Photo for Vogue Paris Horst P. Horst©

“Ah, what a charming thing it is

To abandon a dreary place

For Paris!

Darling Paris

Which, one day – Love simply had to create!

Ah, to abandon a dreary place.

What a charming thing!” ~ Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918, my translation

Apollinaire evokes the very essence of original Vent Vert de Balmain: vehemently verdant, breezy, playful in a sophisticated, original melodic manner. To call Vent Vert a Green Wind is short shrift. It rings hollow in both ear and nostril. Glorious iconoclast Germaine Cellier, La Reine de Surdosage (overdose!) possessed me at first sniff when I was eleven: Vent Vert blew my way and blew me away as well.

Vintage Balmain Vent Vert Ad Rene Gruau 1950s©

To call Vent Vert a Green Wind is short shrift. It rings hollow in both ear and nostril. Glorious iconoclast Germaine Cellier, La Reine de Surdosage (overdose!) possessed me at first sniff when I was eleven: Vent Vert blew my way and blew me away as well.

Jane Fonda Photo Horst P. Horst 1959

With the exception of her 1949 parfum for Balenciaga, the very balanced herbal/floral bouquet La Fuite des Heures (Balenciaga’s second release after 1947 Francis Fabron’s legendary Le Dix), Mme.Cellier’s calling card has been notably that of aromatic overdosage: tuberose in Fracas de Piguet (1948), galbanum in Vent Vert de Balmain, brilliantly mordant floral leather in Piguet Bandit (1944), Nina Ricci’s éblouissant 1946 floral Coeur Joie , my gardenia and orris-laden1953 Jolie Madame (aka Kitten With a Whip and Smoke) and 1956’s lovable floral ashtray Miss Balmain. 

Germaine Cellier via wikipedia

Each of Cellier’s fragrances is witty and elegant, soigné as the salty fierce woman herself who personified many’s vision of the cool, slim, blue-eyed Parisian blonde (she was born in Bordeaux, however) while possessing a longshoreman’s vocabulary and incessantly smoking cigarettes. She shared those Burgundian appetites well-illustrated by Bordeaux’s other scandalous daughter, the writer Colette. Mme. Cellier was one of the first notable women in the then-male-dominated profession of perfumery; I look to her for inspiration and she never fails.

Greta Garbo (apped) and vintage ad for Vent Vert

A few of my flacons from the 1970s retain the pristine character which immediately conjures my first real New Year’s Eve celebration. A snowy lace crocheted minidress, white tights, an ice cube dropped down its bodice and the gallant who unthinkingly reached down to retrieve it. I was eleven, my babysitting money depleted by a Balmain splurge: Vent Vert bloomed on that wintry night.

Lisa Fonssagrives 1939 by Horst P. Horst

I was enchanted by its insistent verdancy, resinous galbanum streaked with slightly indolic hyacinth (whispers of divine decay lovely as lacy lingerie!). It smelt of youth burgeoning on the cusp of womanhood: filled with hope, an unnameable longing. A stolen kiss. The oakmossy base consumed me; it shared that quality which had made Mitsouko my first love – desire for inky intrigue, the darker sister which awaits in the wings for its destined moment. It was succulently juicy, sap-drenched, crisp and comforting. The exotic (gardenia, jasmine), woven with earthbound bell-like blossoms (hyacinth, lily of the valley), mouthwatering fruit (citrus, peach), glints of silver (iris) and secretive undergrowth which has long compelled me (oakmoss, vetiver). I danced and danced all night long like the green young creature I was, unaware of the appeal which presages imminent coming-of-age and all which that entails: largely innocent, slightly wily, full of dreams and desire.

One drop of Vent Vert, and I am a girl again on the precipice of womanhood, despite the ravages which the mirror reveals.

~ Ida Meister, Senior Editor

~ Art Direction: Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief