Chic, a definition

While listing his ten favorite fragrances, NY Times perfume critic Chandler Burr recalls Luca Turin’s definition of chic.

Luca once called something chic, and I asked him why, or rather what “chic” was exactly. He sighed and said despairingly, “Chic is the most impossible thing to define.” He thought about it. “Luxury is a humorless thing, largely. Chic is all about humor. Which means chic is about intelligence. And there has to be oddness — most luxury is conformist, and chic cannot be. Chic must be polite, but within that it can be as weird as it wants.”

(via gold digger)

• Chandler Burr
• language
• Luca Turin
• perfume
• smell