Serge Lutens’ De Profundisis a concept perfume that arises from the complex emotional states of death. Lutens chose the chrysanthemum flower as the focal point of this idea. He celebrates, questions, and counteracts typical associations of death in a written piece that he released with the fragrance:
DE PROFUNDIS
When death steals into our midst, its breath flutters through the black crepe of mourning, nips at funeral wreaths and crucifixes, and ripples through the gladiola, chrysanthemums and dahlias.
If they end up in garlands in the Holy Land or the Galapagos Islands or on flower floats at the Annual Nice Carnival, so much the better!
What if the hearse were taking the deceased, surrounded by abundant flourish, to a final resting place in France, and leading altar boys, priest, undertaker, beadle and gravediggers to some sort of celebration where they could indulge gleefully in vice? Now that would be divine!
In French, the words beauty, war, religion, fear, life and death are all feminine, while challenge, combat, art, love, courage, suicide and vertigo remain within the realm of the masculine.
Clearly, Death is a Woman. Her absence imposes a strange state of widowhood.
Yet beauty cannot reach fulfilment without crime.
The chrysanthemum is the sole pretext for writing these lines.
Turning gravesites held in perpetuity over to Life—a familiar of these haunts—the chrysanthemum invites Death to leave the cemetery and offer us its flower.
De profundis clamavi.
De Profundis is a perfume that touches our associations of ceremony. The floral and slightly indolic scent is derived so closely from the smells of Easter that one cannot miss the bold line that Lutens is drawing from perfume to death, and death to resurrection. Although the official notes of De Profundis include green scents, violets and earth, the unquestionable central figure is the scent of lily.
There is an interesting play between the scent itself and the cultural ties that come with it. Lilies are forever bound in the Western mind as the flower of Easter, the flower of funerals, the flowers of rebirth. The Chrysanthemum, which is not evident as a scent in De Profundis, is the flower of grief and mourning in Far East Asia, and is often associated with funerals in Europe. The interplay of these flowers of grief and ceremony adds an edge of solemnity to De Profundis: a perfume of quietude, meditation.
When first applying De Profundis, the first petal of the flower to unfold is plum. This fades within about twenty minutes, followed by a full blossoming of lily, lilac, and violet powder and very faint greens. The center of the fragrance is similar to old fashioned sachets, scented handkerchiefs, delicate leather. It brings to mind the somewhat mournful description of late spring from Russian poet Anna Akhmatova’s verse “Boris Pasternak":
“Backyards drowse in lilac haze.
Branch-lined platforms, logs, clouds, leaves.....
The engine's whistle, watermelon's crunch,
A timid hand in a fragrant kid glove.”
The dewy freshness of these flowers (all of which come from perennial bulbs buried deep in the soil) fades after a few hours into a powdery trace; a gentle linear fade similar to the way blossoms release their scent until it is spent. This pastoral hush of notes testifies to the quality of ingredients in De Profundis, setting itself apart from loud, inescapable florals that use similar notes in their composition.
Lutens’ creation is curiously sweet and almost taunts us with its contradictions. But this may be his secret purpose. “Clearly, Death is a Woman,” he says, and in this light, the melancholic flowers of De Profundis take on a new meaning: Strength in the face of adversity, fearless femininity, regeneration of life from ashes.
Ultralimited editions of De Profundis
