I met Ineke for the first time this past April, at Sniffapalooza Spring Fling, and asked her what “G” would be and the only answer she gave me was, “Shakespeare meets manga”. I have to say that is one of the more interesting sound bite descriptions I’ve received for a fragrance and I’ve been eagerly awaiting some more information. Now we have it, as the press release for Gilded Lily has arrived on my desk.
The ideal of Agonist Parfums to create something that captures the melancholy of the Swedish culture matched with the richness of the Scandinavian surroundings. The Infidel does a most interesting job of creating a near somber mood while feeling as deep as a fragrance gets. The Infidel is a fragrance that is designed for those who like the unusual and if that describes your taste in fragrance it is worth seeking The Infidel out to try.
The Japanese market has always been seen as a market, maybe even a world, apart from Western aesthetics. The assumption behind the great majority of fragrances inspired by or for a Japanese aesthetic is that light clean lines are what are desired. When I am thinking about fragrance Houses that embody that kind of style, one that would be low on my list would be Montale. It was with a great deal of surprise when I read in 2005 that Montale was making a Japanese market exclusive fragrance, Mango Manga. I thought it would be so very interesting to see a perfumer who is all about bold powerful notes try and adapt his style for this different audience. Now in 2010 Mango Manga has been released to the rest of the world and we can all enjoy Pierre Montale’s Eastern vision.
Parfum Sacre was a spice and amber laden rose fragrance that surrounded the central rose note with a warm enveloping spicy grouping of notes. It was surprisingly light for a fragrance full of intense notes. When I first smelled Parfum Sacre it was an opulent fragrance. I was shocked to find the currently reformulated version of Parfum Sacre to be a wan imitation of the original. Once again the heavy hand of IFRA and their regulations had squeezed the lush juice out of a memorable fragrance and neutered Parfum Sacre in the process. Because of that disappointment my level of skepticism with the new 2010 release Parfum Sacre Intense was very high. What I found, instead, was a perfume House which found a way to pay tribute to the original Parfum Sacre and somehow create a new fragrance that allows it to surpass the current formulation of the original.
In 2004 Ralf Schweiger and Nathalie Feisthauer created a burst of citrus, spice and wood meant to resemble ambergris.
In 2010 Jean-Claude Ellena is once again headed back to the Merveilles well and has created a third flanker called Eau Claire des Merveilles. This time around the only similarity in the notes used comes at the end, as in all of the Merveilles flankers, it is about a woody/ambery finish. Unlike the other three versions this trip is totally different in arriving at that finish
Certainly one of the most successful examples of this kind of artistry are the first two fragrances in Hermes “Un Jardin” series; Un Jardin en Mediterranee and Un Jardin sur Le Nil. For both of those fragrances the perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena spent time in the Meditteranean and near The Nile and let his nose become the way we would experience his impressions of those locales. I am reminded of this by perfumer Shelley Waddington and her Carmel By The Sea Series for her Envoyage Perfumes label
