Increasingly the heaven of which I dream is partly composed of the persistence of memory. Three times in my life I have glimpsed a state of perfect equilibrium and sensed in profound silence Keats "slow time of eternity". Without exception, these experiences were initiated by an intense fragrance which seemed in some unsought way to trigger perfectly natural encounters with forces beyond one's understanding.

In the labyrinth beneath the Cretan Palace of Knossos, previous abode of the Minotaur, I smelled "Time" and the memory of its precision tore at my throat for days. Ten years later during a rainstorm on the Amazon River, I thought for one brief moment that 'twixt lip and nostril' I had caught the sharp cinnibar green smell of life itself. Finally, in the incongruity of a Melbourne banking chamber, an unidentified odour assailed my brain and in a moment of Zen-like enlightenment I understood the biblical statement "And the word was made flesh".

Three experiences is not many in a world peopled by those who claim to have lived numerous lives. I am not of that ilk at all, but have worn my three perfumed memories like "fresh flowers" within me....the true interior still-life.

To understand the physical and psychological aspects of the perfumes man composes first look to your own memories, for they are the benchmarks against which all others are judged. Some of my own early memories of perfume have been so multiplied in those of my peers to have become cliches. The keeping of "Aunty's Ashes" in an old "Evening in Paris box" has been immortalized even by Dame Edna Everage.

For the generation of the 1940s and 50s the reality of fragrances was the crude sweetness and front verandah sensuality of Californian Poppy Brilliantine. I was, however, as most of my generation of girls, sent forth to school with a clean lace-edge handkerchief dabbed with Lavender Water or Eau De Cologne...the badge of my sex!

Much of today's perfume industry projects the concept of fragrance as an aphrodisiac, either directed towards oneself in the autoerotic luxurious sense, or more obviously to attract desired partners. Skillful advertising is able to combine this quality with the semiotics of status as perceived at all levels of society, and perfume bottles themselves, while paying homage to their contents, are frequently responsible for the sale. Indeed buying expensive perfumes for their containers is probably just as common as buying expensive books for their covers (with similar risks!).

Perfume bottles and containers, after obeying the necessities of opacity and airtight construction, appeal to the human soul's sense of the exquisite in forms either simple or elaborate. They play upon our responses to miniaturization, bringing forth the desire to protect and display its contents as we do a favourite child. Sometimes the container is given an almost medical appearance by those of puritanical persuasions who would rather deny the all pervasive sensuality of the substance. Others with an exaggerated sense of historic immediacy create perfume bottles like miniature shrines. (Schiaparelli's "Shocking" lingers on as a small testament to her fashionable self, long after her physical departure from this life).

The ancient Egyptians understood much about the creation and containment of all perfumes and cosmetic substances and particularly utilized the property of perfumes which gives them affinity with fatty substances. When guests arrived at an affluent home in ancient Egypt, it was common to anoint their shaven heads or wigs with perfumed oils. It was also believed to be an excellent cure for baldness - those 'in extremis' put their faith in "oil of wild horse with mint and myrrh" and if hope had turned to desperation, "heels of a greyhound and asses boiled in oil with date blossoms"...vanity...vanity...and all so long ago!

Many very ancient perfume bottles still exist and have a breathtaking sense of unselfconscious modernity. Alabaster containers (which hold and reflect light in much the same way as human skin) still bear the names of their royal owners: one notable for both its form and antiquity (2 millenium B.C.) belonged to Queen Hatsheput.

The Romans had an insatiable desire for pure silk and rare perfumes: one is tempted to say they had "cornered the market" of hedonistic pleasures. Otto of Rose was one of the choicest flowers in the Near East and Europe: poets sang in praise of its essence, and Cleopatra laid a carpet of these roses to lure back the fickle Anthony. In the time of the Emperor Augustus, the fragrant "Rhodinium", made from the roses of Phestum, was so highly prized it sold for its weight in gold.

The Greeks, with a characteristically less commercial approach, wrote in the Illiad, "Celestial Venus hovered o'er his head. And roseate unguents heavenly fragrance shed". Many early Greek perfume bottles have not only great beauty of form but are very important sociological records of costume, dance and music. The Aryballos from Corinth, 600 B.C., owned by the Welcome Institute of History and Medicine, is decorated with dancers in padded costumes in so much detail that they could be recreated today and take their place very successfully in a contemporary ballet production.

The forms of bottles, cases, bowls, flagons and vinaigrettes have been as varied as all of mankind's decorative arts. Naturally fashion, has held sway, and costume itself has played a part in the dictation of structural form of the containers, especially in the mode of carrying or attaching the bottle to one's person.

During the 16th and 17th centuries one of the most popular, fashionable and status-enhancing ways to carry perfume was as part of an elaborate accessory called a chatelaine. In a practical sense also it was an excellent means to transport portable objects one may require, hanging decoratively on chains from an elaborate belt. As many as ten items were worn, including button hooks, watch keys, a vinaigrette containing plague protective odours, etuis (small cases for holding valuables) and charms, some of them perfume bottles (included in the potion were often specific love philtres). Chatelaines were so popular they continued in an abbreviated way until the Second World War.

The 18th century was a pinnacle of enlightened elaboration and both English and French chatelaine perfume bottles in Louis XV style were often carved from a precious stone, then embellished with birds in a subtle chinoiserie mode; doves flying through an almost art nouveau treatment of free flowing water, vines and landscape. These images were then judiciously enhanced with precious stones, often coloured as with carnelian and the entire object chased with gold. In one particular example from the Leon Givaudan Collection (France), a dove surmounts the stopper beneath a jewel encrusted chain leading to a tiny portion of what could be an 18th century ceiling used to affix the entire object to the belt. To me this object has the aspect of having appeared from a dream rather than wrought by human hands.

In terms of fashion and perfume, one of the abiding links has been between glovemakers and perfumers. Even today the two categories of goods are frequently seen in close proximity in more exclusive department stores and boutiques. This relationship is centuries old with the Italians pre-eminent in the production of the finest chicken-skin gloves permanently impregnated with the smell of roses. In the reign of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare writes in A Winter's Tale, "Gloves sweet as damask roses, masks for faces and for noses, bugle bracelet, necklace amber, perfume for my ladies' chamber". The Queen was so enamoured of her chicken-skin rose-perfumed gloves, she had several portraits painted of herself wearing them. Pause for a moment and image Gloriana in all her finery in a cloud of perfume pumped into her apartments by secret bellows devices. All the rich and indulgent enjoyed this pleasure and the sensual Cardinal Richelieu was not too spiritual to refrain!

Although mankind has always sought to enhance its sexuality with applied odours, often masking as we do today our naturally secreted lures, there have been numerous other applications of perfume which, diverse as they appear, may be responsible to a marked degree for the aura of mystery, intrigue and generalized concept that perfume can effect a transformation...to work miracles.

Special perfumed coronation oils have been created over the last few millenia and in the English service the chrism (oil) is contained in an eagle-shaped ampulla of gold (presently Savory and Moore of Bond St, London, have that honour). The rituals of food preparation and embalming utilize fragrant oils and it is in this protective role that perfumes are often presented in the most unusual bottles and containers.

The most widely manufactured of these is probably the Pomander. Plain or exquisitely decorated, their function was and still is, to fumigate clothes, bedding, rooms and closets! It is sad in hindsight to see how ineffective they must have been, especially in their antipestilential function. From the 14th to the 17th century all people were entreated to avoid plague by carrying pommes and Barillets (small cylinders containing heavily scented materials). These were claimed to comfort the brain(!) and give protection against airborne disease.

During the great plague of London (1665), the College of Physicians published a list of plague repellant ingredients (musk, civet and ambergris). Small chains were added to the Pommes and Barillets so they could conveniently hang from the neck or belt. Several portraits of Cardinal Wolsey show him holding a spiced orange pomme to his nose. (A silver peg would have been more effective but the aesthetics less ecclesiastical!).

Pomanders went out of favour both from a fashionable as well as a medical viewpoint. Vinaigrettes became over a period of time the most collectable and beautiful objets d'art in this field. In the early 18th century, a distinguished English physician stated that more practical plague preventatives were certain wines and vinegars. As with any truly popular items, gimmickry was a rampant then as it is in today's designer objects. Made in precious metals and often covered with a semi-precious stone such as a topaz or other translucent material, these vinaigrettes took on fanciful shapes: shells, watches, handbags or boxes (approx., 4 x 2.5cm) for carrying in a purse or bag.

The Simes Collection contains a superb 19th century English combination perfume bottle and vinaigrette in Victorian green glass with silver gilt mounts. Inside was the 'medical secret': the 'turkey sponge' soaked in plague-repelling ingredients.

It is said we cannot avoid two things: death and taxes, and true to form, a British newspaper (dated 1786) announced that the government was imposing a (short lived) tax on perfumery and cosmetics to be paid by affixing stamps to the packages. These stamps are now sought by both philatelists and sociologists with equal zeal.

To my mind, the 18th century was a high point of artistic endeavor. One can derive great pleasure in fantasizing the reason for this creative explosion; a more subtle angle of the earth's axis, a mysterious atmospheric shift between the poles, or just a wondrous abundance of plain artistic and intellectual talent. Whatever the impetus, the results have a variation of form which almost rivals nature herself.

The infinite variety and complexity of the metal work in gold and silver is further enhanced by exuberant enamelling on a wide choice of objects: cassolettes or pastille burners, pot pourri jars, vinaigrettes, scent bottles and fitted cases including patch boxes (the black velvet face patch has become a major sign in period recognition). I find particularly delightful the Persian silver rose water sprinkler (18-19th C) from the Simes Collection; it has a subtle asymmetry which may be found in nature constantly and only rarely in manmade objects.

In 1760, Louis XV bought an established factory at Vincennes and built a new one at Sevres which was to become the leading manufacturer of porcelain in Europe. New colours always excite new buyers and Jaune de Jonquil, Bleu de roi, and the romantic Rose du Barry were created. Scent bottles exploded into a myriad of organic forms: fruits, leaves, flowers; sometimes enclosed in settings of silver embellished with garnets and rhinestones. The style of the artist Watteau was most influential, and leaf and flower stoppers were held with tiny chains.

Equally prestigious porcelain bottles with metal mounts were being made in Britain and some collectors of this Chelsea work think that it is without peer. Who would not like to possess the Chelsea porcelain combination etui and scent bottle (18th C) from the Simes Collection in which delicate female forms are joined about the waist with a golden sash which parts mysteriously to allow one access to the delicious and valuable contents within.

Quite understandably, perfumers came to suggest that their clients vary their perfumes according to the hour of the day, season, occasion. Something of this concept still lives on in contemporary marketing. To fulfill this requirement, compositions of two, three, or four tiny bottles were offered and very attractive examples can be found in shagreen covered containers (a strong untanned leather with a granulated surface made from horsehide or sharkskin).

The Simes Collection boasts a marvellous 18th century French shagreen coffre containing four bottles with silver mounts and a funnel (these small silver funnels were used to transfer the perfumes from larger containers). Other French coffres were created from real tortoiseshell, many encrusted with gold.

Form a sociological viewpoint, the 19th century had a profound effect on the perfume industry with particular reference to perfume bottle manufacture and design. The increasing industrialization of Britain attracted large numbers of talented artisans in the field of glass, metal and pottery: their every efforts were needed to satisfy the growing demands of a rising middle class for "the good life". In some way, the aristocratic taste was gone and curious "class hybrids" proliferated. One such was the style of the pottery scent bottle made in the likeness of Queen Victoria on the form of a replica pocket watch. Worchester made these and one can imagine a similar Princess of Wales item selling today.

Glass design in the form of perfume bottles can be extraordinarily inventive given the natural affinity of the media; both contents and container. In 1819, Apsley Pellat was able to produce glass cameos of famous figures, e.g. Queen Adelaide, and apply them to cut glass bottles. The English group Webb produced the most sophisticated examples: ruby glass with a white cameo decoration. Composed of subtle floral designs, they can be found in other colours as well, all enhanced by the milk white of the cameo etch. Perfume sprays with rubber bulb atomizers appeared (the forerunners of today's aerosol pack) and then as now were rarely utilized for very expensive perfumes.

The style of Art Nouveau and perfume itself are made for each other. Convoluted lines, the insinuating, sensuous tendrils of aromas; the mood of languorous decadence more recently incorporated into Yves St. Laurent's Opium. To imagine this period without the accompaniment of appropriate fragrances is impossible. As the 19th century drew to a close, three great parfumiers of France - Coty, Houbigant and Guerlain - collaborated with the leading Art Nouveau glass makers Lalique and Baccarat. The concept of modern marketing and perfume production was generated with individual mixes giving way to brand names and bottle/perfume indentification.

Rene Lalique specialised in molded glass, clear or frosted - perfect for a fragrance's preservation. His engraved figures hover or float beyond the force of gravity like figures in a dream. They seem to occupy the space within the liquid itself in mutual ecstasy. Other glass designers who responded to commissions in this field were Emile Galle and Daum Freres. The works of these master craftsmen over a period of two decades revolutionized concepts in this field world wide. The amethyst glass and enamel bottle from the Simes Collection is by Daum and is an object lesson in the combination of gold with other media. Its use here has a spiritually integrated subtlety rarely seen in contemporary works.

In 1920, Mlle Coco Chanel demanded a completely new style in everything and that included her new scent bottles. "Perfume is an integral part of fashion - and therefore we must create a perfume to suit the dress which is worn whether it be for day or night", she stated. Chanel No. 5 was born, and with Coco leading the way, other couturiers destined for greatness themselves followed. Art Deco transformed the perfume bottle into a diminutive glass skyscraper and Hollywood had its inevitable effects, and the effects were special!

I was born into that world of the unforgettable elegant Thirties and my first memories are of peach-coloured cut-glass hall tables and cinema style dressing tables covered with the glittering frosty paraphernalia of a France via U.S.A. forest of perfume bottles. Wanting to touch them is one of my earliest remembered desires, and the memory, like Patou's "Joy", lingers on.