Just like works of visual art, fashion, or architecture, perfumes are cultural products with specific connections to time and place, and they often have stories and styles that endure. In this PSP program that encourages participants to take a new look (or sniff) at perfume’s presence in our lives, five iconic fragrances will be explored within their cultural and social contexts. From Paris to New York, from the fin de siècle to the Roaring Twenties, World War II, and beyond, we’ll learn who created these legendary perfumes, what inspired them, and why they’re considered classics. Why, for example, was Molinard Habanita the perfect scented accessory for a flapper of the 1920s? And how did Christian Dior Diorissimo complement Dior’s fashion designs and their postwar ideals of femininity? This multi-sensory program (with a guided sampling of five fragrances) will encourage everyone to think about fragrance both as a universal experience and as a specific cultural phenomenon of the 20th century.

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