Читать книгу 100 Favourite Places - Группа авторов - Страница 20

16

Harry Lehmann Perfumes

CHARLOTTENBURG

Harry Lehmann is surprisingly odourless for a perfume shop. Founded in 1926, it’s one of the oldest perfume manufacturers in Berlin – and it’s clear from the moment you walk in that they still do things a bit differently here: no clouds of sneeze-provoking scents, no thickly made-up ladies thrusting forth bits of perfume-doused paper, just Parfum nach Gewicht (perfume according to weight), as they call their system of charging per gram.

Forced by historical circumstance to move shop no less than six times in its 87 years, the shop finally settled on the grimier western end of Kantstrasse in 1958, where it makes a strange but welcome counterpoint to the brothels and brightly-lit shops selling cheap platform shoes and illuminated by fluorescent lights.

Step through the door and you’re immediately confronted by gleaming shelves displaying handsome, plump bottles. Lift the glass stoppers to sniff classic scents like musky after-shave and unusual concoctions like the fresh, intense Eau de Berlin, the spicy and sophisticated Roter Mohn (Red Poppy) or the sweet Fantasie. Flower scents like warm Linden or the piquant Maiglöckchen (Lily of the Valley) smell astonishingly real, as if extracted directly from the blossoms themselves.

The perfumes are made mainly by the founder’s grandson Lutz Lehmann, who is committed to re-recreating his grandfather’s recipes while crafting new concoctions to keep up with modern trends. If you’re feeling inspired, you can also get creative: just select a couple of bottles and mix up your own signature fragrance.

A smaller room bursts with artificial flowers, an initial side offering intended as a hedge against hard times when the shop first opened. The gawping sunflowers and kitschy rose arrangements are a tad crass next to the state-of-the-art perfumes. Soon, however, most of the fake flowers will be removed in order to make way for more refreshingly real fragrances – a sign that even a local institution, one with a long and restless history to match the city’s own, knows how to keep up with the changing times. GG

Kantstr. 106, 10627; S Charlottenburg, U Wilmersdorfer Strasse; www.parfum-individual.de

Map: West B2