The word “feminine” has always confused me. Sugar and spice and all things nice? No. I am made of knives and granite, typhoons, rage, confusion, and really good hair. I may have been born a girl but, apparently, I was doing it wrong.

I would look “feminine” up in the dictionary and be upset that I couldn’t get the hang of all that soft, sweet, compassionate delicacy. And then I’d be angry and want to burn down the limiting world*.

The intentionality of being femme, however, was a revelation. Femme is where contrariness, subversion, and all-out rebellion against expectations are not just acceptable but essential. Perfect brows go very nicely with radical politics, thank you. Cleavage doesn’t cancel out your brain, that eyeliner doesn’t sap your strength, and vulnerability is not the same as weakness.

Girly? No, not a chance. Femme? Oh hell, yes. Or with the precision of a smart friend’s description: “high femme noir weird”. More Edith Sitwell than Doris Day. Not knocking Doris –the originator of the immortal line: “Any girl can look glamorous… just stand there and look stupid”– but I can’t do wholesomely pretty.

The elegant and foul-mouthed rebel queen Germaine Cellier got it. And created some of the most perfect fragrant statements about performing gender in the history of perfume. For all the simple division of gifts of Fracas-for-the-femmes and Bandit-for-the-dykes, not one of her perfumes is a one-liner. They contain multitudes, with brilliant-cut facets to reflect, illuminate, and cut deep. Sleepy-eyed Fracas has unbreakable bones under all that soft flesh. She will destroy you, feed you your own heart, and you will like it.

Make easy assumptions at your peril. There are growling carnal monsters under Jolie Madame’s deceptively pretty haze of violets. Vent Vert is weaponised prettiness. Bandit has a soft side, an infinite depth. Camp? Of course. Is it possible to question and perform gender without?

Her perfumes helped explain me to myself.
Which do I like best? All of them.
That’s kind of the point.

originally posted 21 August 2019.
* I’m not sure why I wrote this in the past tense. Even in my late fifties it holds true.