I was surprised by hard I fell for Jean-Claude Ellena’s Rose & Cuir’s combination of smashed rose stems and ash on the windowsill from smoking furtively in your bedroom. I shouldn’t be. It’s not another of Ellena’s bloodless shadows, dressed in pale silk. It has the rebel soul of Cellier and a trapped heart of melodrama.

I can’t escape the idea that that Rose & Cuir is the scent for Bette Davis. Specifically, the perfume for Bette Davis in “Now, Voyager” with poor Aunt Charlotte’s triumphant fight for confidence and independence, the psychological torture, the bittersweet impossible love, and, oh, those intimate smoking scenes. Maybe not the sublimation of that love into child-rearing and tennis parties, but I’ll take the perfect hats, thanks.

I have very few fond memories of my mother but the uninterruptabe ritual watching of Sunday afternoon double bills of black and white movies on television is high on the list. She might generally subside into a boozy sleep halfway through, but that brought a tranquillity, and peace enough to escape into the all-encompassing magic of the silvery shades of Hollywood’s golden age. I don’t think she ever appreciated the irony of her affection for “Now, Voyager” as she watched it with the daughter she dismissed as fat, frumpy, and unloveable.  I cherished it like a hidden weapon.

Rose & Cuir is not classically beautiful. It doesn’t swoop or soar like Max Steiner’s Oscar-winning score. But it’s got character, elegance, and bite. And really good eyebrows.

Originally posted on 6 November 2019