Maharajah de Kapurthala

part I.

I'm not an avid collector of shoes.
Not that I wouldn't want to be but I fall even of the lowest of heels and there is rather limited variety of funky shoes on flat soles or platforms. I have a pair of dress Birks, had thongs with rhinestones... and the rest is plain vanilla whatever comes in size 42. Which does not necessarily mean that I wouldn't appreciate looking at shoes. The other day, many months ago, I wandered to the Ferragamo museum to, well, look at shoes. It was nice to see all those creations, I was never aware how much of it was custom-made, all that crochet and lace. But then there was this one:

Jewelled sandals made for Maharani of Cooch Behar. While I searched for the picture, I learned that she was a real fashion icon of her time. The tag in the museum cupboard also said that a handful of replicas are reserved for customers of the Ferragamo store in Tokyo, upon which I bitterly regretted that I'm not filthy rich.

I spent the afternoon searching the internets. I discovered that Kapurthala is a real place (sorry.... my geography is no big deal) and that, among other interesting tidbits of information, it's where the Shalimar gardens are located (1).
And then there's Parfum du Maharajah de Kapurthala by Lenthéric. Perfume Intelligence says: "Named after the Maharajah; possibly commissioned by him." Or, wide choice, low prices (2). At least Perfume Intelligence says that the perfume was launched in 1925 and should it have been comissioned by the Maharajah, or named after him, then it was Jagatjit Singh:


While researching for something useful for this post (4), I found lots of articles about how the Indian royalty had nothing constructive to do, being under the British rule so they toured Europe spending money by handfuls and were glamorous. See the sandals above, after all.

It's not an exciting piece of information but I'll check some books for part II. Meantime, you can disentangle the recurrent and less recurrent notes. (9) The actual perfume review will be up as soon as Plague is over and I can trust my smell again.


Images snatched from The Tribune (the jewel-covered sandal;


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(1)Think Guerlain's Shalimar. Clicking the linky in the wikipedia article about Kapurthala, I was redirected to an article about Shalimar Gardens in Lahore. Low prices, wide choice (3). See also (5)
(2) that's sarcasm
(3) that's also sarcasm.
(4) whose usefulness is at your judgment, as well as my research result
(5) The Shalimar Gardens of Lahore, I read at Wikipedia, source of all knowledge (6), were built by Shah Jahan of Taj Mahal fame and I've hereby judged that it's these gardens that gave name to the perfume. (8)
(6) albeit sometimes very wrong, but all
(8) It is also possible that Shalimar Garden means Municipal Green in some language I do not know so it's up to the readers to educate me.
(9) I wasn't drunk while writing this. Neither insane. Just playful. (10)
(10) tee hee, see how much can be written just about nothing.

Plague

Warning: this post contains vivid descriptions and enthusiastic discussion on green mucus. Sensitive souls, check tags like cats, knitting and occasional perfumista for your own safety and well-being.

Mom got the same mixture of rhinoviri or some such nasty thing so our morning skype conversations go like Oh, my cold got a bit better - Cool, Mom, so did mine. Today there was some collective whining about hamburger noses (raw meat, wink wink hint hint). Now she's having an editorial meeting while I'm doing the laundry (sweaty bed linen, mainly), drinking my third coffee (addiction, I have it) and out of sheer interest, trying to verify my guess that the green gunk is made of dead leucocytes and dead viruses/bacteria. I found a ton of moreless disgusting pics on Wikipedia but no detailed description of what is green gunk made of.

To make things clear, I'm all for natural sciences. However, I've lived on the arts faculty for so long that the lack of will to get my hands dirty is pretty deeply rooted. I wanted to go to the medical school when I was 19, by the way, and the only thing that turned me off was the fact that before getting to some cool pathology lab where I could slice tumors, I'd need to meet the live, annoying people. I wasn't particularly cuddly type even then.

In other news, a friend of mine got a Siamese kitten. Squeeee. I'll be seeing them next weekend, expect teh cute.

Disasters

Last Thursday, I ran out of coffee. Since I'm short of cash and it rained, I drank tea. Also, the idea of a sixpack of Davidoff at parents' prevented me from actually buying some. It was tough.

I got cold. It felt nasty yesterday, today it feels nasty, it hurts and I cough. Mix that asthmatic type cough, bronchospasm and that productive cough that expels goo from your lungs.

In attempt to relieve my sore throat, sore Eustachian tube and sore trachea, I decided that booze may work. It relaxes muscles, it's a vasoconstrictor so there should be less mucus to annoy. Another disaster struck, I ran out of Cordial Médoc.

Sigh.

Superficialities

The hair dye I got from hairdressers' supply shop is some tough shit. Also fun to play with, the goo to work with is blue. To explain, I bear a grudge against my genetics. I am blonde, it's my phenotype (1) that doesn't fit. I struggle hard.

The other day, I was meeting one of the friends who had hitherto lived only in my computer and knew me from the pics. When we met in person, she exclaimed "Oh! What a surprise! From the pics, I'd guess you'd be a tiny fragile beauty and you're...." she was thinking hard how to say that I'm big, fat (2) and tall. "March of Valkyries," I hinted.

I like going to the gym. I admit that it's stupid to move around big pieces of steel and that a long walk would be more refreshing but I still like it. I noticed that I got to the laughable habits of watching myself in the mirror, checking whether my muscles are growing. Well, not really so. Having done ballet for years, I'm used to tough stretching and it helps to have a mirror to look how wrong I do it.
I ranted happily about that at home. Mom said that I should give it a break, that I already have more muscles than what's pretty and I want to look feminine, don't I.

Mom would be that fragile waif although she has some thyroid problems and it's tough for her to keep her weight down - and she gets obsessive about it. She would want me to look like hers in her younger years forgetting the important fact that I'm built like my big, massive tall father. And I believe that muscles are cool, if not feminine. One can use them whereas femininity is just a sticky label that gets in one's hair or causes skin irritations.

Cousin was visiting. She wanted to go for a shopping spree, needing some professional clothes. I went along with her since I could use something serious, too. While watching the cousin trying on pants and blouses, I made an exciting discovery: I feel like shit in formal wear because it doesn't fit. I've not worn pants that go up to the armpits natural waist since I reached my actual height... while formal pants go somewhere to the chest. If I had belly so flat that I'd look okay in this cut of anything, I wouldn't cover it, folks. Same with jackets, whatever fits across the shoulders is baggy elsewhere. After inquiring carefully in the local salon, I found out that having stuff tailored is not really expensive than buying it off-rack. I'll get civilized one day, wait for more information.

Sephora has green nail paint. Hallelujah, the last decent green was in Dior's spring collection in around 1998.

While shopping at the hairdressers' supplier, I got a bun form. Festival of kitschy hair may begin.



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(1) genetics exam looming ahead
(2) somewhat less so nowadays. Somewhat bigger, too.

Random observations

I have quite a heap of odd balls that don't match anything in a reasonable manner to knit them into a decent stripped sweater. The rainbow-coloured boucle looks okay when knitted so there's another baby sweater in the making.

I bought hair dye from a hairdressers' online store. There's a box of powder and a bottle of liquid. Big box, big bottle. Should be mixed together but the whole amount would dye the whole street. Yet another reason to buy a digital scale.

In an attempt to do something about my last new size 41 shoes, I soaked them in the stretch foam, wore them around the house and then decided to go out. I was wise enough to plaster the most potentially problematic posts with the foam toe wrap. but at the metro station, I was sort of forced to change in the much less stylish but comfy Birks.

Bizarre in peoplewatching:
Two Nazi types wearing distinctively feminine perfume of a fashionable sort - that synthetic flowers and patchouli thingy. Think Idylle, Idole or just about every other release of 2009.
A female tennis player. Rather fat, wearing a tennis dress one size smaller than herself. With a very short skirt. Not that type with sewn-in underpants. Some things just shouldn't be done.
A gal wearing a kimono. Along with ugly and worn-out suede shoes on high wedges and a big winter jacket (think Michelin Man).
Mother with a toddler girl. Toddler girl dressed head to toe in pink and ruffles, mother with loooong fake nails, hair extensions, ten centimetres heels, all fashionable, cool and in. And travelling with the pram and two suitcases. Whining how travelling is tough.

Chantilly

I've heard around five times in the news that today, it's the birthday of Queen Elizabeth. Not that it mattered to me in any particular way but it prompted me to blow dust off the bottle of Houbigant's Chantilly.

Houbigant is a brand that has fallen deep. From supplying the court of France and England to a drugstore brand. The history is neatly summed up here. The main point is that after around 1994, Houbigant is an empty name.

I got Chantilly because I liked the icosahedron shaped bottle. The tag says Collection Royale and I haven't found such a flacon elsewhere so I don't really know. I guess it was a limited edition, the idea offers itself, but I have no idea when it was launched. the tag also says Blended in U. S. A. so it may be after the Houbigant brand was taken over by Dana. I have no idea.
Not rarely bottles are better than content but this wasn't the case.

Now, the fragrance. I was struck. It is old-fashioned in the best way, a generous bouquet of roses and other flora with a pinch of salty leather and spices and quite some oakmoss. It's pretty hard to discern the notes, the thing is very well blended. I read various descriptions of it, along the lines of Ptuiii, a grandma scent, boring soapy powdery ugly. I would agree only with the grandma scent, after all, good part of the Guerlain classics are grandma scents and grandma's grandma scents so what. When thinking how to describe the scent, words like lush, rich, glamorous, luxurious sprang into my mind. And happines and joie de vivre. I'll wear it for errands, and mind you, I'm far away from anything glamorous (1).
And... the drydown is all oakmoss and leather. It has almost mineral qualities and at least referring to inanimate nature seems to be a bit of a trend (Sel de Vetiver, Olivier Durbano's line, Lalique's rather uninspiring Amethyste...) so to hell with grandma scent.

Houbigant was launched in 1941, a creation of Marcel Billot.
Nowadays it is available cheaply all over the internet but I have no idea whether it's the same thing as mine.

top notes: fruity notes, neroli, bergamot, lemon
middle notes: spices, carnation, jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, orange blossom
base notes: leather, tonka bean, musk, benzoin, oakmoss, vanilla, sandalwood

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(1) like, faded hoodie, secondhand jeans and I don't accept criticism. I don't care about clothes that much as long as they fit, last long, are comfy and black - which ends with expensive tank tops and hoodies that don't look the price, after all, I carefully remove all offending logos. I like to get up, pick whatever and be sure that it works.

How I didn't get another cat

... and I'm telling you, it cost me quite some effort.
I miss my Meezer. Alas, due to my somewhat itinerant life, it would be too complicated to have the cat with me and drag her around but I do miss the little creature walking at my heels and commenting, playing hide and seek, being vocal, and the little paws and soft nose and... anyway.
The local shelters organize a cat show of shelter cats where one can come and pick their new pet. I wanted to have a look and to cuddle a few cats so yesterday, I got a triple dose of my allergy meds and went.
And there she was. A black Siamese mix that looked like a random black cat, she was bigger than many of the cats around because her previous owner died, she wasn't an underfed stray. But while a good part of the cats was nervous or just ignoring the buzz, this one went from person to person and when she was put back to the cage, she started whining in a very Siamese voice. And she had that soft Meezer fur, big ears, facial expressions. Squeee.

She had even Siamese facial expressions. I spent most of my time at the show holding this beauty.
I did restrain myself from taking her home, though, and left covered in cat hair, with itchy swollen face. But... squeee.