Photos, creative direction, and digital editing by a_nose_knows for Vilhelm Parfumerie Poets of Berlin
“There is a happy land where only children live
They don’t have the time to learn the ways of you sir, Mr. Grownup
There’s a special place in the rhubarb fields underneath the leaves
It’s a secret place and adults aren’t allowed there Mr. Grownup,
Go away sir” –David Bowie, There Is a Happy Land
Photos, creative direction, and digital editing by a_nose_knows
I had just finished 7th grade and my father, tired of my thirst for grand summer entertainment and slightly worried about the innocent mind/ womanly shape combo I had barely started to display, decided I needed to learn German. (More likely he needed a break from my inexhaustible energy; moreover, my newly-found independence, assorted with a rather opinionated stance and an equally loud mouth, was more than he cared to handle, so it’s more likely that he was looking to outsource discipline, and NOT declinations—but let’s just go with his explanation this time around).
He announced it on a Wednesday; by Friday morning I was wobbling in the front seat of our Daewoo, muttering about the long drive ahead and wondering, as I always do when I know I’ll be left alone, if my vacation will, indeed, be drab or dear to make a fun one.
Photos, creative direction, and digital editing by a_nose_knows
His plan was simple: he’d take me to visit the family of his college friend; Iosip Munthiu, a kind and stout mountain of a man, was a Transylvanian Saxon, and lived with his son, Seppi, and his wife, Angelica, in a village unlike any other I’d seen: conscientiously green, calm, measured, impeccably clean, smelling of new gastronomies, sounding delectably dialectal, and—the pinnacle of all my summer adventures’ wildest dreams—complete with a medieval fortress.
I was to live with them for a few weeks, take some German lessons with Seppi’s language teacher in a nearby small town, and basically learn to be measured, green, calm, impeccably clean. That, as you can imagine, did NOT happen.
Yes, I did my lessons, and by the end of the second week I had a pretty good command of my der, die, das-es; the teacher was amused and excited to have a pupil both quick and crude, as I was, and churned my brains like butter—but that’s where it all ended. Not only did I not discipline, but I managed to induce some of my healthy, Moldovan crudeness in both our host’s son (2 years older) and his best friend (1 year older). Together we roamed through the village and beyond, and some of my most magical summer memories ensued: bareback horse riding; amazing mushroom hunts; cemetery visits scoping for old epitaphs; (innocent, incessant, loud, sunny, springy) daily stealing of fruits and flowers from people’s yards and orchards; finally, breaking into the fortress on account its keeper, an old lady who wore one-lens spectacles, having misplaced the entrance gate key. We did it all braying and neighing and biking, schnell as it goes, rosy cheek’d, old enough to be on our own but young enough to not complicate things with lust, and painfully aware we were building memories.
Photos, creative direction, and digital editing by a_nose_knows
One particularly hot night the owls were waking in the clock tower and the day’d left us exhausted, all weathered, smelling like hay, and talked out. “Let’s stop at Rudy’s”, Seppi said, and so we paused in front of his gate, decorated distinctly Hungarian, tall enough to contain every mountain of a male living in that yellow house wrapped in grape vine. We walked in–and there under the pergola, shiny eyes and content, alone, 6ft 4in /250lb, weightlifting Rudy was dancing to my first David Bowie.
Photos, creative direction, and digital editing by a_nose_knows
Vilhelm Parfumerie Poets of Berlin is as endearing as the revealing of Rudy’s sensibilities somewhere far from home, in the middle of a tiny village, in the middle of a big summer; equally sweet and full of vitality, it casts a sunny spot onto the big shadows left, in impressum, by its concept and affiliations (I mean, seriously: Bowie; gravity; Berlin!) and makes you smile, de-tense, and simply be. The opening is surprising and tonic, with a pop of tang: fruits are simple but 3D, a bit textural, and welcoming, with notes of dark berries (blueberries, blackberries, and ripe sloes) and a bit of fuzz. The rest settles into a rather large picture, equally comforting and slightly self-important: the vanilla is citrusy, the aftertaste is green and wet enough, the body is warm and comforting. And over it all, the same effortless, benign, happy magnetism I’ve noticed in a few other Vilhelm Parfumerie creations as well.
Endearing rendition of a serious matter… like that summer when you turned 13.
– dana sandu, Editor