Picture from www.flickr.com/photos/penelopesloom
I met Silvio Levi in Milan at the perfume exposition he is the executive director of, Esxence-The Scent of Excellence. When he wears that hat he is a passionate proponent of Artistic Perfumery. When he changes hats and becomes the owner of the fragrance line Cale Fragranze D’Autore he displays the same passion about the artistic creations he produces on his own. When I found myself in front of Dr. Levi, at the 2011 version of Esxence, and asked what the inspiration was for the two latest, Fulgor and Roboris; he had a story to tell me.
Dr. Levi was traveling through the American Desert Southwest and they had stopped for the day. His son had gone swimming and as Dr. Levi looked out the window he saw a fast moving storm full of lightning bearing down on them. He ran out to the pool to get his son and as he arrived the air was full of turbulence and anticipation of nature’s power. He also noticed the smells in the air had become sharper and more vivid. Even in his concern for his son the artist deep inside Dr. Levi paused to remember that for future reference. Upon safely returning to Italy he decided to use that experience to create two different fragrances.
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In Fulgor he asked Maurizio Cerizza who Dr. Levi had worked with on the previous eight Cale Fragranze D’Autore fragrances to create something which captured the imminent danger of the lightning and also the energy held in check just before being released. Sig. Cerizza interpreted this brief without resorting to any ozonic notes. Instead he relies on a heavily mineralic base to convey the rocky earth and uses strong floral notes of narcissus and magnolia to convey the plant life in austere stark terms. Swirling all around this is the power of incense and patchouli like the looming thunderclouds. Fulgor is a nice fragrance but it wasn’t my favorite of the two. Roboris was, because it instead took the same event and turned it into a different story.
For Roboris Dr. Levi turned to Mark Buxton and asked him to imagine a shaman on a mountaintop summoning the storm. The shaman would be burning herbs, chanting, and dancing, asking Mother Nature to give water to his land and people. As the storm begins to gather and form over the medicine man’s head, this is the moment Mark Buxton captures in a bottle for Roboris.
Mr. Buxton uses violet and rhubarb to begin Roboris in sharp vegetal territory, it is leavened with a bit of wisteria to prevent the sharpness from being too much. This trio of notes is a very creative way of presenting the ozonic build-up around a thunderstorm without reaching for the normal set of ozonic notes. As the storm moves closer smells become clearer and on this mountaintop there is jasmine blooming in the saturating air along with the sharper cactus flowers. Finally as the shaman reaches the height of his summoning the olfactory storm breaks in a hailstorm of sandalwood, vetiver, tonka and ambergris. These four notes take Roboris to a more intense place at the end as the storm finally rains down. Mr. Buxton masterfully balances these intense notes any one of which could overwhelm the others but there is no point during the drydown when I don’t sense all four working in harmony.
Roboris has average longevity and average sillage.
Dr. Levi describes the new release thusly; “Three Artists, Two Artistic Perfumes, One Story”. Both fragrances, but especially Roboris, show what can be accomplished when inspired creative direction meets talented perfumers; you really can capture lightning in a bottle.
Disclosure: This review was based on samples provided by Cale Fragranze D’Autore at Esxence 2011.
–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor