Photo series by Roberto Greco, NeC Gallery, Paris, 2019

Between pleasure and pain, blossom and rot, there lies a strange sort of beauty: a recognition of the ephemeral, that the scent and fragility of the bloom on its stem must fade, that the flesh of which we are made will decay. We are a guest in our lives; each moment lived is as quickly gone and transforms to memory. Ashes to ashes. But the knowledge of coming sadness as the blossoms droop and curl, is what gives them exquisiteness. Oeilleres, the extraordinary perfume from renowned French photographer Roberto Greco and Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, is mesmerizing, a transport back to the 40s or 50s but in modern colour. This is perfume Blade Runner in its assertive, decayed strangeness: one foot in a recognizable 1940s cityscape, a passing woman in a nipped waist suit trailed by an animalic green perfume; the other, in a future where life and memory are both identical and illusory and where the passersby smell of faded things. So it is with photographs and fragrance; they capture what was and present it as what is.

Sean Young in Blade Runner, 1982

Released in limited edition of 500 bottles, Oeilleres is the olfactory accompaniment to photographer Roberto Greco’s photographic series of flowers in alternating states of bloom, decline and decay, which became “an allegory of the human condition.” Greco wanted to give the impression of the flowers in his photographs without being too literal, and so dispensed with “overly tangible” florals such as jasmine and rose.

Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, image via Parfum D’Empire

Over a two-year collaboration with Corticchiato, what emerged was an “anti-flower” fragrance that references flowers obliquely “through the dried flower, pollen and honey facets of chamomile and broom.” But there is also a distinctive bodily quality to Oeilleres, of flesh and animal hide, which refers to Greco’s human depictions.

Roberto Greco, self-portrait

“To connect the scent with the figures I photograph, I also wanted to convey the feel of flesh. In order to achieve this, we brought out the animal aspects of vegetal notes, as well as various spices and resins…. the fragrance is bursting with natural ingredients – sometimes in very high doses –, all the better to express the organic duality of my images. Between the delicacy of a fading petal and the radicality of a fold of skin.”

Photo by Roberto Greco (11)

Oeilleres is unlike anything else in today’s perfumery. In its early moments, when hide leather and is dominant, and the green notes tumble in, my mind immediately went to Bandit. But Oeilleres dispenses wit that landmark perfume’s aggressive galbanum bite, opting for a succession of dried savoury, herbal scents that allude to greenness without being overtly plantlike. The top of Oeilleres is extraordinary: horsey leather, soap suds, minty-cold eucalyptus, and freshly dried chamomile buds at once falling over each, and yet, each wholly distinctive. Lavender washes in like an undercurrent, underscoring the herbal aromas and adding a flowery savour.

Photo by Roberto Greco (10)

Oeilleres departs from Bandit more starkly as time goes on. Chamomile emerges as a central note, with its herbaceous aromas of crumbled dry hay and dusty wood shavings and overtones of animal fur. I’ve smelled its as a star note in only one other perfume, the strangely beautiful, quietly animalic Lucien Lelong Elle Elle. Oeilleres attenuates the animalic aspects of Elle Elle by augmenting the chamomile with castoreum, some feline musk and cumin. As the chamomile in Oeilleres gets stronger, the cumin notes moves alongside it, giving it a spicy, sweaty, bodily aspect. The dried flower and spice merge with the rich, intense maple-syrup redolence of broom and of thick resins.

Much later, I get a slight, damp, raw earth scent of mushroom, which comes through almost as cold flesh after the warm spice and sundried hay and herb scents. Towards the dry-down, the soap and lavender of the opening revisit, and I can now detect thyme. As night falls, and rain streaks down the window’s face, Oeilleres smells of plants that were, of flesh warmed and cold, of things growing in the wet darkness.  Roberto Greco’s flowers seem to stare past me as I wear their ghosts.

Notes: Eucalyptus, thyme, lavender, chamomile absolute, broom, hay absolute, olibanum, heliotrope, styrax, mushroom accord, cumin, castoreum, animalic musks.

Disclaimer: Sample of Roberto Greco Oeilleres graciously provided by Scent Bar, New York. My opinions are my own. All photo unless otherwise stated by Roberto Greco©

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Robert Greco Oeilleres, photo by Roberto Greco

Thanks to the generosity of Roberto Greco, we are able to offer 2 samples of Oeilleres to two registered readers in Europe and the U.S. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what draws you in Lauryn’s review to Oeilleres, and if you have a favourite vintage or vintage-style fragrance.  Draw closes 5/12/2020.

Available at Oeilleres, Jovoy Paris and Luckyscent

Editor’s Note: Oeilleres was chosen as one of the 14 perfumes in our Jovoy.com x CaFleureBon Edit

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