femme chat

Of all the kinds of reviews I've ever read, I never expected to find perfume reviews to be helpful, but both of these were interesting and informative in identifying what it is so much I love about my (dare I call it this? I'm not Slim Keith) signature scent. I started wearing Diorissimo in high school and it's only felt more and more like me, the older I get. It's gotten hard to find again, although I just had a reassuring chat with a heavily French-accented salesperson (I'm such a sucker...he was straight out of central casting) about its continuing availability through European sources. I have a lot of perfumes, but the only one I ever run out of is Diorissimio. Completely infatuated with it.

One of the things that frustrates me with trying to describe what I love about it to other people is that they can't read/see past the floral notes--people get a whiff and hrmph, "flowery"--which is so reductive and not the point and makes me zasperated. It's like turning up one's nose at all white wines thinking that makes you sound macho or like a smart wine person. These reviews were very on the spot about some of Diorissimo's best qualities: how alive it is, not sticky, nor yet "clean" in the parlance of atheletic women's fragrances of last 20 years; its non-abstract yet rather stylized feel. It actually grew out of a reaction to some of the sweety-sweet and lactonic fragrances of the 1950s (it was created for the house of Dior; C. Dior considered lily of the valley his lucky flower). I don't find it sweet-sweet or super-floral, rather layered and very lasting and satisfying all over again every time I smell it. I don't have the words for it, I really don't--I guess that scares me a little as a word person, because it satisfies so deeply on this core level. But the reviews are interesting.

Yes, I'm a total mark, what can I say. I even think that the pink and black design of the bottle (in the 80s there was a houndstooth pattern around the center) influenced my love of that color pallette, not to mention the whole 50s things, dark lipstick and tailoring and pearls.

I've been very...interested in fashion recently in my own lazy way. Dumbass stuff like C. Nixon on Sex & la Cuidad set photos (how thoroughly 70s her styling has gone; her clothes now remind me of my mother from that time). I didn't look too much at fashion week stuff (although I can say I like the fabric usage by Andrew Gn? and the colors/shoes by Galliano are TOO too fun), but I've found all the redcarpeting so cautious as to be pretty boring. All the fishtail/bustier silhouettes with very cautious jewelry--stylists everywhere seem terrified to accessorize so do so only in weird fits--bare necks and shoulders and sloppy wispy hair. Boring. Everything's so beautifully tailored at the same time, it's funny. All these beautifully cut gowns, even the jewel-toned ones, that are so very very boring.

The thing that drives me crazy about all the fashion critiquing is that I rarely feel like they are actually attending to the fashion at hand; the issue seems to be do they like the celebrity inhabiting the clothes. Not--are they making a gesture with what they're wearing that really works, but...do we like them. Blah blah.