Last May, I wrote an article introducing the Perfume Sisterhood of the West Coast, a group of women who had hopes of making the West Coast a recognized force in perfumery. It has been an eventful year, and I wanted to examine the year gone by to the present and see how far we have come in such a short period.
When I received the new pair of fragrances from Amouage called Fate Man and Fate Woman, after spraying them on, I was reminded of entropy. The Creative Director at Amouage, Christopher Chong, is also thinking about the way things fall apart as he describes this pair of fragrances as “the end of the first cycle of the Amouage narrative”.
Sometimes a fragrance is so exquisite and uniquely itself that my desire to rush in and write about it comes to a delightful pause and I get to live with the fragrance in a kind of suspended time, waiting to see where it will take me, and that’s exactly how Aedes de Venustas Iris Nazarena revealed itself.
The complexity of an Amouage fragrance extends beyond its physical structure. Creative Director Christopher Chong is the Sigmund Freud of perfumery as he liquifies the human condition. Amouage has recently introduced two new fragrances, the new special edition Beloved Man and the latest installment to the Library Collection, the soul-stirring Opus VII.
The Arabian Nights collection of oud fragrances for By Kilian has released its fifth and final chapter called Musk Oud. All of these previous Arabian Nights were the product of a single perfumer, Calice Becker, and I expected her to finish the run but to my surprise a new storyteller arrived, Alberto Morillas.
Many of you will remember when the doorbell would ring and it would be “Avon Calling!” One woman, Tara Swords, had a vision and has made experiencing artful perfumes in the comfort of your home a reality again. Olfactif is a wonderful new service that brings niche perfume to YOU and not the other way around.
