Chopard Casmir

created with Ideogram AI and Adobe Photoshop

Casmir
Peach, Coconut, Mango, Bergamot, Fruits, Geranium, Jasmine, Floral Notes, Lily-of-the-Valley, Vanilla, Amber, Sandalwood, Musk, Patchouli, Woodsy Notes

I bought my first bottle of Chopard Casmir not long after it was released in 1991 (Fragrantica says 1992). Back then, I was into sweeter scents; Casmir is definitely sweet, though nowhere near as sugary as many of the perfumes that are popular today. These days--more than 30 years after discovering this beauty--I am much less interested in the sugary stuff, yet Casmir is still one of my all time favorites. Over time, I've gone through at least 8 bottles and will continue buying it for years to come.

Some might describe Casmir as a "fruity vanilla," but I think of it more of an amber scent that happens to have a good dose of vanilla and a bit of peach. Fruity fragrances are all the rage right now and are made to be deliberately and obviously fruity. But the fruit notes in Casmir are just a part of the whole lovely composition, much like the geranium, jasmine, and muguet, none of which stand out to me. It opens with a bit of gentle peachiness mixed with a resinous amber. The scent gets a bit more vanilla-ish as it dries down, but Casmir is otherwise pretty linear. And gorgeous from beginning to end.

I am now going to take a brief moment to nerd out on language. Feel free to skip this part, as it's mostly indicative of the way my chaotic brain works and also my regret that I did not pursue linguistics when I was younger.

The spelling of this perfume's name, C-A-S-M-I-R, signifies a male name of Polish origin. According to Ancestry.com, it:

...holds deep historical significance as it symbolizes the role of a peace keeper. The name is derived from the Slavic elements kaziti and mir, meaning to destroy and peace respectively.

However, the more probable origin of the perfume's name is KASHMIR, a region on the Asian Subcontinent that has been a center for many world religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Islam. In 1949, Kashmir was partitioned between India and Pakistan. Currently, India controls about half the land area, Pakistan controls about 1/3, and China controls the rest. And there are still territorial skirmishes. 

The etymology of the name Kashmir itself is uncertain, though it's believed to have come from the Sanskrit meaning "to dry up water," relating to the Kashmir Valley having possibly been under water thousands of years ago. [1] 

However, the founder of Chopard was a French-speaking Swiss watchmaker. The French word for Kashmir is Cachemire, not Casmir. Was the spelling of the perfume's name deliberately chosen to reflect the conflict of the region and suggest the fragrance could bring peace?

Or did it just seem like a good name for an "oriental" fragrance? 

And now the bottle.

While Casmir's bottle is lovely, I have to question why Chopard chose to use a pointed dome shape for the cap and arched doorway motif for the container itself. Those elements can be found in buildings like the Taj Mahal, which I suppose immediately springs to mind when considering the architecture of India. It would appear, however, that Kashmiri architecture is not necessarily "typical" of the region. While Google images is in no way a comprehensive means of doing research, my query for "Kashmir architecture" did pull up a couple of rounded silhouettes; none were a similar pointed dome that we think of as an "onion" shape. Overall, I felt the examples of Kashmiri architecture I was able to find more resembled that of East Asia, and the temples indeed were more in the Buddhist pagoda style. As I am an unpaid blogger with a day job, I am not going to do a deeper dive into the architectural styles of the Asian Subcontinent. I am just going to assume that the bottle was made in what Westerners might consider an appropriate shape for a product appearing to be named for a part of that region. 

1. Snedden, Christopher (2015), Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris, Oxford University Press, pp. 22–,  

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Posted by theminx on Minxstinks
Note: this post is my opinion. I am not affiliated with the companies mentioned in this post or any other companies.