his talent overflowed into his family tree. Three of his children went on to become perfumers of note, as did at least one of his grandchildren.

Above, Jacqueline's brother Andre Fraysse (1902-1976) in the late 1920s. He became Lanvin's in-house perfumer in 1927.

Early Weil Perfume Print Ad 1928

With the help of his daughter perfumer Jacqueline Fraysse, Claude created the first trio of perfumes offered by Weil in 1927/1928, the so-called fur perfumes: Hermine- a sweet tropical floral scent, Chinchilla Royal- a jasmine/rose blend and Zebeline- a grand floral chypre with deep vetiver/oak notes.

1936 Weil Perfume Ad for Zibeline

1938 portrait of Weil's fur design 'Hermine'

Jacqueline Fraysse must have been a fascinating person. She worked in a male dominated field at a time when most young women stayed home, or if they were adventurous, needy or otherwise inclined, worked in other people's homes. She came of age in the electrifying, emancipating atmosphere of 1920s Paris and New York- the Jazz Age. Yet she lived and worked under the watchful eyes of her perfumer father and brothers. Judging from the quality and success of the perfumes, she flourished even throughout the difficult years of depression and war that followed. In 1934 her first solo perfume- a fruity-floral-woody scent with an exotic Asian/Polynesian theme- was christened: Bamboo.

 1936 Weil Perfume Ad for Cassandra

She followed up with Cassandra, a perfume "anise like... a hint of stryax, fruits and florals" (notes from Perfumed Court), released in 1936. Billed as a spicy feminine perfume light enough for day but bewitching enough for night; the story says that it took Jacqueline two years to perfect the formula. Noir was her third independent release debuting in 1937.

Weil Perfume Ad for Noir 1937

 1939 Weil Fur Ad

It's hard to get a feel for Noir before smelling it because there's hardly anything to go from. Unlike her other perfumes, there isn't anything like a list of notes or even as much as an advertising tag line for Noir.

I believe there are published sources with notes for many of Weil's perfumes (that I haven't got....) but if Noir is there, no one is telling. Yet searching for notes lists of Weil's perfumes on the Internet yields some information. 

Secret de Venus 1933: A woody oriental chypre edp with top notes of lemon, cassis, peach, bergamot and grapefruit, heart notes of jasmine, gardenia and freesia on base notes of cedar, sandalwood and vanilla. Claude, Herbert, Andre or Jacqueline may have composed this one alone or together or with help from each other- I do not know yet I can't help but feel it must be Claude and or Jacqueline. Advertising copy for SdV at the time claimed: "It's the divine perfume oil to be smoothed on after bath or shower and grows more intense the longer you wear it." I cringe at some of the sky-high prices asked for many vintage perfumes but Weil's SdV scent in the SdV oil is worth its price.

Weil Perfume Ad 1942

Weil Perfume Ad 1945

Antilope 1945: A floral-woody aldehyde chypre parfum with notes of tangerine, neroli, galbanum, acacia farnesiana, narcissus, hyacinth, ylang-ylang, May rose, lily of the valley, oak moss, civet, sandalwood and musk. Composed by Hubert Fraysse, in at least one of its versions, it is of a lighter style than the earlier Weil perfumes.  Notes for both of the above perfumes are quoted from Cleopatra's Boudoir and Perfume Intelligence. And so the story of Jacqueline Fraysse, one of the rare early 20th century female perfumers of note, fades away into the mist. 

But after all, Noir is a Weil perfume and Weil has a fascinating story as well.

Marcel Weil died from pneumonia in 1933. In 1940 the Weil family fled the war, closed up their Paris shop and moved to Bordeaux for a short time. The surviving brothers then came to the United States where they bought out their US distributorship and used the space to open their first perfumery/shop. Located on Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan, they manufactured two of their perfumes- Cassandra and Zebeline- right there on sight. Jacques even created a new exclusively American Weil perfume in 1941 dubbed Cobra.

1945

Once they came to America, the Weil's developed the Secret of Venus- a unique bath and body oil formula. Around the same time, they created a new perfume called Secret of Venus. To further mystify us, they created versions of all of their scents in the Secret of Venus oil formulation. So you might see a Weil Noir Perfume, and then a Weil Noir Secret de Venus Perfume oil. According to Katie, the SdV oil formulas smell differently than their pure perfume counterparts. She believes they contain ambergris and says they smell warmer, are longer lasting and better then the perfume versions. Having only smelled Secret de Venus in the bath and body oil form, I can't compare them but I agree with her enthusiasm for this intoxicating scent.

Secret de Venus line up: Scentzilla

Weil Perfume Ad 1950

Weil Fur Ad 1957

Weil Fur Ad 1960

Weil discontinued Noir in 1969. As I began work with it, I wondered about the only scrap of information I had about the perfume- it's name... Stay tuned for Noir Part II.

Weil Perfume Ad 1977

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives. 

images: 

1925 Weil Furs ad at MsBlueSky Flickr photo stream
All other Weil Print ads, hprints
Andre Fraysse from PerfumeProject.com
Weil Secret de Venus bottles from Scentzilla