I have never been fond of all-natural perfumery, for two reasons: 1- Constraints in art are fruitful only if they channel creativity to give results pleasing to the senses, e.g. rhyme, modal harmony etc. The all-natural constraint is not productive: no all-natural perfume has ever been as good as the best natural-aromachemical ones*. 2- My definition of Nature includes Organic Chemistry and all who sail in her. This said, I find Anna Zworykina‘ fragrances very impressive […]
If HoM is anything to go by, niche perfumery is growing up fast, both in presentation and in content. Beautiful blue bottles with coppery labels; a distinctive look, half steampunk and half Islamic-abstract; consistently good, properly worked-out perfumes with apt but not hyperbolic names; and an overall cast of high quality and good humor. There is much to like in the 9-perfume collection they sent: Trillium, a herbaceous green-floral that feels mostly natural without being […]
Nothing whets your appetite for a little sense of humor like smelling the work of two or three niche firms of the US West Coast hippie persuasion, forever declaring their perfumes to be an homage to some desert flower, extinct civilisation or spiritual practice. That stuff is the perfumery equivalent of yoga music, and demands a couple of Sousa marches as a chaser. I felt lucky therefore to receive a package from Anastasia […]
I always used to think of Révillon’s Detchema, Caron’s Fleurs de Rocaille and Le Galion’s Sortilège as three dowdy ladies in bouclé outfits and beige, slightly cracked patent leather shoes, having tea in a corner bar of Avenue Montaigne and deploring the fall of the past subjunctive in French. Now that early perfume history is slowly emerging from the shadows, it is becoming obvious that their heyday had been the first thirty years of the 20th century. […]
I asked Trudon for samples and this came back. Dear Luca, thank you so much for your interest. Unfortunatly [sic], I am really sorry but we can’t send you some samples because your website does not correspond to our editorial line. Hope you will understand, best regards, Laure Meyers Lifestyle Press Officer Editorial line? Next time I’m in Paris I’ll visit the shop, and report back. Update: A director of Favori PR agency, Laure Meyers’ boss, just […]
Mendittorosa was founded four years ago by event organiser Stefania Squeglia to fulfill a childhood dream of making perfumes. Se wrote me some time back that it was not easy to find perfumers to translate her artistic direction into smell, but in the meantime she clearly succeeded. The Paris-based composition house Flair appears to have done the entire collection of samples she sent. Insofar as one can ever talk of “schools” of […]
There’s a lot that appeals to me about Nishane’s emergence in the niche perfumery world. For one, I always get a thrill when I see an unusual top-level country domain like .tr on a company URL. The world is a big place, and a combination of Web and FedEx means that everyone in perfumery gets a bite at the apple. No point in pretending to have a PoBox in Grasse […]
NG s an Australian-born fashion designer and milliner who started a niche fragrance line four years ago. There are four fragrances to date: Or du Sérail (Bertrand Duchaufour), a pleasant candied fruit and coumarin composition; Bois d’Ascèse (Julien Rasquinet), a tarry cedarwood; Cuir Velours (also JR), very much in the manner of Kenzo Jungle Homme (Olivier Cresp, 1998). By far the best is Iris Cendré (JR again), which occupies the space first discovered and then vacated […]
When I was at Esxence I encountered the large stand of Spirit of Dubai. The staff was very courteous, but shy in English. They handed me samples in an outrageously kitsch, and apparently award-winning, swag bag. Arab luxury has a 1950s Soviet chocolate-box feel to it that, try as I might, I cannot decide whether I love or hate. In the context of a niche fragrance fair, however, it is a wonderful palate-cleanser (-dirtier?) […]
When I stopped at the Baruti stand at Esxence, Spyros Drosopoulos was standing tall behind a narrow bench on which seven small upturned tumblers were lined up, as if he were demonstrating a newly-devised, exponentially tricky shell game. We fell into an intense conversation as I smelled his fragrances one after another. Even in the sensory mayhem of Esxence, it was clear to me that 1- These compositions were something special and 2- So was the […]
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