Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist Review – The Favourites – Maurice Roucel; 1994

My memory of this may not be accurate, but I’m fairly certain that in a biography of the Pet Shop Boys, which I read a couple of decades ago, there was a passage discussing the key line in their song Rent. The lyric is “I love you. You pay my rent,” and the discussion in the book focused on whether there should be a word between those two sentences to help clarify their relationship to each other. Should it be ‘I love you because you pay my rent,’ or perhaps, ‘I love you although you pay my rent,’ or maybe even, ‘I love you, so pay my rent.’ Quite unexpectedly, this geeky little conundrum returned to my mind while I was wearing Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, and I found myself wondering whether there ought to be any conjunctions or punctuation between those three words in the name of this most mysterious of scents. Are ‘silver’ and ‘iris’ descriptors of the mist? Is there an invisible dash between ‘silver’ and ‘mist’? Would it matter if the order of the words were changed: would ‘Silver Mist Iris’ convey the same meaning?

I suspect I may well change my mind about this tomorrow, but the idea I’m most drawn to at the moment is that there is a full stop after each word – ‘Iris. Silver. Mist.’ – because it is only by separating the elements of the name in this way, and placing a firm boundary between them, that we can convey the contrasts and contradictions that Maurice Roucel somehow managed to encapsulate in his masterpiece. 

Iris. To be sure, that is the core of the construction. But it’s an iris that’s as grandiose as its name is brief. This is an iris that laughs in the face of all others, daring them to come forward and assert their superiority. It does so by never trying too hard to be endearing. Certainly, it possesses all the elements that make the material one of perfumery’s most heart-stopping: the powdery quality, the hint of violet, the intriguing base of wet woodiness, the suggestion of church-haunting incense, the strange, orchard-fruit fleshiness. But it doesn’t hold back on the more challenging facets: the bared, metallic teeth, the shavings of dry carrot peel, the churned up, worm-ridden earth. It is iris – full stop – in all its challenging splendour.

Silver. This is a scent that has often – and understandably – been called funereal, and this may well be because of the moon-like luminosity it possesses. There is something about the radiance Roucel has managed to infuse into his work here that gleams and glitters with a light that is unmistakably silvery, as opposed to golden or crystalline. It is the light of hauteur. But the funeral analogy isn’t wholly satisfying: this is a scent that is less about death than it is about warding off death. Or perhaps we can go further: maybe it’s about revelling in that pulse-quickening moment when both life and death are a single heart beat away from each other. Maybe there’s something vampiric about it: endless life within eternal death. Think of  the sumptuous, lethal costumes in Coppola’s film Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which, interestingly, came out two years before the scent): Gary Oldman with all those hats, collars and morning coats, revelling in Victorian excess. 

Mist. A mist is a phenomenon which presents no tangible, physical barrier. You can walk through it — you can run your hands through it. And yet, by taking away your ability to see, it also has the power to stop you in your tracks and debilitate you almost completely. This has always been one of the most striking, most perplexing attributes of this particular perfume: it projects like a haze of softness (an effect of the high dose of musks?) and yet it never fails to stop people in their tracks. The term ‘killing with kindness’ comes to mind: a plushness and an innocence so profound, they overwhelm us into utter submission. A mighty mist, to be negotiated with closed eyes and an open heart.

Bring all three together, but keep them slightly apart: Iris. Silver. Mist. An unlikely trinity, creating a perfume that has always possessed a grammar all its own. Beyond time, beyond explanation, beyond words. 

Persolaise

[Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist review based on a sample obtained by me.]

—
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please consider supporting my work
by ‘buying me a coffee’ using the panel below.
Thanks very much indeed.

—