According to my trusty, always reliable (side-eye) friend Google, the Northern Hemisphere summer ends today. (I'd usually insert some kind of joke here about how in Scotland it never actually arrived but as the Met Office tells me Summer 2021 was the fourth hottest on record for Scotland, and the hottest since 1884, we'll just leave that out for once!)
Although summer was warm (if a little too warm at times for my pale, red-haired self) and bright, I can't deny that I love Autumn. I love the back to school feel of it. It evokes all the nostalgic memories of new pencil cases, new pens - all of which would undoubtedly be leant out within the first two weeks back at school and never returned (was it just me who kept their new packet of scented gel pens firmly in their bag and didn't ever let anyone see they had them for fear one wasn't returned and your new packet would be as un-uniform as the jumper the cool girl in the class was somehow getting away with wearing?) - and new jotters, full of as yet untainted pages, the first of which would be filled in only in your neatest handwriting and, by the time you'd lost all your new pens to the pen thieves (yes I did leave school over ten years ago now and no I still haven't forgiven you if you stole a pen from me, I'm petty like that!) be getting as scrawled in as the last pages of June's version.
There's a somewhat dichotomous feeling to Autumn - by day a sense of renewal, of fresh chance, of a willing and a wanting to work hard after the frivolity of summer and a desire to reap the earned rewards of that work. Yet, during the walk home over the crunching leaves, the colours of which mirror the sunset back at itself, a new mood descends. One for burrowing. The harvest time is late September into early October and it's like the essence of the harvesting work flies through the ether and even those of us who work to the rhythms of twenty four hour supermarkets, non-seasonal produce and late night shopping centres can't help but somehow get the sense that now is a time to gather your crops and store them, to get your larder stocked and your home surroundings as cosy as possible in preparation for hunkering down in Winter.
The Replica line of fragrances by Maison Margiela is so named because each fragrance aims to replicate a sense of a time and a place - to replicate the sense of an experience. It might be, like in the case of Dancing on the Moon, a wonderfully fantastical experience that few of us are likely to actually be able to verify the accuracy of. Or in the case of Beach Walk or At The Barber's a very easily accessible memory for many.
Perfume and lipstick are my favourite categories of beauty products and a large part of that is because of the poetry and the stories that I find in these products and their application. There's a heady sensuality to someone applying lipstick or spraying perfume to bare skin that watching an eyeshadow be blended will just never touch for me - and I have no intentions of trying to delve into that, to make an attempt to understand or explain it. I enjoy it and have no wish to become analytical about it. But, if I find that sense of story, of poetry and of character in fragrance generally, you can obviously understand why I have been so very intrigued by the concept of Maison Margiela's Replica line.
As it is, I only own two fragrances from the line, but I have sprayed on counter and experienced in store the majority of the offerings and I would say, even in the scents I don't necessarily like (sorry Coffee Break, I'll simply never be the type of person who finds any joy in a coffee, to smell or to drink and I've made my peace with that,) I think they're pretty spot on for evoking the sense of the experience they're created and named for.
Possibly, to some extent, with the exception of the fragrance I want to discuss today...
Maison Margiela's By The Fireplace
The description from their own website reads thus:
'Remember the reassuring crackling fire on a winter morning with By The Fireplace fragrance. Get back to this comforting memory with this woody Eau de Toilette. Made of a warm heart of chestnut and woody accords, mixed with sweet notes of vanilla and red berries, the addictive fragrance is softened by the floral combination of orange blossom and neroli essence. Admire the gracious dancing flames wrapped in a blanket with roasted marshmallows.This distinctive sweet and spicy Eau de Toilette is part of the REPLICA collection.'
Now, you might guess from that mention of the chestnut note in the warm heart and the sweet vanilla and red berries that this scent is the epitome of that classic opening line of 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.' And it is a dreamy, warming fragrance to wear around Christmas time, which, with Autumn officially ending on December 21st and passing the baton to Winter, does mean they're getting away with that use of a winter morning in their description.
But only just.
Winter to me means cold, ice and frost. It conjures up visions of blue and white silver.
I've even read some people take it a step further away from winter and say this sweet and smoky fragrance reminds them of summer bonfires on a beach and making s'mores!
I think, for all the concept of replicating these specific experiences and bottling them intrigues me, the thing that I love most about fragrances is that ambiguity of how each person will interpret the story and the poetry that is expressed through the notes of a scent.
Speaking of the notes, to put the poetry of the finished product aside, they are:
This fragrance on me lasts exceptionally well, easily all day and even lingers into the next morning until I shower the remnants of it away.
As always with fragrace, it's such an individual, personal experience, that I would very much recommend trying this in person if you can as everyone's skin chemistry will play differently with the scent, certain people will bring out notes in perfumes that others would leave entirely dormant.
With that in mind, it's stocked at Space NK, House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols, John Lewis (though I should admit the Glasgow John Lewis doesn't have these so I don't know how many branches do, our perfume selection in the Glasgow store is pitifully bad!) and Harrods for those of you who have an H-Beauty store (one is coming to St James Quarter in Edinburgh soon and I am very excited!) in terms of physical bricks and mortar stores.
If none of these are near you, there is the option of trying one of the miniature fragrance collections, which is less money up front and more fragrance to trial - this set gives you the chance to try many of the fragrances with 2ml sizes included, this one gives you a chance to try five scents, with 7mls of each fragrance included - and I love the proper mini bottles you're getting in that one in terms of presentation - or lastly, this option gives you 10mls of three fragrances - the three best in my opinion (though I am very interested in trying their new, official Autumn fragrance - Autumn Vibes, but haven't come across it in store yet!)
And just before I sign off - the dreamy Autumn knits I've photographed this fragrance against are old, but the darker colour has made a return this year and you can purchase it here.
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