KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
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Scent of Empire: Chanel Nº 5 and Red Moscow
Engrossing juxtaposition of perfume and politics in France and Russia
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KARL SCHLOGEL’S book is an intriguing history of the development of two perfumes in two different worlds, one of which is globally famous, the other almost unknown outside its homeland.
He begins his account in imperial Russia, where a highly developed perfume industry thrived in Moscow. They were led by two French perfume houses, Brocard & Co and Rallet & Co, with their head perfumers — August Michel at Brocard and Ernest Beaux at Rallet — working on closely related perfumes in honour of the tricentenary of the Romanov dynasty.
The October Revolution brought to an end this world of glittering excess for the few. But scents can survive revolutions and Beaux fled back to France, presenting his formula to Coco Chanel.
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