Une femme sans parfum n’a pas d’avenir (Coco Chanel

I am getting ready for my vacation trip to Tunesia with Coco’s saying still in mind. (There will be some pause in postings on this blog, with lots to follow once I’ve happily returned home.) Coco Chanel’s citation is placed on the cover of “Au sense du parfum” by Guy Robert and it is one of Coco’s many statements regarding perfumes. Another saying goes like: Perfume yourself there where you would like to get kissed; a saying which also leaves a lot of room for second thoughts. Une femme sans parfum n’a pas d’avenir translates into something like: “A woman without perfume has not future” or “there is no future for a woman without perfume”. Tough. And with a double sense. Why should a woman not have a decent future without perfume? I personally know a few women not wearing perfume at all and all of them are living quite happily with a decent outlook to their time still ahead. Of course, Coco had something else in mind than just the mere fact of whether you wear a perfume or not. A good guess might be, she really cared about the attitude of a potential perfume wearer. The deeper aim of perfuming yourself. It is about the change you can bring to yourself, concealing a physical truth about yourself, multiplying yourself, adding an accent to your appearance which lightens your public exposure in a hostile world, playing the game of transformation. What Coco wanted is a woman to have a vision and aspiration in mind, with perfumes being one tool play and to put the world to surrender. Not giving yourself up, but rather fight with all there is to enlighten your personality. Stop struggling and you will loose your hopes. Stop dreaming and you will wake up one day without a vision to follow. In that sense Coco’s words are very true. In that sense, you perfume yourself very much for yourself, in order to love yourself a little bit more, with your nose being the mirror reflecting your delightful picture. Of course, you do not really need perfumes to develop and cultivate this affection for yourself. But for sure, it helps. And I would assume that a touch of this truth is also applicable for men.