ÇaFleureBon has a special place on our pages for Arquiste Parfumeur, as we have reviewed each fragrance from the company’s inception in 2011. Last year Architechts Club was our Best Scent of the Year. In 2015, Creative Director Carlos Huber will once again bring us the brand’s unique olfactive time travel with a new perfume, Nanban. The name Nanban (南蛮, “southern barbarian”) is a Sino-Japanese word, originally referring to foreigners arriving to Japan from the south sea. Prepare to set sail with Carlos and long time collaborator Master Perfumer Rodrigo Flores Roux,to 17th century Japan and discover a historical link to their native Mexico and Japan.
Carlos Huber, Creative Director of Arquiste Parfumeur
“I was traveling to Japan for the first time in March 2014 – a country that had fascinated me in all the aspects of its culture and that’s history intrigued me. By chance, I found out about Hasekura Tsunenaga, the Japanese ambassador, and his journey to Mexico and Europe, the very one that inspired this fragrance. From my own studies of Mexican history, I knew of the famous commercial route from the Philippines to Mexico and then to Spain. One day, I stumbled upon the story of a singular trip that carried the first official embassy of Japanese noblemen to Europe, stopping in Mexico. Wherever they went, they tried securing commercial agreements in order to import goods to Japan. What luck that when I arrived in Tokyo, the National Museum was celebrating the 400 year commemoration of the journey, exhibiting Hasekura Tsunenaga’s original portrait. They also displayed Japanese screens painted in Nanban style, meaning ‘Western or European” style, since it derived from the foreign traders’ influence in Nagasaki in the early 17th century. I was fascinated to discover a story that connected Mexico to Japan, and provided me a way to tell a Japanese story, from the outside, as a foreigner, like the original Nanban”-Carlos Huber
NANBAN Still life, shot by Hisao Oka and Edwin Pabon
January 1618,
A Japanese Galleon, the Pacific Ocean.
Following a diplomatic mission to the West, a galleon carrying a delegation of samurai charges through dark ocean currents. Loaded with a rare and precious cargo, the ship’s hull is redolent of sweet-smelling tropical woods, heady Spanish leather, frankincense, fine black pepper and other exotic ground spices—the intoxicating spirit of a singular, extraordinary voyage of discovery.
Notes include: Malabar black pepper, Persian saffron, black tea accord, Chinese osmanthus, coffee absolute, Spanish leather, myrrh, frankincense, styrax, sandalwood, copaiba balsam, cade.
100ml parfum/Price not available at press
Nanban launches in September of 2015 and will be available at select stockists throughout the world including Osswald in New York, Aedes de Venustas and Barney’s New York
Via Carlos Huber
–Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief