“55 is the metaphor of a love quest; the sheer expression of a spiral, inspired, vertical tension.”
ATTACHE MOI 55
How to capture a moment that has not yet happened?
How to feel something that has existed but in dreams?
There is a place in the city where green trees and red bricks meet. There is a street in Manhattan where grand churches and hotels fight. There is a lane downtown of concrete paved till Hudson, blue. The street 55, carrying over its lobbies and jewelleries the sheer luxury of bygone women’s scented trail.
A choreography drawn on silver dust, 55 is the metaphor of a love quest; the sheer expression of a spiral, inspired, vertical tension. Clouds dance and reel: a silky ballet of sultry-white flowers whence jasmine accents spring like rays of golden light against a sky of dark notes.
I can still hear your high heels on the pavement
and picture the diamonds 'round your neck
and 'twixt your fingers one of your thin cigarettes.
I can still follow you through crowds and silence, through East and West, through up
and
downtown
and catch a glimpse of your scent in the linen of my sheets.
For there is a street in Manhattan which I know and which you knew and where we knew each other, You and I.
55th Street, New York– between 6th Avenue and 2nd Avenue– detail from G.W. Bromley Atlas of Manhattan 1891
”One way, westbound, two miles long, and sixty feet across, 55th Street was born just over 200 years ago, asone of the 141 original streets of Manhattan's famous grid. A ribbon of glass, steel, brick, stone and asphalt that glitters brightly after dark.” Guy Lesser
ATTACHE MOI 55 is a celebration of all things 55th street. As it is. As it was. As it could be.
ALL FILMS SHOT AND DIRECTED BY ERINN SPRINGER
"This scent makes me think of being home”
Artist Davina Semo for Scentury.com, Marlborough Gallery
There was a room in the house in Maryland where I grew up. It was located in between the house and the backyard and we would dry off there when we came in from the pool, or when our feet were wet from rain. It had a particular smell — damp and muggy. Maryland has distinct seasons, it ranges from hot and humid in the summer, to snowy and cold in wintertime.
Also, later I used that room as my first studio, when I still lived with my parents. It was really small, more like a closet. It had no windows but there was a door to the outside and when I left it open, the smell from the backyard would float in. The garden wasn’t really big but it was nice and I knew every part of it.
All the trees —some pines, but deciduous trees too—had been there forever. And this perfume here reminds me more of the latter. There were also flowers and bushes …
I remember spending a lot of time at home. The area where we lived is very suburban, very different from New York. You can’t walk to the store; you don’t see anybody in the street. So as a kid you just stay home. My parents both worked a lot and weren’t at the house most of the time. My mother did wear perfume, though. I can still see her getting dressed and going off to work. So her smell would leave with her when she left the house but then linger a while.
To me, this perfume is more linked to a place than to a person. There’s something very intimate about it, like a space someone else has been occupying. I could imagine that if a stranger fell asleep I would be able to smell him like this while he was sleeping. It smells warm.
I see a hazy light, like the sun falling through trees or into a smoky room. This scent doesn’t smell really smoky or heavy by itself but there is substance to it. It has a weight like a yellowish color within a shadow. Or like when you see smoke caught in the light and can see the volume of it.
