I have been thinking about violets a lot lately. In fact, for several months. These have always been among my favorite flowers and my favorite smells.
Of course I have a violet perfume in my ready-to-wear collection already - Violet EMPIRE. This was inspired by a chapter I read ages ago of Diane Ackerman's marvelous book, A Natural History of the Senses. I loved her writing on the Empress Josephine and why violet was her favorite perfume...
Sometime last fall (I think it was) I smelled Violet EMPIRE again and realized something about it. While it's a lovely smell and one I truly love myself, it wasn't quite right - it didn't truly fit its name. I realized it was the wrong period of history and had much more to do with ancient Crete than it did with early 19th century France. Perhaps it's because I was reading The Bull From the Sea by Mary Renault at the time which is all about Theseus's adventures in the Labyrinth of Minos and later on in Athens. I realized the scent of Violet EMPIRE was really much more an ancient Minoan smell...
So through the course of the spring, I've been working a lot with Violets. I think I've finally created one the Empress would be pleased with as well as a lovely Florentine violet. So, as soon as I'm finished tinkering with those formulas, I expect to be adding two new violet perfumes to the collection. The existing Violet EMPIRE will be renamed, one of the new Violets will replace that and the third will be added to the Metamorphosis Series.
And, as i was working on Violet EMPIRE, I did a fourth variation that I like as well. But it's much more Victorian or perhaps Edwardian and I'm not really feeling those periods of history at the moment. So perhaps I'll hold that one until later.
Incidentally, this "smelling through the ages" might seem strange to a lot of people but this is how my mind works. And it is perhaps one of my greatest gifts - the ability to truly smell that which can never be known...