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Arts
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 — 5

Arlo Parks Explores Light and Loss on ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’

If you’ve ever dug up an old diary 

and leafed through its pages, it’s 
very likely you’ve stumbled upon 
some 
melodramatic 
vignettes 

of 
adolescence, 
both 
cringe-

worthy to read yet strangely 
impossible to tear your eyes away 
from. There’s a certain appeal 
to re-living the most intimate 
moments of your life through 
the gel-penned scribbles of your 
younger self. London indie-pop 
singer Arlo Park’s newest project, 
Collapsed in Sunbeams, sounds 
like a cinematic reimagining of 
that high school diary — sans the 
pubescent theatrics. 

The 20-year-old’s debut album, 

following a steady release of 
singles and collaborations with 
the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and 
Clairo, takes on both the gritty 
and lighthearted experiences that 
come with navigating friendship 
and love as a young adult. Across 
12 tracks, seven lo-fi covers and 
one poem track, Parks paints 

a picture book of solace and 
isolation. In an interview with 
The New York Times, she shared, 
“I find it harder to write about joy 
because it’s simpler. There’s more 
complexity in sad things. But I’m a 
defiant optimist.” On Collapsed in 
Sunbeams, these quiet moments 
of joy and sadness intermix to 
create a deeply personal bedroom 
pop album perfect for the new 
year. 

Parks 
first 
broke 
out 
of 

anonymity 
with 
her 
2018 

single 
“Cola.” 
The 
stripped-

back track, crafted in under 20 
minutes by Parks and producer 
Luca Buccellati, chronicles the 
breaking point of a relationship 
filled with infidelity, earning over 
15 million streams on Spotify since 
its initial release. Parks solidified 
her knack for storytelling and 
vivid imagery on “Cola,” a skill 
she’s maintained and grown on 
Collapsed in Sunbeams. 

Citing a line from Zadie Smith’s 

“On Beauty” as inspiration for 
the album title, Parks has found 
her vision in a wide variety of 
sources, including Studio Ghibli 

films, Frank Ocean and her own 
journal from when she was 13. It’s 
easy to see these connections on 
the project, with its kaleidoscope 
of visuals and intimate pockets of 
teenagehood. 

On the song “Black Dog,” Parks 

approaches depression and the 
loss of a friend by suicide with 
emotive 
sincerity. 
She 
sings, 

“Let’s go to the corner store 
and buy some fruit / I would do 
anything to get you out your room 
/ Just take your medicine and eat 
some food / It’s so cruel what your 
mind can do for no reason.” Set 
against plucky guitar and a simple 
beat, Parks’s gentle vocals soften 
the song’s tragic words. 

Airy and glowing like the 

sunbeams 
of 
the 
album’s 

namesake, Parks’s voice carries 
the listener to another trial on 
the dreamy pop track “Green 
Eyes.” Here, she details the loss 
of a relationship plagued by 
unaccepting parents and sheltered 
sexuality, 
with 
songwriting 

credits and background vocals 
from Clairo. 

Parks, who is openly bisexual, 

sings, “Of course I know why we 
lasted two months / Could not 
hold my hand in public / Felt their 
eyes judging our love and baying 
for blood.” Its breezy and warm 
instrumentation are meant to 
“uplift and comfort those going 
through hard times,” according 
to Parks. Her ability to find the 
sunny undersides of even the 
darkest struggles shines, a key 
element that prevents Collapsed 
in Sunbeams from feeling too 
heavy to enjoy. 

The 
sleepy 
and 
beautiful 

“Eugene,” which found its way 
onto one of Michelle Obama’s 
summer playlists last August, 
narrates the sting of falling for 
your best friend who falls for 
someone else. Parks reflects, 
“Hey, I know I’ve been a little bit 
off and that’s my mistake / I kind 
of fell half in love and you’re to 
blame / I guess I just forgot that 
we’ve been mates since day.” 

It’s both a highly personal 

narrative and yet something 
anyone 
can 
find 
resonant. 

Maybe we’ve all had our own 
version of “Eugene,” someone 

who disrupts something good 
and leaves us feeling detached 
from the familiar. With tucked 
in spoken-word pieces like the 
titular “Collapsed in Sunbeams” 
and “Black Dog Poem,” Parks 
further immerses the listener 
in her stories and provides a 
kind of intimacy and specificity 
sometimes 
missing 
from 

mainstream bedroom pop. 

Parks has grown since “Cola,” 

still serving snapshots of inner 
turmoil 
and 
love 
but 
with 

matured sound and production. 
The tracks “Too Good” and 

“Portra 
400,” 
which 
Paul 

Epworth (Adele, Florence + the 
Machine) 
produced, 
evoking 

the coming-of-age, end credit 
vibrance Parks says she dreamed 
of in an interview with Apple 
Music. 

She’s no longer a 17-year-

old making beats in a nameless 
London flat, but Parks’s music 
today is no less disarmingly 
sincere. Collapsed in Sunbeams 
is a melancholic journey through 
youth, promising a bright future 
of storytelling and vulnerability 
for Parks. 

NORA LEWIS
Daily Arts Writer

‘The Divines’ offers a razor-

sharp exploration of adolescence 

and class divides

Welcome to St. John the Divine, 

an English boarding school for 
girls where students (nicknamed 
the Divines) keep secrets, form 
alliances and vie for popularity. 
There are several things that make 
a Divine: the coy hair flip, the blasé 
use of French, the haughty walk, 
the mysterious nicknames. To be 
one of the Divines is to embody 
something intangible, a result of 
the social molding that takes place 
in every girl that enters the school’s 
hallowed halls. But what goes on 
behind the smiles and façades? 

In Ellie Eaton’s razor-sharp new 

novel, “The Divines,” Josephine, 
a former student at St. John the 
Divine, revisits the grounds of 
her old school and reflects on 
her haunted past. In her last year 
at boarding school, a scandal 
rocked the Divines that torments 
Josephine well into her adult 
life. Under her husband’s gentle 
prompting, Josephine faces her 
complicated past and realizes 
that, despite the distance she put 
between herself and her old school, 

she can never fully escape its legacy. 

The world of the Divines is 

equally compelling and twisted; 
they exude a kind of ethereal 
energy that is intoxicating to read 
about. Eaton makes sweeping 
claims 
about 
her 
characters, 

saying, “Divines were committed 
oversharers by nature,” “together 
Divines were indomitable” and 
“Divines could sleep anywhere,” 
giving the reader a sense of the 
exclusive and cult-like nature of the 
novel. 

At the same time, the petty 

grievances, 
social 
struggles, 

references to sexual misconduct 
and class biases reveal an uglier 
side to the world of the Divines. 
The fact of the matter is the girls of 
the Divine are snobby and entitled, 
calling the residents of a nearby 
village ‘townies’ and flaunting their 
privilege and money. Josephine 
seems 
to 
disapprove 
of 
this 

behavior, but is equally complicit. 

In this way, the novel perfectly 

captures the pain of adolescence, 
making sharp observations about 
social dynamics and the cruelty of 
youth. Little interactions between 
the girls felt momentous: Fleeting 
looks, cold shoulders and insincere 

smiles 
become 
agonizingly 

significant. “The Divines” painfully 
reminded me of my angsty teenage 
years, evoking the same raw and 
gritty feelings. 

The story unfolds at a perfectly 

measured 
pace. 
As 
Josephine 

reflects on her past as a Divine, little 
by little, details of her time at the 
boarding school reveal themselves. 
For the reader, there is a sense of 
foreboding. Something bad is going 
to happen and you can feel it. 

The prologue gives a little taste 

of the scandal that occurs, leaving 
the reader hooked, needing to know 
what happens. I spent the rest of 
the novel breathlessly awaiting the 
big reveal, feeling the tension in the 
novel coil tight like a spring. Eaton 
writes with a nuance and masterful 
grasp of social interplay that feels 
reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 
“Never Let Me Go.” 

As 
a 
teenager, 
Josephine 

is 
angsty, 
self-conscious 
and 

compliant. She is tormented with 
thoughts of whether she is liked, 
where she falls on the social ladder 
at school and how she can appear 
cool. On the other hand, her adult 
self is happily married and self-
sufficient. One thing I struggled 

with while reading “The Divines” 
was this gaping disconnect between 
Josephine’s past and present selves; 
how did this insecure, awkward 
teenager become a functioning 
adult? I don’t doubt that this kind 
of transformation is possible (I 
can only hope that I’ve changed a 
lot from my high school self), but 
the book offers no insight into how 
Josephine turned out so different 
as an adult. 

Were her teenage insecurities 

purely run-of-the-mill adolescent 
angst, something she grew out 
of with age? This question isn’t 
really answered in the novel, and 
I was left struggling to bridge 
the gap between younger and 

older Josephine. I did, however, 
enjoy seeing how Jospehine’s past 
affected her as an adult. Though 
somewhat disjointed, the paralleled 
storylines serve their intended 
purpose, adding to the suspense 
and allowing us to see the legacy of 
Josephine’s past as a Divine.

Because 
of 
the 
slow 
and 

deliberate development of the 
novel, it took me a while to 
get into it, but when I did, boy, 
was I hooked. “The Divines” 
is a provocative coming of age 
story, rich with explorations 
of class divides, secrets, sexual 
awakenings 
and 
adolescent 

insecurities. I will admit I began 
reading knowing nothing about 

the novel or author, but was left 
haunted by the story for days after 
I finished and keenly interested 
in what Ellie Eaton might write 
next. The Divines’ school motto 
is memoir amici, (“remember 
friends”) — an ironic inclusion 
considering 
Josephine 
spends 

most of her adult life trying to 
escape her past as a Divine. 

And yet, in the end, she is 

unable to. She is just as haunted by 
childhood friendships, secrets and 
the trauma of her past well into 
adulthood. “The Divines” brought 
me back to my own adolescence, 
and the experience felt just as 
exciting, awkward, uncomfortable 
and thrilling as I remember it.

EMMA DOETTLING

Daily Arts Writer

Velveteen Dreams: Serge Lutens, an Olfactory Odyssey, Pt. Two

The main thing I love about 

perfume is that it’s ridiculous. 
Every aspect of it is ridiculous. 
The very sound of the word 
“perfume,” even as I hear it in 
my head, makes my skin crawl, 
and it’s exhilarating. I love the 
saccharine, schmaltzy snips of 
copy generously classified as 
descriptions. I love how everyone 
involved in the marketing of 
it has collectively come to the 
conclusion that the less sense you 
make, the better. 

Full abstraction. I don’t know 

how an advert featuring Nicole 
Kidman running around taxis in 
Times Square, looking completely 

bewildered in a $20,000 gown, 
translates into a concrete sales 
figure, but you know what? I’ll let 
one of the business majors figure 
it out; that’s not my problem.

The business of fragrance is 

built on artifice. Fragrance itself 
is about as detached as a creative 
medium can get from reality — 
the best roses are composed of 
no discernible rose, chemical 
compounds 
that 
give 
musk 

its “sex” factor are naturally 
occurring signs of decay and an 
entire scent category (the fougère) 
was inspired by an odorless plant. 

Yet, smell is the sense most 

closely 
linked 
to 
emotion 

and memory, and the skilled 
deployment 
of 
scent 
can 

communicate 
things 
that 

lie beyond words, logic and 

rationalization. 
Few 
perfume 

houses have been able to marry 
creative vision and emotion while 
wielding the inherent silliness 
of the industry, and the house of 
Serge Lutens is one of them. 

Serge 
Lutens, 
the 
former 

art director of Shiseido and 
pioneering figurehead of his 
eponymous label, is an intensely 
private man. Despite his fame, 
he almost never gives interviews. 
Outside 
of 
his 
profile 
on 

Kafkaesque, there is little to be 
found concretely about his early 
life, let alone his swift entree into 
the fashion and beauty world of 
the 1960s. 

There are hints of his origins 

in the titles of his fragrances, 
especially more recent outputs 
like “L’Orpheline” and “Baptême 

du 
Feu” 
(French 
for 
“The 

Orphan” and “Baptism of Fire,” 
respectively) that touch on his 
tumultuous childhood. He was 
separated from his mother shortly 
after birth, because it was illegal 
for an unwed woman to give birth 
and raise a child as a single mother 
in Lutens’s French hometown. 
His experiences with familial 
rejection and abandonment — 
and their ties to a societal and 
legal system steeped in a very 
conservative 
interpretation 
of 

Catholicism — had a profound 
impact on his life and work, 
not the least of which being his 
contribution to perfumery. 

At 14, Lutens began working in 

a salon in Lille, and despite not 
wishing to work there, it would 
serve as a catalyst for his creative 
prowess to come to life. He soon 
ventured 
into 
hairdressing, 

makeup artistry, photography, 
styling and creative consulting. 
He had a penchant for feminine 
extremes and borderline-gothic 
contrasts between white, black 
and bold colors. 

His 
polaroids 
eventually 

landed him a place at French 
Vogue under Edmonde Charles-
Roux, which then opened doors 
at a number of high profile 
publications, including Elle and 
Harper’s Bazaar. He is credited 
with helping develop the first 
high fashion cosmetics line at 
Christian Dior in 1966, working at 
the house until accepting his post 
at Shiseido in the early 1980s. 

It was under Shiseido that he 

created “Nombre Noir,” a now-
infamous and highly coveted 
collector’s item, but commercial 
flop whose stock is humorously 

rumored to have been bulldozed 
by 
the 
company. 
Despite 

“Nombre 
Noir’s” 
incredibly 

high production expense and 
commercial failure, its liberal use 
of rose-tinted damascenones and 
its complicated, yet sheer chypre 
structure colored the path on 
which Lutens was headed. 

Shiseido’s 
faith 
in 
his 

ideas didn’t wane, and his 
collaboration with perfumers 
Christopher 
Sheldrake 
and 

Pierre 
Bourdon 
spawned 
a 

dark, 
yet 
minimalistic 
and 

transparent take on a cedar-
based perfume in the inimitable 
“Féminité du Bois” in 1992. 
“Féminité 
du 
Bois” 
was 
a 

sensation, taking the sheer, 
uncomplicated 
sentiment 
in 

perfumery 
represented 
by 

Bulgari’s “Eau Parfumée au 
Thé Vert” and Issey Miyake’s 
“L’eau d’Issey” and giving it an 
emotional, yet sovereign and 
unmistakably dark backbone 
with piles of dried fruits like 
peach and plum, ginger, benzoin 
and his now-signature clove. 

It may sound dramatic, but it’s 

hard to understate the influence 
of “Féminité du Bois” in modern 
perfumery. 
The 
room-filling 

ambers and chypres of the 1970s 
and ’80s had reached their 
breaking point, but the ethereal 
jingles issued as a response to 
them felt more like an apology 
than a meaningful evolution. 

The notion that you could 

either have a symphony or a wisp 
was put to rest by Serge’s second 
release under Shiseido, and it 
spawned the “Les Eaux Boisées” 
line that initially occupied his 
Palais Royal storefront. 

The aforementioned “Féminité 

du Bois,” “Bois et Musc,” “Bois et 
Fruits,” “Bois Oriental” (a name 
and 
olfactory 
category, 
now 

referred to as amber, currently 
undergoing a politically-inclined 
reconstruction), “Un bois sépia,” 
“Un bois vanille,” “Miel de bois” 
and “Bois de Violette” were 
among the house’s first releases, 
which would soon reinvent the 
modern amber, the tawdry musk 
and the soliflore with something 
new to say. 

In the house’s nearly 30 years 

of existence, Serge Lutens has 
created a number of ambers, 
florals and other fragrances 
that remain true to its brand 
of 
complicated, 
interesting, 

even “loud” offerings that veer 
from 
weighing 
themselves 

down. 
Beyond 
the 
“Bois” 

flankers, ranky, stanky fuck 
me musks like “Muscs Koublai 
Khan,” 
leathery 
florals 

like 
“Sarrasins,” 
sonorous 

soliflores like “A la nuit” and 
smoldering ambers like “La 
couche du diable” all do their 
part in populating a canon that 
simply cannot be outdone or 
diminished. 

Though the copy and the art 

direction may reach far beyond 
the threshold of camp, the heart 
of Serge Lutens continues to 
create products rooted in ideas 
that gleefully skip down to their 
scientific and artistic extremes. 
There is not a bottle that is 
phoned in, and there is not an 
accompanying 
write-up 
that 

doesn’t blast beyond the confines 
of what can be readily imagined, 
and that’s what makes this house 
so powerful.

SAM KREMKE

Daily Arts Columnist

Transgressive Records

Design by Elizabeth Yoon

East West Haven