Smooth Talker: Serge Lutens Bas de Soie

By Tom I know I must be about the last person in the blogosphere to try this one: I don't know if it's ennui but I just don't feel like jumping through those hoops anymore where it comes to Uncle Serge. Certainly not for something that's going to be at Barneys in due time or worse will only be available in Paris. Bas de Soie (Silk Stockings) is now at Barneys, so sniff I did. I almost feel bad for the house of Lutens; they are locked into the idea that there must, must be four new releases from the house per year come what may. They are then faced with the surly public (I.E., me) who get crabby that they have made another trip to the stewed-fruits and wood well, or worse had dared to answer our pleas to branch out by giving us the Apollonian ideal of a genre we don’t care for. Witness how sulky people got over L’EAU Serge Lutens definitive “clean” or “Nuit de Cellophane” and its fruity florals. Bas de Soie isn’t going to set the world on fire but it’s not going to have people up in arms. It starts on me as cold, rosy hyacinth and a light powdery orris that is the antithesis of his Iris Silver Mist. It doesn’t do much else except add some of the fresh accord from L’EAU, a rather sharp, metallic shade to it that makes me think of spray cans and a creaminess that makes me think of the super-fatted soaps you get from Erno Laszlo if you have dry skin. This all sounds pretty freaking dreadful as I type it, but it’s really quite nice in a cool, Hitchcock Blonde kind of way. “Dial ‘M’ For Murder” was on while I was testing this and I thought that it would be perfect for Grace Kelly’s Margot Wendice:: a woman so cool that the discovery that her husband not only tried to set her up as a murderer merely elicits her acceptance of a cocktail. She’d smell of Bas de Soie... Available at the usual suspects, $120 for 50ML (I’m assuming, I didn’t ask). I received my sample from the counter at the store.