With the Colour ColleCtion
Guerlain sees fraGrance in colour
Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance In a deep and tenebrous unity,
Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day, Perfumes, sounds, and colours correspond.
Charles Baudelaire, “Correspondences”
Notes, accords, harmonies… In the interplay of correspondences celebrated by Baudelaire, perfume most readily echoes music. But is it possible to see a scent? Smell in colour? With the Colour Collection, Guerlain rises to this playful sensory challenge. Which comes as no surprise, given that the House was able to interpret L’Heure Bleue – that moment at dusk when the day gives way to night – in fragrance form.
Unprecedented in perfumery, the idea for this precious limited edition was inspired by a phenomenon that remains a mystery: synaesthesia. A spontaneous association of the senses experienced by many artists, musicians and authors. Including Vassily Kandinsky and Duke Ellington, who saw music in colour, and Vladimir Nabokov who, as in Rimbaud’s “Vowels” (A black, E white, I red, etc.), perceived the shade and texture of letters…
