Mona di Orio, the perfumer, died on 9th December. Tomorrow she’ll be buried at Zorgvlied cemetery in Amsterdam, ander the Japaneese cherry thee, the ceremony will start at 11 a.m. there is a lot of white flowers that she used to love – white tulips, white orchids, white lilies. We’re pleased with the fact there’ll be some tulips from beauty insider too. We gave some money for that to Alexey Dubinskiy, the owner of “Aroma-tech” shop who has left to Amsterdam.
And I’m still sad.
So, this is the reason why I’m writing this now. To say “thank you” and to hope that it’ll be easier or at least brighter. To tell the truth, all these farewell “thank you” are not for the ones that are gone. They are for those who remain.
I have never met Mona and I never will so I asked everybody about what she was like. What did she love? What did she wear, and what did she create her fragrances of? Where did she live? What did she see in the morning, when awake? When the person makes such aromas, when it’s clear that this person is a genus, and besides not the cast inbronzeinstitutionalizedgenius, but still young and straightforward one, all these details appear to be incredibly interesting. When the person that makes such aromas dies young and it comes clear that she’ll create no more aromas all these details become priceless.
Like it’s going to change something.
I don’t know much about her. I know that she had never studied at any perfume school. I know she had learned from great Edmond Roudnitska and had been his favoriteapprentice. He used to send her to the garden and told her to smell everything out there and then to come back and to createsomething that smells the same way in a test-tube. Later she had created her own line, not so long ago, in 2006 and people had started to talk about her being a sensation because her aromas were different. And then she died aged 40-odd years.
Katya Khmelevskaya, Paloma, has blogged: “Every perfume forum, blog, facebook are crying about her. And surely all the people that used to know her personally. I didn’t know her,I vasn’t lucky enough to meet her. But I’ve always known that Mona had been a modern perfumery hope. And now the hope died.”
Sergey Borisov – Moon Fish that used to write about her aromas at GQ blog said:
“She was thin, red-headed and careful. She used to wear artificialleopard and used to like purple and green besides basic black and white. She had never said a bad thing about one.” Sergey has written well about her “Golden Section” trio, the one where my favorite Vanille is from. “there’s not much time on fairs – Sergey told me today – And all the talks were about aromas…who would have thought that it’s going to work out this way. And there’s still a hundred years more, and so many fairs.”
And Alexey Dubinskiy that has left to Amsterdam, said:
“She was distinctive and she used to believe in the magic of the moment. I think she got burnt a lot of times. I guess, she had a lot of fears.”
She had never called herself a perfumer and she always used to correct the people who have called her so. “I’m not a perfumer, I’m an aroma composer. Aromas exist by themselves, without me, they smell and they’re allright. I just want to compose them into one melody.”
She used to like vine, good cuisine and made friends with chiefs and winemakers
She lived in Nizza, she didn’t hang out at Grasse or Paris perf-society.
She always said “There still are things to work out…” about the aromas she didn’t like but never “psh”.
She created fragrances because the emotions were sweeping her, they needed to be expressed – so she expressed them with her aromas.
Photos of Mona at this post are from Alexey Dubinskiy iPhone. They’re not so clear and perfect, but there’ll be no others. There is a photo of flacons that stand on a shelfinhis»Aroma-tech.» below.
In a whole Moscow the most complete collection of Mona’s aromas is in Alexey’s “Aroma-tech” shop. We’ve decided to meet there on 23rd of December, Friday, 20.00 to try on her aromas again and to talk about them and about Mona. You may join us if you like.
We won’t be crying, we’ll be opening the flacons. Mona’s flacons are opened with a loud sound, like champagne. Alexey is going to tell all the stories about them that he knows.
It’s not necessary to buy an aroma if you want to take part in a meeting. But love to the aromas is. If you want to come – e-mail me, I guess, 15 people will be fine although the shop is rather small.
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