The following was written in response to a Writers Guild prompt to write about high school memories:
About 1955 or 1956, a high school friend whom I admired introduced me to a popular perfume, Arpege by Lanvin. To me, it seemed like the very elixir of sophistication and beauty. I paid three dollars for three ounces of “eau de toilette” at Brown’s drug store on the north side of the Marshall Square. Not cheap at the time, but worth every penny because spraying it on my wrists and shoulders transformed me into a model like the pictures in magazines for 30 seconds or so.
My long skirts with matching tops were gathered at the waist,skillfully sewn by my mother. Several crinoline petticoats made the skirt quite bouffant, and a wide belt cinched the waist.
Arpege was a temporary salve to my adolescent insecurities. Like teenagers
of every era, I worked hard to make myself fit the ideal of the times. Mostly impossible, since Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield were our role models with their perfectly proportioned measurements. Especially impossible for a skinny brunette kid.
Our mothers frowned on “dyed hair.” Natural blondes were the envy of us all. Flamboyant and courageous girls became blonde with peroxide. Page boy “hairdos” – long hair with the ends carefully rolled under, straight bangs across the forehead, boy cuts, pony-tails, or poodle cuts were the rage. My mother insisted that I get a frizzy permanent every three months so my hair would sort of look like Shirley Temple. Needless to say, I did not aspire to look like Shirley Temple. Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet” would have suited me fine, but that image was out of reach for me as well.
Arpege was my connection to the beautiful people, fleeting though it was. The advertising slogan, “Promise her anything, but give her Arpege”, successfully sold the product; we had little idea that these words were sexist; our feminist consciousness was lying dormant. We aimed to please. Within the rigid rules of the fifties, of course.
A mist of Arpege followed me through my university days. Perfume was not high on the list of priorities, however, when I married a medical student and became the mothers of babies and toddlers. The price of eau de toilette was rising. My husband knew my passion for the scent and once he gave me a bottle for my birthday. The aroma still had the power to make me feel stylish and trendy, overcoming my feelings of fatigue and guilt over weight gain.
Sometime in my thirties, I was in a Kansas City department store and
came across a special offer of my favorite scent with a free fashion umbrella
emblazoned with the word, “Arpege”. I loved it and I remember thinking, “At last, I am a woman of the world. As sophisticated as I am going to get. . .”
Strangely enough, I did not feel any great regrets that I was not one of the beautiful people. Maturity and a sense of humor had given me a great perspective on style and fashion.
In the seventies, I passed a display of three ounce Arpege on a cosmetics counter for $50. In the next decade, while visiting a specialty perfume shop in Paris with my daughter, I saw Arpege on the back shelf for $80. We were not shopping for perfume. My architect daughter was leading us on a tour of glass and steel buildings and the perfume store building was a prototype of modern architecture.
Now and then I long for a nostalgic “fix”. To my horror when I discovered that the current source for buying my favorite perfume is that famous catalogue which arrives in the junk mail from the Vermont Country Store. The Vermont Country Store stocks those old favorites like men’s long johns with the flap that unbuttons in the back and women’s knit underpants with flared legs.
Right under the small blue bottles of “Evening in Paris” and “Blue Lagoon”, toilet water, which were once available for purchase in the dime store, is the musky, sultry scent of sophistication and fashion, Arpege by Lanvin. Really now, what are they thinking?
