ROSE AGAIN
ack in 2004, I interviewed Jean-Paul Guerlain—then 67, and the culmination of four generations of perfume genius—at Les Mesnuls, the family seat to the south-west of Paris. I discovered the begetter of Vétiver and Samsara sighing over yet another incarnation of his rose concoction, Nahema. The perfume had been released in 1979 in its 500 version, already testament to an obsession (compare Coco Chanel picking her N°5 out guise, it remained his fixation. Later, he presented me with a rose from his garden. I have it—pressed—to this day: A talisman of its creator’s ever-blooming compulsion.
