aroma therapy; From Venice Beach to the Champs- lysees, Sarah Brown finds love in haute perfumeries.

Byline: Sarah Brown

The allure of the elusive is what it's about," says Roja Dove, the fragrance connoisseur whose enthusiasm for the shape of a perfume stopper is passionate enough to romance the most hopelessly blase among us. When conceiving his old-fashioned perfumerie at Harrods in London, he set himself the tall order of re-creating "a world that's a little bit lost," full of "quintessential glamour and luxury." Like a purveyor of fine antiques, Dove deals in things you can't readily find anywhere else: He persuaded Dior to team up with Baccarat to reproduce the original 1948 crystal obelisk that held Miss Dior (at $6,000 it sold right away) and convinced Lalique to make a 48-ounce double-dove bottle of Nina Ricci's L'Air du Temps. And though his shop is devoted to giving forgotten fragrances a new lease on life, Dove keeps his rarest gems mostly to himself. "They're hidden in a drawer," he says of the three scents he personally blended and sells (in a limited edition of just 50 bottles) for $1,750 a pop. "If we like a customer, we think she gets perfume, we open the drawer. I know that sounds very grand, but that's what people like about coming to a perfumery."

From stately Old World emporiums steeped in family legacy to sleek, strik-

ingly modern ateliers, haute perfumeries are drawing a new generation of scent seekers. They come to linger rather than

power-shop, carefully consider rather than compromise. Much like the way we buy fine jewelry and lingerie, they take the time to find a perfect fit.

If La Maison Guerlain on the Champs- lysees feels more like a nineteenth-

century salon than, dare one say, a store, that's precisely the point. A grand, gilded mix of the old and the new, the charmingly low-tech and the surprisingly modern, the superboutique hums along quietly as serious scent aficionados mingle with the merely curious, sniffing their way through each of the rooms. Guerlain has made its home here since 1914, and this year, Andree Putman has given the storied hotel particulier a glamorous overhaul. She's kept the Carrara marble and the gilt Giacometti light fixtures, and added a scene-stealing fragrance organ in the shape of a golden mesh chandelier, not to mention the Imperial Fountains-a network of clear glass pipes through which perfume flows. You can fill up one of the iconic Bee bottles (embossed with the Napoleonic bumblebee and first created in 1853 for the Empress Eugenie) with one of six classic scents (Samsara, Mitsouko . . .) or create a Guerlain heirloom of your own: The Jicky bottles are completely customizable, from the style used to engrave one's initials to the color of silk cord.