“I do struggle because I’m attracted to beautiful things, yet at the same time I am actually very aware, in some sense, of their lack of value and that the most important things in life are your connections to other people.” ~ Tom Ford
While Tom Ford has a fun and effervescent collection of lighter fragrances for spring and summer (the Neroli Empire for example) it’s his wickedly dark and smoky concoctions that are more suited to fall and winter that appeal to my primal olfactory beast. There are a few Private Blends that I wear only from now until November, and they are the fragrant signifiers of fall, and all the decadent drama it typically exudes.
It starts with ‘Amber Absolute’ ~ probably one of my top three TF Private Blends. It’s like the resinous incense of some sacrilegious church-inspired orgasm, dissipating in the smoky air of dappled sunlight shining through a window of stained glass. It’s one of Ford’s most potent mixtures, though some have said it’s been watered down in recent years (if it’s even still made ~ I believe it may have been discontinued a while back).
A hint of incense also informs the magnificent ‘Vert D’Encens’ which is actually where I began this fall’s fragrance journey a few days ago. It’s compelling notes of fresh green are perfectly resplendent of September’s happy tendency to hold onto the sun and warmth a little while longer.
A drier, woodsier scent is to be found in ‘Bois Marocain‘ which is as much an exotic inspiration from a faraway land as it is a reflection of the New England forests where Hester Prynne sinned. If that makes no sense, I’m sorry ~ that’s just the way it smells to this nose. Dry, sinful, decadence – like a roll in the burning leaves.
When it comes to burning, that brings me to my latest acquisition: ‘Tobacco Oud’ and its exquisite sweet and smoky combination, somehow evocative of scenes I’ve only seen in my mind. A library of wooden shelves, dusty books, and a worn leather armchair. A side table glowing beneath a fringed lamp of red silk. The sweetness of tobacco smoke rising from a pipe.
That was a life I never lived, but I wanted it ~ not the life as much as its sensual trappings, its atmosphere and smoky cocoon of spicy warmth. I’ll do a more in-depth review of ‘Tobacco Oud’ ~ for now it’s all in my head, where it shall reside in splendor until the real memories of a run-down corner of Amsterdam reveal themselves in a future post.
‘I’m actually a very, extremely, almost pathologically shy person, which no one believes today because I have mastered a work/public facade that takes an enormous amount of energy to project.’ ~ Tom Ford
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