Studio 54 on an average night, stock photo
Before I was old enough to drink, Studio 54 was my mecca: an outsize glitterball, a dazzling, never-ending carnival where no one carded you if you looked the part — and everybody did. Studio 54 was as exhilarating as doing everything your parents told you never to do all in the space of a few hours (and more than a few people certainly did on the space-age sofas in the mezzanine). For my teen self, the parting of the velvet rope was like being told by your Hollywood crush you were the most gorgeous thing on the planet, proof that you were one of the elite cool as the doors opened and you tripped into Wonderland.
Bruno Acampora 54 Collection ad
Decades later, Studio 54 is now the grande dame of a near-mythical New York, the shimmery symbol of Gomorrah-like excess before AIDs and 9/11 made the city poignant and afraid. So, the soignee Italian brand Bruno Acampora may not seem the most natural fit for a line of 6 new Studio 54-inspired perfumes (an existing fragrance, Bruno, also joins the collection). Acampora departs from its characteristic restraint and takes a big risk, bringing a set of quirky, saturated scents by perfumer and Fragrantica writer Miguel Matos that stop just short of over-the-top.
Bruno Acampora Young Hearts photo Acampora
Unlike yours truly, Matos is too young to have experienced 54. But he has an instinctive understanding of its fluorescent glamour and composes his fragrances with panache and sensitivity, carefully avoiding a pastiche that would dilute Acampora’s trademark elegance. Using big, brash notes, Matos manages to pull back at the right moments so that the collection feels cohesive within the brand – a bad-girl cousin to its elegant Grace Kelly relative. Bruno Acampora Young Hearts, my favourite from the 54 collection line, smells like a 70s green chypre on acid. With echoes of the fabulously eccentric Niki St. Phalle (reviewed by Gail here), Young Hearts feels of the time – if people had been wearing what the time smelled like.
Pat Cleveland at Studio 54, 1977, photo Guy Marineau
The classic chypre structure is there from the get-go: a ton of oakmoss and bright bergamot right at the top. But a wallop of galbanum and some hefty, earthy saffron take this perfume outside the classy, green riding jacket fragrances that were popular during 54’s heyday, such as Anne Klein Blazer and Chanel 19. The saffron turns out to be a clever choice. It grounds the bigness of the opening with natural-smelling notes of garden soil and dusty spice. Young Hearts then opens out in several directions at once. Some lovely, pink-petaled rose and a touch of soapy musk soften its bite in the middle, but then galbanum gallops past again, more animalic now (hello, Cellier’s Bandit), sharpened with pine. The 70s references become more prominent once again with the addition of wood notes. The interplay between stiletto sharpness and earthiness continues with the arrival of dried-leaf patchouli towards the dry-down. An hour later, Bruno Acampora Young Hearts smells like Niki St. Phalle fell into a rose garden in her evening clothes: a tangle of woods, bright greenness, earth and petals. It’s crazy big but effortlessly wearable, like a Halston satin gown in poison green.
And gorgeousness with a hint of bad taste is what Studio 54 was all about, darling.
Notes: Bergamot, galbanum, birch leaf, pine, saffron, jasmine, fir balsam, rose, oakmoss, patchouli, musk, amber.
Disclaimer: Sample of Bruno Acampora Young Hearts kindly provided to me at Pitti Fragranze. My opinions are my own.
– Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
photo via Acampora
Thanks to the generosity of Acampora Profumi, we have a draw for a set of carded samples of the entire Studio 54 collection for a registered reader anywhere in the EU, USA, Canada, or Australia To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what grabs you about Lauryn’s review of Bruno Acampora Young Hearts and where you live. Can you think of a Studio 54 era song that would be a good inspiration for this collection? Draw closes 10/16/2019.
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