CHANEL Cuir de Russie

Like the grand Russian émigrés that populated 1920s Paris after fleeing their palaces in St Petersburg, Odessa and Moscow at the onset of the Russian Revolution, Cuir de Russie is a perfume that seems displaced within the broader Les Exclusifs de CHANEL collection. Eschewing the abundant sweetness of N°22, daintiness of Gardénia, Misia and Coromandel’s overt vivacity, and the mass appeal of Beige and Jersey in favour of brooding animalic leather and pensive mood, Cuir de Russie stands apart from its Exclusifs kin as the fragrance with the most to say, the most noteworthy story to tell. And what a story it is.

Captivated by their jewels, grandiose titles and tales of Cossacks and revolution, Parisian society was in awe of its new-found Russian members by the ‘20s. Having by this time established herself and the house of CHANEL as society darlings, Coco was surrounded by Russian émigrés; the Ballets Russes’ impresario Sergei Diaghilev, dancer Serge Lifar and composer Igor Stavinsky all became confidants and muses, collectively proving a source of inspiration for CHANEL’s Russian inspired fashion collections through the ‘20s and beyond. Of all the Russians in her circle though, none would prove to have bigger impact on Coco or the story of CHANEL than Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich – cousin to Tsar Nicholas II, Imperial Russian Army officer, active sportsman, renowned sybarite, and Coco’s lover.

Having first been acquainted in Pre-World War I Paris, Coco and the Grand Duke commenced a romance in 1921 after finding themselves reunited in Monte Carlo. Making a home together on the French Riviera, it was there that Pavlovich introduced Coco to his friend and fellow émigré, Ernest Beaux, the perfumer who would go on to create for CHANEL the iconic N°5 and so many other long since lost fragrances. Now considering that Coco was fervidly opposed to releasing a perfume prior to her meeting with Beaux, Coco’s relationship with Pavlovich could be considered fortuitous – if not for Pavlovich there would be no N°5, perhaps no CHANEL perfume at all. More than this though, and despite it proving only short-lived, the romance between Coco and Pavlovich was a passionate one much lamented by Coco after its end. Enter Cuir de Russie.

Unlike N°5 and N°22 which preceded it, each chosen from the same batch of nine samples presented to Coco upon her request for a perfume that ‘smelled of a woman’, Cuir de Russie was the first Chanel fragrance that Coco herself had a hand in crafting. Her brief to perfumer Ernest Beaux in 1924 was a personal one, she wanted a fragrance that captured the essence of her romance with the Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich; the plushness of their shared apartment, the lingering scent of N°5 in their tryst-tousled sheets, and the birch tar-polished riding boots of the Grand Duke that stood to attention at the foot of their bed. Translated by Beaux, this became a sparkling flurry of aldehydes atop a restrained floral bouquet, and the profundity of birch tar and leather, all shadowed by a mood of pensive longing and melancholy.

Revived in 1983 then reorchestrated for the Les Exclusifs collection in 2007, CHANEL describes Cuir de Russie as a “rich, woody oriental”, while offering this in the way of a notes list:

orange blossom, mandarin, bergamot, tobacco, ylang-ylang, rose, jasmine, leather, resins, birch

My many years experience wearing Cuir de Russie would suggest a much more elaborate notes list, one closer to this:

aldehydes, orange blossom, bergamot, mandarin, clary sage, jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang, iris, birch tar, balsams, tobacco, vetiver, styrax, myrrh, vanilla, orris, amber

Contrary to CHANEL’s own description, let me prelude my impression of Cuir de Russie by noting that I do not consider the composition to be at all “woody”. While birch tar – the material at the heart of Cuir de Russie – is derived from timber, it is not a note that can be considered woody in the typical sense of cedar, sandalwood, rosewood, et cetera. What birch tar is is a smoky resinous note – deep, dark and smoky – that is produced by extracting and cooking the bark of birch trees to a yield the tar-coloured resin that tanneries and the Imperial Russian Army employed for centuries to polish their leather riding boots. Birch tar is not woody, but rather smoky, leathery.

Cuir de Russie’s opening proclaims the composition to be every bit a classic CHANEL perfume. Beaux’s olfactory signature – a crisp aldehydic flurry over restrained floral bouquet of jasmine, rose and ylang-ylang – is reassuring in its fizzing familiarity, offering a comforting precursor to the rapidly darkening composition that follows. Pushed into the heart by mounting intensity of orange blossom indoles and smokiness of leathery birch tar, Cuir de Russie evolves into a dry and sensuous leather powder with animalic notes that oscillate between fatty, salicylate, almost aldehydic-like lanolin and a stale, barnyard leather darkness. Then, just in time to thwart the composition’s descent into full animalic filth, the frigid, earthen elegance of iris weaves its tendrils through the heart before carrying through the drydown.

The drydown itself is no less complex, and arguably even more luxurious than the stages that preceded it. Warm, tarred and slightly oily, here the darkness of leathery birch meld with styrax, myrrh, vanilla and sweet tobacco to create a breathtakingly beautiful accord reminiscent of buttery, well-worn leather goods whose rich, smoky character is elevated to ever soaring heights by CHANEL’s subtle florals, the parched vetiver, a voluptuous amber and buttery orris base. A symphony of notes and accords that contrast the light with the dark and dense with the weightless, Cuir de Russie’s composition is definitively aristocratic.

For true magnificence though, for sumptuousness as indulgent as Coco and Pavlovich’s affair itself, CHANEL offers us Cuir de Russie in Extrait de Parfum concentration. Ceding some of the aldehydic lather and floral tonality of the Eau de Parfum, the Extrait is a finely balanced commingling of here darker, smokier, tobaccoed leather heft, and supple, velvety, very much more delicate orris. The result, a supple tactility of immeasurable intimacy; the perfume equivalent of a pair of finest kid gloves so lovingly well-worn they become a second skin – a leather caress.

A variation of the N°5 structure in the way that N°22 and Bois des Îles are, the real genius of Cuir de Russie is its embodiment of the story that inspired it. Manging to project grace, tension, sensuality, and aloofness, Cuir de Russie has an emotional tactility about it that one so rarely comes across in perfume. The true grande dame of the Les Exclusifs de CHANEL collection, at least in my mind.

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Year of Release: 1924

Perfumer: Ernest Beaux

Alternatives: CHANEL N°22, Robert Piguet Bandit, Knize Ten

Available: CHANEL boutiques and www.chanel.com from $285, 75ml.