Givenchy Ysatis, and the Fashion Folly of My Youth
Nothing better exemplifies the balls out, over the top glamor of the 80s than Ysatis. Ysatis was introduced by Givenchy in 1984. Ystais was created by Dominique Ropion, who went on to make a number of other perfumes for Givenchy, as well as some other rather infamously bold fragrances like Carnal Flower (F. Malle) and Angel (T. Mugler.)
This fragrance heaves thick floral notes of mandarine, orange blossom, iris, carnation, and narcissus over a fantastically fecund base. And for me, that base is the key to its charm. The combination of vetiver, oakmoss, patchouli, civet and (likely) castoreum in Ysatis is both terrible and wonderful to behold. The whole thing is smoothed over by a heady rush of vanilla and amber, creating a smokey sultry perfume overall.
If there are memories I attach to Ysatis, then they are embarassing ones. Hair metal, my friends, hair metal…
Ysatis takes me back to the one and only Bon Jovi concert I ever attended, with Skid Row as the opening act. The video for “Lay Your Hands on Me” was shot at Memorial Coliseum during the show. (And you can see me, or more accurately, my big BIG hair, in one of the crowd shots. Sigh.) I think of all the people I hung out with at the time, and all the people I met. I think about my goofy-ass self, and have to laugh.
These are all photos of some of the photos I had in a scrapbook. Please forgive the grainy and poor image quality. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.
I am rockin’ out. To what? Who knows… perhaps it was Poison, whose concert t-shirt I am wearing. But none of that matters. What matters is I had the music and the metal inside me.
Here’s Rudolf Schenker from the Scorpions. I wish you could see the gignormous hoop earings hanging off my lobes. They weren’t hula hoops, but they went far beyond door knocker size and into barn handle territory. You might be able to make out my painfully bright red Revlon lipstick - it was either Fire & Ice or Cherries in the Snow. I forget which since I was enamoured of both at the time, as well as this awful fuchsia one from their Moondrops line that I *think* was called Pink Flamingo (and that name should tell you how truly hideous pink it was.)Yeearrrgh!
You know, the worst part of this photo isn’t the gravity-defying hair, or even the outfit. No, the sad thing is that I probably looked in the mirror that day and sincerely thought, “Wow, I look so gooooood.”
Here’s me dressed up as Paul Stanley from KISS. I’m not even sure that it was Halloween at the time. Oh my.
This is Mark Slaughter posing with me. What you may or may not be able to tell from the photo is the lurid eggplant hair color I was sporting. What you probably CAN tell is how much hair product we both seemed to be using.
I have no idea who these people are. None. But I dimly recall this photo was taken was to capture the dude on the far right in the background. There’s really no good reason to include this shot, aside from the fact that dude apparently still makes me laugh. I wish the picture weren’t so crappy, so you could see the stoned out of his mind facial expression and his beer belly in crisp detail, while appreciating his matching Ozzy hat and (pulled up) Ozzy shirt. Anyhow, check the hair on all the guys here - it’s a nice time capsule of bad metal hair choices.
In summation, memories like those above are what floods back to me when I smell Ysatis. Please don’t let that detract any intentions you might have had to try it. I swear it’s quite classy, though I was (am) not. Ysatis even in eau de toilette is very strong and not for everyone, not even me, but it is something to admire.
For those of you who remember Sebastian Bach: Savage Animal. That clip is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen on reality TV. Oh hell, one more: here he is on Gilmore Girls covering Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
I had a picture of Sebastian Bach taped to my ceiling and I was a member of the Poison fan club when I was 12. But I wore Chanel No. 5.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
No. 5? You were a classy rocker, then :) I can’t believe you had a Sebastian Bach picture on the ceiling! And not only a fan of Poison, but in the club! For some reason this is blowing my mind, heh… I would have never guessed that about you :P
October 13th, 2006 at 3:50 am
I sincerely LOVE you for your spirit, and your courage !
Whatta girl !
I think you look great…
I spent a lot of time with knee-length hair, leather bustier/vests [no shirt underneath!], high laced-up boots, Dr. Zhivago-style coats, dripping Mitsouko, Femme, and Balahe…
I was busy having sex in semi-public places w/my soon-to-be-DH…
Oh, in a cast-off, natural brown Persian lamb Schiaparelli coat w/ a huge mink shawl-collar [nothing else, I fear]-HOW un-PC…
I don’t know when I found the time-
I was nursing full-time, teaching, translating,singing opera, power-lifting, and catering…
Don’t you wish we still possessed all that raw energy?
October 13th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Yes! Ysatis! I got a bottle of that junior year of high school (85-86), and I loved it. Back then, it was my lemming. You had your hair, and I was doing the “wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside” thing. What made it so disconcerting was my frigging Breck Girl hair. No match for the darkness. I was the ultimate poseur!
No photos survive from that period, but I do have the “I’m a funky hippie chick” spiral perm photos from college. Lucky me. By then I’d moved solidly into Opium and Fendi.
Happy weekend, Katie!
October 13th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
I hardly like any Givenchy perfumes, but Ysatis is in a category of it’s own. It’s an outstanding fragrance that makes me feel like an Indian princess/goddess every time I wear it. It’s my “heavy duty” perfume that I pull out when I go to serious parties and events. Everyone comments on it. It has major sillage and dresses up whatever you happen to be wearing. I have a difficult time imagining this perfume on a someone dressed up as Kiss, but you were probably able to pull it off without a hitch. I read your reviews on celeb perfumes - loved it! Have a great weekend!
October 13th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Great post K, and just love the pictures — never did metal…we were into Elvis Costello & Joe Jackson & such, but trust me, my scrapbook is just as bad, LOL…
October 13th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Bwah ha ha ha *cough* hee hee hee!
I should dig into my old scrapbook, too.
October 13th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
LOL! I can’t really chime in here because I don’t think I ever went through a hair metal phase nor ever organized a scrap book. For contrast, I can tell you that I used to wear Ysatis in a very preppy atmosphere, while I was studying at Oxford University; I remember going though 2 bottles of it at the time, alternating with Lauren and Samsara:)
October 16th, 2006 at 8:43 am
ok Katie, here’s my truly honest and unbiased critique: You look faboulous, pure eighties.
Hmm, I looked at your pictures BRAVO! for posting them and realized that there is an urgent neeed to check some of mine. Not that I would publish my hairy woobly face on my blog though. …..
A final thought: At least we men do not have to worry about our lipstick when looking back ;-)
October 16th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Look, Sebastian Bach was hot. Remember the flack when he was photographed wearing that “Aids kills fags dead” t-shirt? I took his picture down then not only because the t-shirt was tasteless, but because in interviews he revealed himself to be brain damaged, which I couldn’t tell from my carefully dissembled issues of Circus magazine.
I loved that “Savage Animal” clip. Love.
The horror was shortlived, though. At age 13, I would hear, in one magical summer, the Pixies, the Replacements, the Cure, and Concrete Blonde, and by high school all traces of Sebastian Bach would have been washed away by a flood of Elvis Costello. But in those prelapsarian days, middle school was a truly magical kingdom ruled by Aqua Net, Wet n Wild eyeshadow, and writing the names of bands on our jeans with a Sharpie. I am glad to have lived that life briefly, if only because it helped me understand the darkness. I’m sorry, that’s not right. I meant to say it helped me understand The Darkness.
October 17th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Love those pictures, i wouldn’t dare show any of mine, I was miss Disco Queen, baby! I also had a thing for Ysatis, though smelling it now I cannot in any way imagine why. Gehck, I wonder how I smelled with the combo of Ysatis and Bonny Bell with a touch of Prell added on. Luckily I moved from there to Punk, which espoused no fragrance whatsoever.
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I love you! I was looking for this ad for ages! Thanks for publishing it. I used to have the pic in real size in my living room during these glamourous 80s, as you say.
Do you happen to have a bigger size for this pic?
And I wore No. 5 too.
October 26th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
chayaruchama, we all have some goofy pictures from our past, especially those teen years, no? I do so wish I had that sort of energy, too. Oooh, Misouko, Femme, and Balahe - you were a bombshell!
greeneyes, heh, all that black clothing thing is something everyone had to do at some point in the teen years ;) I’d love to see the spiral perm photos - heh, I am so glad I missed out on ever perming my hair.
Flor, I can so see it as a princess/goddess fragrance. It’s so opulent and big, it seems quite fitting for that. The sillage is just wild on me, too. And thanks :)
Robin, ah, you had better musical taste than I, then. I’m curious now as to what the contents of your scrapbook looks like, heh!
Nobi, heh, that’d be a trip. It’s a little scary going through some of those old pictures, but at least it’s good for a laugh.
Mimi, no scrapbook? Aw. I love that it was your preppy frag, what a contrast indeed!
Andy, thanks, but I’m not sure that’s at all true :P But c’mon, you must have some very funny picture from back then!
Tania, how is that I’m not able to pick up a magazine with your articles in it or your books at the bookstore yet?! That whole comment is awesome. *kicks publishing industry in the shins*
Emotenote, I miss disco, too. Well, the music more than the fashion. The combo of Ysatis, Bonne Bell and Prell sounds potent. It’s good though that you moved away from no fragrance whatsoever; how dull it would be to go without. I kind of wonder what music/fashion trend will come next after the world gets bored with this whole “bling” thing…
Del, alas, no I don’t have a bigger size, but check at toutenparfum.com to see if she’s got any scans perhaps? I know I’ve used some of her scans as backgrounds on my desktop before, so they’re reasonably sized.