Anais Biguine and Jardins D’Écrivains

Jardins D’Écrivains (Literally translated …Writers’ Gardens) is an elegant range of candles, perfumes and bath delights inspired by some of the world’s greatest authors. A simple idea but translated stylishly by Creative Director and perfumer Anais Biguine. My obsession with books goes back to my childhood; my flat is towering with them. The walls groan with double and triple layers of accumulated reading. Many of Anais Biguine’s writers are among my favourites: George Sand, Colette, Karen Blixen, Oscar Wilde, Edith Wharton and Maupassant. There is something defiantly vintage about this heartfelt and elegant little house. Yet many of her chosen authors were considered scandalous and taboo courting for their time.

Jardins D’Écrivains Library of Scent

There are currently five scents in Anais’s library, Junky, Wilde, (both of which I own), Gigi, Orlando, George and the exquisite La Dame aux Camélias a delightfully retro-style floral, a tumble of white petals and musk with a beguiling cardamom note that adds a delicate warm skin facet I just find irresistible. With a milky flourish of powdered strawberries, it settles down on the skin as if you have risen from an infused and voluptuous bath, lit by candles, to dress in something gathered that covers and surreptitiously reveals at the same time. The deceptive chasteness of this fragrance plays against its own carnal intent. It is a behind closed doors scent, something for sheets and rolling seduction.

La Dame aux Camélias was written by Alexandre Dumas fils, and published in 1848. The character was inspired by Marie Duplessis (1824-1847), a courtesan who hosted a salon for literary, political and artistic figures. Aged only 23 when she died of tuberculosis, she nonetheless managed to make quite an impression on the society of the time. She had a number of lovers, including Dumas fils and Franz Lizt.

Greta Garbo 1936 as Marguérite Gautier

The story is simple enough, but deeply moral in tone. Armand, a young bourgeois gentleman from the provinces falls passionately in love with Marguérite Gautier, a courtesan of the Parisian demi-monde, a world of artists, excitement, free-spirited love and desire. But such desires have a cost. Marguérite has tuberculosis, or consumption as it was sometimes known. A horrible and highly infectious disease of the lungs and respiratory tract often portrayed romantically. TB had a very high mortality rate and killed brutally. It is a not a happy book, but is an important one, the character of Marguérite is sympathetically portrayed by Dumas, who is at pains to show her lifestyle as it was, a profession that allowed her a certain control and status in life, albeit still at the whims and dictates of a fickle Parisian society. One of the most fascinating aspects of the La Dame aux Camélias is the rich detail of 19th life that Dumas embroiders through the novel. You get a real sense of time and place, skin, textures, sights and sounds.

Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor  Movie Still

By choosing this most French of novels as inspiration for a cologne de nuit, Anais Biguine has imbued the fragrance with a doomed eroticism and delicious floral tinted back-story. It is a rich blend of traditional soapy ablutions and private desires written across the skin. When you first spray it, the notes tumble out with heady intention, orange blossom, clean and sparkling; verbena, fresh and verdantly energizing. The touch of cardamom is fun, dancing and a little cheeky, out of the norm. These notes unfold like the evening toilette; petal-infused water in a porcelain bowl, powders and creams arranged to hand. The delicately fragranced water splashed over tired skin to revive and sensualise. Almost immediately you can imagine the boudoir lipstick facets of rose and violet, smeared with the waxen chilled beauty of camellias.

This is the preparation, the painting of the skin as canvas; these three notes are vividly realised, rounded, fleshy, cool and contained. As they drop into the skin they release the most gossamer light powder that you need to actually inhale directly off the skin to truly appreciate. I really like the underlying old-fashioned soapiness; proper floral creamy lather that has left traces in armpits and neck, along thighs and hipbones. The implied sense of preparing to rendezvous, barely removing the scent of something or someone who was there before. It can startle, soothe and seduce. The more I wear fragrances from this diverse and singular library, the more I admire each page-turning scented nuance.

Disclosure – From my own collection

–The Silver Fox, Sr Editor and Editor of The Silver Fox

Thanks to Anais Biguine of Jardins D’Ecrivans we have a 250 ml bottle for any reader worldwide. To be eligible please leave a comment with what you thought of TSF review, where you live and if you have a favorite Jardins D’Ecrivains Perfume. Draw closes January 24, 2015

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