Who: Lucy Fry, freelance sporting journalist and author. Lucy is physically extremely fit and has tackled most sports in her role as sport writer. The day we interviewed her she had recently come back from a spot of trapeezing and hopes to qualify as a yoga instructor this summer. Her first book Run Ride Sink or Swim has just been released and recounts the year she spent doing triathlons. She is married and lives in Wandsworth with her wife Bella and Geoffrey the cat.
Smells have always been really important to me. The scent memory of my childhood is my mother’s Rive Gauche, by Yves Saint Laurent. I remember whenever we would fly somewhere she’d buy some at the airport. It’s a strong, almost overwhelming smell, but my mum’s very passionate and quite dramatic and when I smelt it I always thought I was home.
When I was about 14 I remember asking for Clavin Klein’s cK One, I loved the androgyny, for reasons that are maybe clearer now! I had no idea I was gay until I was 26. Everyone was wearing it including my straight friends so it’s too obvious a connection to be real but I do think it’s interesting that I was attracted to androgynous scents. What do we mean we’re talking about androgynous fragrances anyway?
A lot of people wore Tommy Girl, I remember one of my best friends at school wearing it, she was very grown up and in the cool group, and so I almost didn’t feel able to wear it because I wasn’t cool enough. When Bella and I met, I wore L’Eau D’Issey by Issey Miyake, and Bella’s scent was one of the most powerful things about us getting together. She wore Tommy Girl and although she doesn’t wear it very much now, when she does wear it I’m taken right back to that crazy summer where I was simultaneously more happy and more unhappy than I’d ever been in my life. If she’s away, I spray it on a scarf to remind me of her, to me it’s ‘B’ and if I smell it on someone else I’m like ‘get that off, that’s my wife’s smell!”
It reminds me of coming out and finding that part of myself and the trauma of it all, I’ve made peace with the past and I now look back with affection but for a while it was all quite knotted up with confusion and emotion and I have to be quite strong to smell it.
Tommy Girl Eau De Prep, was given to me by my sister for Christmas, she gave it to me from my nieces so I often think about my them when I spray it. I really like it and wear it when I’m in a more boyish mood, to be honest when I’m feeling a bit more gay! All my friends who do gender studies are going to kill me for saying that. It’s quite a sporty fragrance, upbeat and preppy, it’s a beautiful bottle too
Its only now I’m in my 30s and I’m more confident that I’ve started to really love fragrance and realised maybe I can have more than one! I like the travel size of this Hugo Boss Jour. On press trips I try and travel with just hand luggage and always pack a fragrance. It’s lovely if you’ve been on a long flight to spray it on and smell nice and improves my mood. Bella was given this For Her by Narciso Rodriguez for her birthday but I’ve totally commandeered it. It’s a ‘going out’ smell with real depth and darkness, its sexual, romantic and if it was an environment it would be a low lit funky bar with cocktails.
You always want something nice to spray on after working out. Gyms and training warehouses have a really particular smell, I’ve done a lot of weight lifting and there’s something about the way the matting smells which makes me think ‘I’m going go train’.
My mum gave me one of her old cashmere jumpers recently, it smelled amazing, Bella and I were both ‘what’s that smell? We rang mum up and discovered it’s Blanc by The White Company. I bought the pack of three small bottles, and they are the perfect size to fit into my sponge bag, so I always have one of those for after the gym.
Lucy’s book, Run Ride, Sink or Swim, is available here
Images Maya Glaser , make up Hina Dohi
