Ria Jones really is one of the First Ladies of British Musical Theatre. The daughter of an Opera Singer and the sister of Ceri Dupri, one of the UK's leading female impersonators, she was born in Swansea and at the age of nineteen started her career in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. More recently she was Glenn Close's understudy in Sunset Boulevard at the London Coliseum where she took audiences by storm when she played the role of Norma Desmond. Just back from 42nd Street in Paris, she took time out to answer "Stephan's Six" ahead of her return to the role of Norma Desmond in a UK Tour.
Every so often I get sent a fragrance just for fun. By that I mean that it's not something that is commercially available. Sometimes it's a modification, sometimes a trial, and sometimes an unused test. This was what happened last year when 4160 Tuesdays, more specifically Brooke Belldon, found an unreleased fragrance in the workshop and sent me a sample. A combination of luck, Brooke's squirrelling and my love of gin meant that I was unexpectedly given the ultimate feel-good fragrance. Throw in my not being able to read Brooke's handwriting and this years INVISIBLE PALLADIA was born.
The days of “point a camera at a bottle of perfume” have well and truly gone because a sense of creativity is now demanded by every company. One person who certainly has this gift is Roberto Greco, an incredible photographer who splits his time between Paris and Geneva. From Le Galion to Liquides Imaginaires, his work has been featured in the Harrods magazine as well as by The Perfume Society. So, I thought it was time to find out a little bit more about Roberto in the first of a new series of “Stephan’s Six”.
Fragonard started a tradition back in 2010 by releasing their first "Flower of the Year" and it is still something that is looked forward to even in its eighth season. Now these fragrances are essentially soliflores, which essentially means an interpretation of a single flower, but you also find that they have been crafted into an Eau de Toilette that develops on the skin. It's a very old tradition to create something which is true to nature rather than abstract and Fragonard continue to do it brilliantly. This year's chosen flower is the Peony, or Pivoine in French, and it's everything that you could have wished for.
The stock room floor is usually littered with boxes at this time of the year with "recall" written on them. In order for a company to make room for its latest fragrance another may have to go. This is always the way with Guerlain's Aqua Allegoria scents. Sometimes decisions are based on sales, sometimes on trends, and sometimes we struggle to work out what the reason is. This was how many people felt when Guerlain's Nerolia Bianca left the range in 2015. It was ultimately replaced by the short-lived Teazzurra and the question remains, did Guerlain lose one of Thierry Wasser's finest creations?
We all get so entrenched in our family lives over the festive period that many Twitter and Facebook posts go unread. I am the first to admit that "offline" time is something that I hold very dear, especially at Christmas, but even I couldn't resist when I was asked to create a series of seven posts for Le Jardin Retrouvé. Not heard of them? They were the first "niche" fragrance house and started life in 1975 under the guidance of perfumer Yuri Gutsatz. After almost disappearing following his death in 2005, his son Michel has begun the task of reestablishing the name of Le Jardin Retrouvé for a new generation.
This final week before the start of a new year is always a little bit of a “limbo land” for perfume articles. Everyone has so many other things to do during these final seven days but, in case you are looking for something to read this week, I’ve gone through the past twelve months of “Stephan’s Six” interviews and picked my favourite four. There were over forty this year to choose from, ranging from perfumers to painters, and picking between them was difficult because they were all different and fascinating in their own ways. So, I hope you enjoy my “best of” selection from “Stephan’s Six”.
One of the reasons that I started my website on 5th May 2015 was as an attempt to put some fun back into the online fragrance world. By this I mean that some bloggers had decided that they would make it their mission to be as vindictive and cutting as possible, thereby single-handedly attempting to destroy a perfume before it even had a chance to gain a foothold. After working in various parts of the fragrance industry I thought this was a very narrow minded approach and, when some of these perfume companies are also family run enterprises, potentially catastrophic. So, what gives bloggers the right to criticise a perfume?
Hands up anyone who's now started to panic that Christmas is on Sunday? You've had fifty-one weeks to get ready for the big day, but I appreciate that real life can often get in the way. So, unless you're going to plump for next day delivery on internet purchases, and risk them not arriving, then your best bet is to brace yourself for some old fashioned high street shopping. There are three things to remember; try to stay calm, queue politely and don't be swayed by desperate shop assistants. To help you along I've chosen four fragrances that can be found in any department store that are guaranteed to impress on Christmas Day.
