December 23, 2012 |
“I’ll always remember that day. Marty and I had just turned 14. And we went to an Ides of March party. And I went as Jackie Onassis in a pink Chanel suit and a pillbox hat and blood on my dress. Well, ketchup actually. And other stuff, too. Like macaroni. Kind of glued on, like brains. It was more tasteful than it sounds. Everybody remembers that day. Exactly what they were doing.”
What Parker Posey forgot to add in the opening monologue of her career-defining film, The House of Yes, was that she was doused in scent. Well, in my head she was doused in scent. A film noir heroine is always doused in scent. It’s kind of the rule. Whenever she leaves a room she must leave a piece of herself in it. Her scent must linger long after she has gone, to keep up the tension. The air of uncertainty. Parker, or Jackie-O Pascal, which is her character’s name, would wear Chanel Coco Noir. Not only is it suited to her pink Chanel suit, but it also nicely underplays the contrast between the girlish exterior and the darkness within. After all, it takes a certain kind of girl to engage in the extracurricular familial activities Jackie-O Pascal engages in. The scent itself is inspired by the Orient, as are most things Mademoiselle Chanel, the Orient being Venice, the furthest east she ever travelled. But back then Venice was like it was still part of the Byzantine Empire. Back then, it was Death in Venice. The fragrance, in fact, smells like what you would imagine Death in Venice to smell like. There is rose. There is jasmine. There is bergamot and frankincense and sandalwood and patchouli. There is also vanilla, and other things. It’s suffocating in the sense that it takes over all your senses. You want to let it suffocate you. It’s a scent you never forget. It’s Jackie-O Pascal as perfume. If she were allowed out of her mansion prison she would head to Venice to wallow in her obsessions. She would smell of Coco Noir.
by Natalie Dembinska
