Iris Hermit

Lapot Studio

Winter scene by DG Leskin (1990). Private collection.

Vincent Roubert’s 1946 Iris Gris (Jacques Fath) has a special place in the history of perfumery. I’ve long wondered what its peculiar stature reminded me of and recently concluded that it is the perfume equivalent of Erik Satie’s first Gymnopédie¹. For those unfamiliar, it is a simple, bare, haunting melodic piece written by a deliberately unheroic composer, who (rightly) derided most of his contemporaries as suppliers of grand humbug. Debussy and Ravel loved his stuff, as has every piano beginner ever since. Like many simple compositions, it turns out to be “too easy for children, and too difficult for artists.”² I remember first smelling Iris Gris at the Osmothèque, in the days when it was merely two refrigerated basement rooms in Versailles, and falling in love with that melancholy beauty.

I was not alone. Many times I have seen on perfumers’ desks a strip labeled Iris Gris inside a glassine envelope. My friendly relationship with the owners of Jacques Fath led to my involvement as an evaluator for its re-creation, a job eventually awarded to Patrice Revillard. In the process, we discovered that the original contained no iris at all, only violet ionones. This suggests that the recipe that Vincent Roubert’s son donated to the Osmothèque, which definitely includes expensive iris, may have been what his father would have composed, had his budget allowed. Be that as it may, Iris Gris, after a long legal battle over rights to the name, is now rightfully back in Fath’s lineup and smells great.

Jasmine, the Givaudan China perfumer I met at Notes Shanghai, told me that her Iris Hermit was directly inspired by IG. I confess that after the Fath saga I was irised out, just in time for the material to become hugely trendy. I was ready to be disappointed or at least mildly bored by Iris Hermit. My mistake. Jasmine has revisited IG in the best possible way, i.e. by keeping the iris note and the exact foreground to background proportions identical, while simply varying the hue of the background. I remember describing the Osmothèque’s version as having a background with the iridescence of a pigeon’s throat. Jasmine’s composition instead has a golden cast, which she describes as Mitsouko, likely on account of a peach note, but which strikes me as a ghostly reappearance of the sassy drydown of the original Dioressence.

The delicate balance works best on fabric rather than skin. Iris Gris, that refined, pale, introverted young beauty now has an equally beautiful, hale, smiling sister urging her along. I love them both.

1. I link to Aldo Ciccolini’s version. I’ve found well over 160 recorded versions, but of those I’ve heard, his strikes me as perfect.

2. Artur Schnabel said that about Mozart sonatas.