Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, July 18, and WordPress tells me today is my tenth anniversary on WordPress! Wow. It honestly doesn’t feel as if I began that long ago! I so appreciate those of you who have come on the blogging journey with me, whether years ago or just this year. Special thanks to my regular commenters: you make every post so much more interesting! Even more special thanks to Portia Turbo of Australian Perfume Junkies, who has so kindly involved me in some really fun fragrance blog projects. Let’s do that again some time! The past week also brought Bastille Day: Vive la France!

On another topic, I’m eagerly looking forward to a fashion exhibit that I plan to go see with friends next week. It is the first ever American retrospective exhibit of the work of the French couturiere Madame Jeanne Lanvin. As some of you will remember, the same venue hosted a major exhibit of the work of Madame Grès two years ago, which was, as they say, to die for. She was also known for a legendary fragrance, Cabochard.

Madame Lanvin was also the inspiration for a legendary fragrance: Arpège. Arpège premiered in 1927, so it is almost 100 years old! It is a floral aldehyde, like its contemporary Chanel No. 5, and it is a complex bouquet of notes that include aldehydes, lily of the valley, peach, honeysuckle, neroli, bergamot, jasmine, ylang ylang, iris, coriander, rose, lily, geranium, camellia, sandalwood, amber, vetiver, musk, benzoin, vanilla, and patchouli. It has, of course, been reformulated over the years. As recently as 2008, though, perfume critic Luca Turin still gave it four stars, calling it a “unisex classic”, and “an elegant, nutty, woody floral with an overall cashmere beige tonality that would be vey dowdy on all but a guy.”

The beautiful classic Arpège bottle of black with gold shows a stylized Art Deco figure of a mother and daughter, which is supposed to represent Mme. Lanvin and her daughter, who chose the fragrance’s name. I must confess, I’ve never really worn Arpège. Have you? What are your thoughts?