Scentzilla!

Dior Jules paints bold dark tones, using accents of rising green to highlight its umbra theme. Deeply woody down its very core, the fragrance features pepper and tobacco notes that smell almost dense. They’re not featured as playful spicy notes, instead they add a brown upon black feel to the composition. Black leather is the omnipresent undertone, and the leather is dry and uncompromising. You either like it, or you don’t: I doubt many folks have mixed feelings over Jules.

In fact, the poor dear does get some incredibly mixed reviews over at Basenotes. I think both the negative and the positive reviews are all correct. Jules DOES smell dated to me, though admittedly I would pin its character to something from the late 70s rather than describing it as a creature of the color scheme-challenged, shoulder-padded, no sock-wearing 80s, despite the fact that it was released in 1980. However, if one were to simply eschew everything that smells dated, there are many fine fragrances that would be unforgivably missed, including Jules. Jules may not smell modern (whatever that means, I suppose) yet its strict woody leather aroma gives me great pleasure.

Similarly, I can think of a number of songs that sound quite dated, yet my enjoyment of them is not diminshed. I thought I’d share this “dated” cover of a song that is even more dated. When we think of Macarther Park, we usually think *disco*, and call forth visions of Donna Summers wailing how she’ll never have that recipe again. Then we shudder. In horror. But what if it’s done in a two-tone style, such as that used by the “old” band The Specials? It’s awesome, you guys. This style also sounds slightly dated to me, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t bring a smile to my face.

The song was covered by Morgan Fisher in 1979, right near the same time Jules was released, under the guise of it being performed by an imaginary band called The Burtons. There’s a nice article about his Hybrid Kids V.1 album on the BBC’s site. The only place I found that still has the album available for order in the US is via Tower Records.

Alas, Jules is even harder to find than this record - insofar as I know it has been discontinued. However it does pop up on eBay now and again. EDIT: Hey! Look at that: While I was forced to look overseas for Jules, it now appears that Imagination Perfumery is selling it. I know it’s not much of a discount, but yeesh is it a tricky little bugger to find. Grab it while you can!

Image via parisposters.com. Jules’ ads, like many of Dior’s iconic ads, were created by well-known artist Rene Gruau, who worked with many of the most famous design names we still know.

Update on another participant in the upcoming Mother’s Day Benevolent Blogging event:

The Scented Salamander is Helene’s perfume blog. Her very thoughtful reviews often muse on the stories of notes and names. She also writes posts covering intresting perfume news and tidbits that may well have otherwise been missed by readers if they only scan the headlines in their daily papers. I especially love how she digs up obscure perfume references in literature and pairs them with a carefully chosen art image. It’s a lovely, peaceful blog, so do please stop by and say “hello!” to Helene. On Mother’s Day she will be supporting Orphan Foundation of America, and will hold a drawing for one very lucky Mother’s Day commenter to win a bottle of Eau de Patou!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Perfume Reviews, Dior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.