Queen spender and hated by her people, Marie-Antoinette continues to fascinate crowds around the world. The one who ends her life tragically, on the scaffold, will however be adulated as a saint in the nineteenth century by the royalists, until becoming, for twenty years, a true pop icon.
Described as "a young modern woman" by the historian Antoine de Baecque, interviewed Wednesday on Europe 1, she became a kind of "fashion icon, fashionista of haute couture", according to him. So much so that the exhibition "Marie-Antoinette, metamorphosis of an image" is dedicated to the Conciergerie from this Wednesday until January 26. For the occasion, the perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, owner of the house of the same name, was the unexpected guest of Europe 1 this Wednesday morning.
Marie-Antoinette at "the vanguard of a renewal and a return to nature"
The perfumer has a special relationship with the Queen of France since he reconstituted his perfume in 2006, relying on original documents of time and thanks to the help of a historian. "The queen felt quite differently from her time, she was at the forefront of a revival and a return to nature.It leaves, unlike Louis XV for example, very musky notes, amber and animal, which are heavy, "he detailed at the microphone of Europe 1.
The queen favored the flowery motifs, especially the rose. "She loved pink, orange blossom and especially the tuberose, a tropical flower that smells like very spicy and very green orange blossom.This is a heady perfume.It also liked the iris. slight notes for the time, but still heavy ". The queen has, indeed, "rid the perfume of the time of all its amber and animal notes," he said. "When a perfumer speaks of an animal note, it is often almost fecal, it does not smell very good and it can even smell the horse dung".
"A queen who provokes" passions and outbursts "
Francis Kurkdjian was inspired by original documents to work on the formula of his perfume. "At the very beginning, when I started to feel the first effects, which really differ from what I usually do - either for my home or for other brands - I wondered if I should change the note." Because the smells and perfumes of the eighteenth century differ greatly from the scents that our noses have become accustomed to today. "At the time, the aristocrats fed on meats, stews and macerated things that were olfactively very powerful, so the bodies have a special smell and then there was also this idea of lack of hygiene", a- he specified.
The perfumer finally decides to stay as faithful as possible: "After a while, I stopped trying to tamper with or adapt the perfume to our nose today, I wanted to respect a form of historical truth. that it was necessary, to have an impression of the time, to respect the olfactory form and the rules of composition which were given to me by my perfumer ancestors ".
The perfumer admitted not to be indifferent to the character of Marie-Antoinette: "It is a historical personality that causes passions and unleashing". "There is something quite endearing about this woman who is a little lonely, with a tragic destiny, a mother very close to her children, which was very special for the time. of the most touching facet of Marie-Antoinette, it is this femininity that was, for the time, very modern, "he concluded.
>> Watch the full interview of Francis Kurkdjian