Just got an email from Chanel promoting their latest perfume, and my heart sank. Superleggera used to be a registered trade mark of Carrozzeria Touring, one of the great coachbuilders of Italy. They did Isotta Fraschinis before the war, and a million wonderful things after the war, including unsigned Astons. etc. and the Ferrari 166M Barchetta. Superleggera was a construction method allowing the flexible attachment of body panels to an underlying space frame, and it required exquisite precision in panel beating to make it work without rattling. You can see the calligraphic logo on some Aston DB5s and 6s. Touring went bust in the sixties, and most of their archive was burnt by the vandals who took over the factory. The last car they designed was the Lamborghini Miura, for which Nuccio Bertone stole credit after being handed the Touring drawings. How do I know all this? A dear friend of mine, Tito Anselmi, wrote the definitive history of Touring, and I translated it. To see that great name on some sort of sad Chanel flanker is… sad.
We can only hope that superleggera signifies the loathsome Allure Homme Sport accord disappears as fast as the ethanol so that the user may promptly recover from the seconds of torment with a generous helping of Mitsouko.
After Dior smashed to pieces Joy from Patou to make their joyless Joy, nothing else surprises me from French Haute perfumery. No, that's not quite right. The French in general can be disarmingly witty at times. A very popular bakery spreading everywhere in Paris is called The French Bastards :)