Antilope - Fine French Filth

Today:  Bayanihan Dance Troupe and a perfume for black patent leather.

Claire McCardell playsuit, 1940s, Metropolitan Museum of Art

I remember wearing something like this when I was about five, and even then, I wondered,  "Why?" They collect a lot of mud if you are squatting in a puddle, not that the Claire McCardell-wearing woman would be doing that.  But still.

Tweeting today:  "All Blues."  Miles Davis.  Simply reminds me that I am still fairly jazz-resistant.

Not that Vogue thought them worth a photo, but People Are Talking About . . . "the touring Bayanihan dancers from the Philippines, the women pretty as cherries, the dance patterns oddly arresting, sometimes broken, syncopated by the slapping together of bamboo poles and coconut shells. . . "

Vogue is talking about Bayanihan, the National Folk Dance Troupe of the Philippines, which premiered in Brussels in 1958, and broadcast on the Ed Sullivan Show.   And Vogue is right.

The video shows snippets of the repertoire.   The Spanish dances are bland; the non-Spanish dances wake you right up again.

There is a point in this Vogue that, once I reach it, I will not go beyond.  That is the sanity point.  But there are still good things in those last pages, one of which I will fetch up now:

This ad turned out terrible, no matter what I've tried.  I'm going to steal two other ads, utterly without context, simply to show that this actually existed - or still does.  (Not sure at the moment.)  Why on earth would you want to smell like an antelope? And why is this woman practically bathing in it?

I procured a sample of the vintage perfume - either from Surrender to Chance or The Perfumed Court - both fine and dangerous establishments.  (Bought myself a half-birthday present of samples of each of the Chanel Exclusif scents.  Very nice.)  I am not wearing Antilope at the moment because I woke up chilled, with a head ache and sore throat.  Antilope would prolong the misery.

Not that it is bad.  It is very good.  It is as strong as a Buick - a Buick crossed with a gazelle, as Jack Nicholson said about Jessica Lange.  It is formidable; it is not casual.  You should wear it with a black suit and black patent leather pumps.  It is female, without being particularly feminine.  The first time I wore it, it kicked in a couple of hours after I put it on - too much - at the checkout stand at Safeway.  I nearly jumped back.  Apologies to fellow shoppers!  The feel of it lingers after the scent is gone.  I am guessing that that is the filth, a good thing in perfume.  

Now for the research:  Created in 1943 or 1946, supposedly an aldehyde floral (like Chanel No. 5), but I didn't get that.  I did get the musk, vetiver and leather of the base.   I try not to be skeptical about perfume descriptions - the topnote, the base, etc.  Perhaps I confuse perfume critiques with wine reviews - I don't get those, either.

Potted research from around the Internet:  Weil brothers were furriers who created scents to mask the gaminess of the furs, then developed regular perfumes.

The Weil brothers fled to New York during the war.  In 1942, the Vichy government stripped them of their French citizenship.  I can't easily find a picture of them.

But I did find this, by accident, in searching for "Weil" and "perfume" in the New York Times.  (A magistrate named Weil is mentioned in this  1927 story about a man who was caught selling fake Coty perfume to stores.  La plus ca change, etc.)

Tomorrow:  We meet some characters from The Help, as seen in 1959.