In a 2022 interview with Wallpaper*, Serge Lutens described himself as feeling ‘always on the margins, a misfit’, an experience that would cause the polymath to retreat into a fantasy universe of his own making from a very young age.
In adulthood, Lutens has poured images and stories from this distinctly ‘strange’ interior world into the cosmetics and fragrances he creates for his namesake line. Such is the case with his Bell Jar perfume collection, which debuted c.1990 with Shiseido, taking its name from the distinct glass bottles housing each composition.
At one time, Serge Lutens’ Bell Jar perfumes were only available for purchase in Paris, at Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido. In the UK, however, Harrods was bestowed with the honour of being the first brick-and-mortar location to offer them.
Now, this also includes Jeux de Peau, a singular, gourmand fragrance with notes of milk and wheat, capturing a formative childhood memory for M. Lutens of baking bread – a memory penned into the ode published here.
Serge Lutens: an ode to Jeux de Peau
Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau Eau de Parfum
If it’s a memory... A memory is so... A part of my life... A life that is part of me... A throwback to childhood... Childhood coming back at you... At present, a ball bounces... A present, a ball that bounces...
It is seized with both hands... Both hands seizing it... Every time, the hands let it go... The hands let it go, every time... Quickly misses us... Quickly missed by us... If it goes away, it’s the better to find you, my child... If it’s my child, it’s better to find you if it goes away.
I was assigned a job to do after school. It took me down a gently sloping street. On the right-hand side, above a low wall, there was an embankment covered with soot-blackened tufts of grass that became green when it rained. Sometimes, if you looked up, you might see a freight train passing against a background of empty space. I used the path on the other side of the street, which gave onto a row of houses that became familiar to the point of being invisible.
‘Part of its bright aura was due to the amber loaves of French bread – bâtards, ficelles and baguettes – waiting in fragrant rows’
Serge Lutens
There’s no magic involved. A child superimposes blue skies over grey or, when it’s time to mourn, has to pinch himself to stop laughing. At the end of this nonchalance, taking a left immediately after my comma, at the end of a dead-end street, there is a full stop. A golden place that was necessary to me. It was just as much a part of my personal territory as my neighbourhood, my house or my comb.
I was often distracted: ‘Don’t forget to get the bread!’
If I described the bakery as a ‘golden place’, it’s because that’s how I saw it. Part of its bright aura was due to the amber loaves of French bread – bâtards, ficelles and baguettes – waiting in fragrant rows.
Serge Lutens at his home in Morocco
When I got to the bakery, I woke up from my daydreaming to enjoy the sight of the bread. ‘Bread opens your eyes’ just as surely as it whets your appetite. The crowning touch was the whiff of freshly baked bread, still warm, coming through the basement window.
At first glance, there was nothing but good humour on the face of the lady at the bakery. Her make-up gave her face a jolly look, yet one suspected that it was a mask concealing bitterness. What could she have been suffering from that would, at busy times of day, make her purse her lips sharply and suddenly?
‘I set out to use this fragrance like a lovely invisible ink to write a message on the air’
Serge Lutens
The Bell Jar perfume collection by Serge Lutens
The fact that it was barely perceptible made it even more obvious. Obeying a suspicious mind, her mouth, like the seal affixed to a judicial document, passed judgment on all comers. The smile that she gave when returning change had infinite variations: it could be suspicious, jaded, resigned, disdainful, stiff or disillusioned. Although she is dead and gone now, I’m sure that her skeleton still wears her glossy white dentures in a smile.
He said: ‘Eat, this is My body.’ Balthus had this in mind when he stuck a knife in a loaf of bread and made it bleed. It would be a fine thing to be consubstantial with bread, which wards off hunger and soaks up all sorts of good things!
I set out to use this fragrance like a lovely invisible ink to write a message on the air.
Jeux de Peau by Serge Lutens is now available in the UK, exclusively at Harrods.
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