En Avion (1929)
by Caron

When I first wore En Avion, I was overwhelmed by the sort of tactile transport that I have come to associate with Caron extraits. Dense and heady, indeed. I think of the thick cloud within which Venus hides Aeneas when she wishes to render him invisible; or of the concluding lines of the Ode on Melancholy: "His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, / And be among her cloudy trophies hung."

There is a sense that the top notes of En Avion do not float around one, but rather that one floats within them. They press against one from all directions in a combination of cool magnetism and grasping cloud. A great Saturn of neroli is uppermost. Not dustily gaseous, as the real Saturn is, but wet because of menthol and/or anise - it is hard to say which, but the Sage of Caron (my respected friend Larimar) tells me that a fleeting mentholated note is often encountered in perfumes from this era. These top notes are huge, and have a reflective quality reminiscent of a globule of quicksilver. One could dive into this opening, despite its resemblance to a massive sphere.

The next 12 hours are dominated by an intriguing set of accords in which a 'green' note recalling L'Heure Bleue is principal. Anisic flowers. Is anise really there, or is it geranium? Or do the dry rose and sharp carnation side with something else? Who knows? I am mystified by this green note in the heart and base of En Avion, and from which so much of its personality derives. For me, it is a perfect 'black box': aloof, strangerly and disinclined to soften on my skin.

Some people report a mirage of suede in En Avion's heart notes. I fail to register it. Working with leather may have made me less sensitive, rather than more, to its inexact recapitulations.

En Avion is unmistakably a feminine scent. It has been called a 'full-blooded woman'. Personally, I perceive an implacable quality in En Avion, so rarefied that she herself (if one may offer this perfume its plausible gender) is almost abstracted. She does not subscribe to the typical catalogue of human relations. They could not be further from her thoughts. Love? Friendship? The mores and courtesies that are the weft of life? Irrelevant. She is bent on an ambition, mentation, or aspiration; a saint rapt in a private vision, a mathematician absorbed in a lofty reverie. Focused on her object, she will not even look at me. Her ambition is higher, perhaps nobler, perhaps military, perhaps alien. I admire her. She makes me think of Alexander in his Romance, drawn towards the highest boundary of the sky by griffins. But without his longing. She looks at the heavens not with wistfulness, but with resolve.

Cool fervour, harsh serenity, lovely relentlessness - these paradoxical clauses sound more like a description of love, I know. And I could love the woman conjured for me by En Avion - but I would not disturb her. She is unapproachable, not because forbidding, but because her nature is solitary ascent. It is the gravest and least deliberate coquetry imaginable, attracting my interest precisely because of the unbridgeable distance it suggests. I wear En Avion often, wanting to keep that distance close to me.

The drydown is shimmering and faintly sweet - Larimar's description of "soft and sweet skin out at the fresh air and sun" seems perfect. It relaxes slightly, and shows the perfume at its least implacable. 'Bosomy'? I suppose so; but I sense the hard green note until the very end. En Avion, that grave pilotess, does manage a faint, disinterested smile. And then she passes from my ken altogether.

Need I add that En Avion is one of my very favourite perfumes? Its longevity is superb; it is dense, but its coolness makes it wearable in every weather. It rewards attentive study of the difficult (sometimes painful) emotions and stark images it evokes.

4th January, 2012.

All things that truly are sublime contain a suggestion of ugliness. There is no painting, no poem, no song that does not somehow break through to the heights of earthly perfection through some unexpected, discordant detail. The green face of a garishly painted woman half cut off by the frame in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting. The bizarre colour of the sun in a Monet landscape: One stands before it, perplexed, and wonders: However did mere paint capture that, the very essence of illumination? Thus, En Avion. Naturally, as the French say, "les avis sont partages." Personally, I have never been a fan of Caron. When Henri Almeras created "Que Sais-je?" for Jean Patou in 1923, (readers, take note, the Chanel woman was very most certainly not the first to offer perfumes to her couture clients, though she takes credit today for that innovation, along with so very many others, such as the invention of jersey) he explained that in his heart he wished to render the "trouble" of love. Keep in mind, "trouble," in french, translates as a kind of confusion. This specific thing Is what I find perplexing in most all of Ernest Daltroff's compositions. Recently, I found a photo of him: He very obviously would have been sitting at "the Good Russian table" in Thomas Mann's "the Magic Mountain," and quite possibly, he was: To study his facial features, one is struck by a depth of intelligence and the unmistakeable mark of an overactive mind. To me, this neurosis and intellectual over activity are his hallmarks very clearly rendered in each of his fragrant masterpieces. No bottle baring the name "Caron" will ever be insipid or unremarkable. Even the simpler scents, Bellogia or Pour un Homme, are somehow intricate; as intricate as the human mind. En Avion is the textbook illustration of this artistry in molecular structure inhaled through the nose: It evokes so very many things, yet nothing at all that is obvious. It may smell "leathery," but never simply of leather. Other reviewers wax on about cloves and carnation; certainly present here, but somehow only suggested. En Avion is, along with Jicky, perhaps one of the most beguiling scents the world has ever known: At once feminine and masculine, stunningly beautiful and repulsively ugly, of highest born royal blood and secretly born in a barn then left forgotten, En Avion seems to reflect in infinite facets all the highs and lows of life itself. Like it, hate it. Love it, loathe it. Guaranteed you will feel something if you dab some of this on, and live with it for the day. You will feel. You will not just smell. All of us, numb to the transcendent beauty of Heaven that secretly enfolds us wherever we go, we need En Avion....truly, though for some they will be steely and of cutting blades and for others they will be of swan's down and brilliantly coloured plumes, here is a perfume that quite literally will give you wings. Where you go on your flight is for you to decide.

11th October, 2011.

EN AVION is akin to an elegantly executed choreography involving neroli, rose and carnation. No overbearing notes, nothing strident as far as my nose can tell, just a pleasurably smooth ride from take-off to landing. I don't really get any distinct leather accord but this is probably one of those times when the total is greater than the sum of its parts. Do try and get some of it on the fabric of your clothes - it's divine!

******** This review is of the non-vintage parfum ********

26th September, 2011.

I confess that the opening of En Avion is my absolute favorite in perfumery (that I have experienced so far)... it's ravishingly beautiful, daring, sexy and breathtaking.
En Avion in extrait (there is no point in getting the EdPs of a Caron urn fragrance IMO as they are fairly expensive and second class, although the En Avion EdP is rather nice.) is what I call a leather "illusion" as the orange blossom and spicy orange with the greenish rose and dark Caron carnation really create a perfect leather vision after cooking for a while on your skin. I am very picky about my leathers (with very few exceptions they are only real cuir-de-russies), but this is a very satisfying beige soft leather, if you get the idea. En Avion is on the sweeter side, produces initially a lot of sillage (diva-style!), which is also why I usually dab it as it renders the extrait slightly darker in mood and a bit closer to skin. The drydown is again heavenly beautiful as it really resembles soft and sweet skin out at the fresh air and sun and lingers on literally forever. This is both a very old-fashioned classy parfum (also in the way it takes time to develop and progress), but it is timelessly stylish... a highly underrated and maybe today misunderstood crown jewel! It's definitely in my top five!
*****
EN AVION VINTAGE VS. NEW

1990s vs. 2011 extrait
Same rough, splendid opening, same main contributor after the initial burst, which is a green rose to my nose.
Three hours into my wearing I have to confess, my untrained nose does not smell any difference at all. There were short moments I felt the 1990s jus had a slightly more pronounced chypre (oakmoss) tone, then the other moment I felt it was not the case. I don't smell any difference with regard to sweetness in the drydown either. They both progress exactly the same way to me, same pace, same intensity. I could maybe be talked into a nuance more chypre touch of the 1990s extrait, but then, it would make me think about what the fifteen years meant for the sensitive notes that En Avion mainly consists of. Ageing would always bring the chypre undertone slightly more to the foreground IMO (from oils disintegrating...). An average 15 years age difference between the two extraits is not much, but still I'm talking only of nuances here anyway. Same situation for the deep base lingering on, same longevity, same sillage.

1930s extrait
I smell turned notes in the opening.
I am very familiar with the 1930s Lanvin classics and as such, Rumeur is my reference chypre and smell of the era's style. This does remind me of Rumeur apart from the orange tree and spicy orange notes, which is probably what I am smelling. This is rather a different fragrance in feel and wear compared to the two newer extraits - a hardcore chypre very much in the style of its time. The orange accord reminds me quite a bit of an old bottle of orange bitters I have, which is the bartender's little helper apart from the Angostura bitters. There was a point I could smell a mentholated fresh note, which I last smelled in 1930s Djedi two weeks ago. It is a note that is not uncommon in these vintage fragrances. I too wonder whether this is an actual note or a sort of chemical reaction in the vintage jus? This does not last and the medicinal, bitter orangey accord remains, a rather linear development overall.
I was in for quite a surprise when after six hours the 1930s extrait, after the chypre predominance had died down, rather closely approximated the sweet intoxicating deep base of the new extrait. Same level of sweetness... so much for the claims that today's extrait was so much sweeter than the 'vintage'.

En Avion in the newer extrait forms is much more a floral oriental to my perception - has always been (I can recognize the chypre character more in its sister fragrance Tabac Blond), whereas the 1930s is very much a classic chypre of its time with the special orange theme.

I think Fraysse is doing an excellent job... if he cheapened the ingredients, as some claim, congratulations, I don't smell it.
However hard I try, I have yet to smell one of those dreaded Caron reformulations!

10th June, 2011. (Last Edited: 6th August, 2011.)

Well named, this scent certainly smells like the inside of a plane, and not in a good way. As I sniff, I imagine I'm on a cheap holiday jet with not-very-clean bathrooms and leaking aircraft fuel. Someone has just plonked a smoky leather jacket on the seat next to mine, and it reeks like an ashtray. Add to that the smell of cheap soap from the open bathroom door, and I begin to feel quite literally sick to my stomach. This is the reformulated version and in EdT form, but even so, I can't believe this was ever a good fragrance or that anyone would want to wear it. I smell like a stranded holidaymaker who's been forced to sleep in the airport lounge for several nights! Never again!

23rd May, 2011.

I could not agree more with BayKat in that this scent will make your day truly magical.

It will provide you with hours of pleasure, shaping your day with an infusion of rose, clove, carnation and leather. It does remind me of my grandmother playing the piano in her amazing living room overlooking the village mountains...

This scent is in my eyes what the true art of perfumerie is all about...heaven, I am in heaven...

11th September, 2010.