I wrote the original core of this essay as a gift for I. almost exactly 3 years ago, on or about the 26th of March 2023. That was when twitter was truly going the way of all things, and the only thing keeping it alive it seemed was Barbenhiemer—the feature double feature of the summer.

We were really into Barbie back then (the concept not the movie). At the time we were both really interested in investigating what wearing girlhood could feel like. We wanted to explore our own girlhoods.

It felt subversive and funny to compare ourselves with Barbie when we were both, in our own ways, about as far from her plastic perfection as one might imagine. We were deliberately inter-cultural rather than pop- Cultural. Our senses of dress were developing rapidly and they were anything but out of the box. And, for goodness sakes, I was 4 years on T and becoming a man.

It felt powerful to say, if Barbie is the woman who could be anything she wanted, why couldn’t she be our neurotic-asses too—or us her injection molded one. I cannot speak for I., but I think its a lot less fun to compare ones self to plastic when you are fighting very hard to be flesh and blood.

This week I happened to have two long. unrelated conversations about the importance of loving not just men but manhood. I think its not only okay, but necessary to romanticize manhood. We just can’t do it in a corporate, plastic way.

I got inspired to unearth this from my archive and add to it.

Two takes on Barbie’s Dream House (Early Summer, 2023)

Which way you take a Barbie themed perfume depends wholly on weather you consider Barbie as the pinnacle of fashion or a gateway to it. Is she the memory of the everything-to-everyone it-girl we once thought it possible to be or is she a child’s first encounter with the woman she will one day be. Do we perceive her forward or backward in time? When do feel farthest from her? When closest?

I can summon images of barbie to my mind. In the first she stands on a glittering platform in the barbie museum, spinning, crystalline, timeless. In the second she smiles out from the Barbie dress up screen and invites us to experiment with her wardrobe, offering us a chance to practice outfit combinations and refine our own tastes. Barbie is, of course, both of these things along with the president, a mermaid, an astronaut, a supermodel, an aerobics instructor, and anything else she wants to be.

Proposal #1: Barbie No. 5 

Top notes: Ginger, A Melting Snow Aldehyde

Mid notes: Maraschino Cherry, Lemonade, Ylang Ylang, 

Dry Down: Amber Benzion, Champagne, Hints of Sandalwood 
To capture Barbie as a prophecy of adult glamor I wanted to give a youthful, naive but not childish, take on an iconic scent profile. It is said that when the Coco Chanel first smelled Chanel No. 5 she called it “A woman’s scent. The scent of a woman.” So what is that scent as dreamed up by a 10 year old girl? Red-carpet chic by way of shirley temples and lemonade lip gloss.

The perfume, and the girl's time at the adult party, finishes up with a single sip of her father’s champagne (offered so she might feel part of the toast) and the last whiffs of her mother’s more sophisticated eau de toilette.

Proposal #2: Barbie at the Prom 

Top notes: marshmallow, pink pepper

Mid notes: lavender, strawberry preserves, tequila

Dry Down: tuberose, tobacco, burnt clove, 

I once read a piece of aesthetic criticism that is lost to the ravages of internet decay but which has none-the-less stuck with me. The author posited that the reason we are all so obsessed with Lana Del Ray is because she makes all the effort that goes into old school glamour visible. She is iconic even with running mascara and a deflated updo, waiting for her boyfriend to stop playing video games.  

This perfume asks what if we think of Barbie not as speculation at womanhood but a memory of girlhood–a ghost of teen angst, a lingering specter of our first brushes with the trials and tribulations of trying to be beautiful. This perfume asks what if Barbie, just like Lana del ray, was a gender traitor? 

To that end I started with marshmallow, a scent that is almost synonymous with the celebrity perfumes sold to homecoming bound teenagers at department store makeup counters (see Mariah Carrie’s M or Ariana Grande’s Ari as examples). It passes through the jammy smell of overripe berry–another teen girl staple–and into the sadder, richer smells of old Europe and badly rolled clove cigarettes. Wear to smell as glamorous as you thought you did at 16.

Two takes on Ken’s Nonexistent House (2026)

Making a perfume for someone takes a certain amount of empathy. Perfume, after all, is a method of self romanticization. Writing this I started to ask questions like: What is Ken’s dad like? When does he feel happiest? Who are the men he saw himself in as a kid? Who were the one’s I saw myself in?

Proposal #1: Ken du Cologne

Top notes: daffodil, guava, lime, paolo santo, orange blossom

Mid notes: surf-board wax, wool, sage, shoe-polish,

Dry Down: cigars, celluloid, rum barrel, orange wood

The first cologne wasn’t gendered. It was a proprietary scent first made by Giovanni Maria Farina in 1709. Its exact formulation is lost but it included citrus, daffodil, orange blossom. I wanted to do what I did with Chanel No. 5, for this perfume through the lens of Ken.

It’s a complex scent, for a boy on the brink of manhood perched be. He’s in a romantic version of LA. His father burns money for the movie business. He surfs every morning, watched by girls and women. He, like this perfume, is caught between a thousand different dreams of what kind of man he could be—all of them other people’s. His opinions on the matter are a mystery to both him and me.

Is he the ripe guava and rum of every teen-girl-on-tv’s dream boy? Or perhaps the wool suite celluloid of his father’s heir to the business? Or perhaps something wilder and more native like the old Eau Du Cologne

There’s something unfinished in this perfume. I can’t quite put my finger on it, and so I have left it out. Perhaps, like Ken is incomplete with out Barbie, this perfume leaves room for it’s girlfriend’s scent to be the star.

Pitch #2: Derivative Ken in Tornado Alley

Top notes: Hay, Green Onion, Peach, Ozone

Mid notes: Natty light, Waterlily, Peanut

Dry Down: Roasted Courmarin, Vanilla, Musk, Rust

I think Ryan Gossling should get to play David Foster Wallace in the inevitable biopic, don’t you? Also do you think David Foster Wallace is a gender traitor?

I think he must be, but I’m also starting to think what a 2017 essay called being a gender traitor is simply saying being your particular gender isn’t all its cracked up to be.

Misc Notes:

• This newsletter is now public. So you’re now welcome to share it with anyone. If you think they might like to subscribe I’d appreciate it.

• The name of Ken’s second perfume is derived from Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley by David Foster Wallace. If you want to think about white American manhood going into the early 2000s, String Theory, his collected short tennis writing, is a perfect place to start. I think he’s at his best as a sports journalist.

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