By Kilian Prelude To Love, Invitation (2008): Citruses & Preciousness {Perfume Review} {New Fragrance}
Prelude To Love, Invitation is the seventh fragrance under the labelBy Kilian and part of their collection titled L'Oeuvre Noire (The Black Masterpiece). It was composed by perfumer Calice Becker who signs here her fifth contribution to the line (See TSS's reviews of Love, Beyond Love). She is also the author of well-known fragrances marketed to the mainstream such as J'Adore by Dior and Beyond Paradise by Estée Lauder.
Perfumery-wise the latest By Kilian appears to be a blend in tune with this year's interest for hesperidic compositions, even flirting with the genre of the Eau de Cologne, but almost more as a passing quote than as a main focus. Like for other By Kilian fragrances, literary references are key and shape in this case the personality of this scent inspired by an excerpt from a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, Bonne pensée du matin (good thought of the morning).
The perfume is best understood "read" together with the poem as it does not seem to take it as pretext for a further flight of fancy. Instead, a sense of faithfulness and interpretative effort appears to animate the composition, even possibly dictating its duration. How could a perfume be of epic-recitation length as in a cycle of retelling that lasts for 24 hours when it wishes to recreate the essence of the atmosphere conveyed by a poem, not even the whole poem at that, but a few verses that speak to its creators?...
L'Occitane Notre Flore Le Jasmin - Jasmine (2008) {New Perfume}
Next month L'Occitane will add a newcomer to their select collection of fragrances titledNotre Flore (Our Flora) dedicated to praising the olfactory notes of the Mediterranean world. This time Le Jasmin - Jasmine makes its entrance with a composition centering on Jasminum Grandiflorum from Egypt.
From the press release,
"The wind rose guided sailors through the Mediterranean to explore new lands. Each land had its own unique scent that would drift out to sea and announce its close presence. After the scents of Iris from Italy, Myrtle from Corsica, Neroli from Tunisia, and Cedar from Morocco, the winds now carry us to the land of Egypt, the birthplace of perfumery. Egypt's presence is announced by the sensual, intense scent of a white and delicate flower closely connected with the greatest queens of Egypt: Jasmine"...
Gucci by Gucci pour Homme TV Commercial with James Franco {Perfume Images & Adverts}
This is my favorite masculine ad so far. When Dior Sport pour Homme and Guerlain Homme are trying to capture your attention these days on the airwaves and the street even, and do by the way, but lack a little something, like a real presence, this ad for Gucci by Gucci pour Homme with actor James Franco is able to deliver a concentrate of masculinity.
This must be the first time I pay closer attention to Franco: he is charming, sexy and I realized, looks like James Dean, to whom he is made to resemble even more with his moody, brooding pose. Ah yes, he also bears the same first name. Discovery of the day.
Lush have issued or rather re-issued three discontinued perfumes from their archives in their collection of back-by-popular-demand products called Retro Lush. It comprises Flower MarketPerfume, inspired by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Ginger Perfume and IconPerfume, evocative of a "Venetian Palazzo covered in crushed velvet and gold-framed-art" and which pays homage to the spirit of Byron.
The Flower Market composition centering on carnation sounds particularly lovely. You have to love the story,
"If you know LUSH well, you'll know that founder Mark Constantine's
favorite movie star in the whole universe is Audrey Hepburn. We even
opened a shop in Covent Garden, London, where she appeared in My Fair
Lady when Covent Garden was still a flower market. Mark created this
fragrance for that vision of Audrey Hepburn; it's an unashamedly
old-fashioned floral with carnations, ylang ylang and violets. No
synthetic designer nonsense here, just a long lasting, lovely perfume."
So lovely it sounds that it is currently out of stock on their site. All the products in the Retro Lush collection are only available online by the way...
Les Parfums de Rosine Rose Praline (2008) {New Fragrance}
Les Parfums de Rosine have created a new perfume showcasing an accord of rose, chocolate and Lapsang Souchong tea called Rose Praline.
"We imagine silk rustles, babblings
and downed laughter, one thousand one delicate and tender delicacies,
bouquets of languid roses distilling their pleasant perfume.
ROSE PRALINE is the perfume of these intimate and feminine afternoons, when everything is only coquetry and insouciance."
...
Pierre Frey Bougie Marie-Antoinette (2006) {Home Fragrance}
Parisian home textile designer Pierre Frey has a scented candle or bougie parfumée paying homage to the ex-queen of France Marie-Antoinette. It is simply named after her.
As already indicated earlier, there is a veritable Marie-Antoinette fashion going on in France, fueled in part also by the popular pastel-colored, gourmand movie by Sofia Coppola (2006). The candle is said to be centered on "an accord of rice powder softly evoking with nostalgia the French perfumery of yore"...
Stephen Jones Launches Fragrance At Dover Street Market {Scented (Party) Images}
Stephen Jones in black regalia to match his inkwell of a perfume flacon
Milliner Stephen Jones who described his first signature scent as being "... a violet that's been hit by a meteorite," resting on both an "innocent" and "otherworldly" interpretation of the delicate floral scent, just launched his fragrance at Dover Street Market in London. Adrian Joffe, president and managing director of Comme des Garçons insisted that he and perfumer Antoine Maisondieu were only there to second the milliner in giving birth to his dream perfume "The idea for us it to produce, not create. We wouldn't want to do a
perfume with someone if they didn't have a creative spirit,"
On a side fashion note, Stephen Jones is the designer behind the hats for the upcoming biopic about Chanel, Coco Avant Chanel.
Amouage To Present Lyric At Aedes {Scented Paths & Fragrant Addresses}
Lovers of perfumes - especially rose perfumes - and opera can attend an event at niche boutique Aedes in New York City on October 2, 2008 from 4:30 pm to 7 pm. The unveiling of the new duo of scents by Amouage titled Lyric for women and men, inspired in part by the inflections of the lyric-spinto soprano's voice, will take place in the presence of Amouage CEO David Crickmore and the house's artistic director Christopher Chong (see his interview on TSS).
Cocktails and Hors d'oeuvre will be served.
Address: 9 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014
RSVP: aedes@aedes.com
Previous Posts in Scented Paths & Fragrant Addresses:
Isabel Derroisné Secrets de Hammam (2008) {New Perfume}
Isabel Derroisné have introduced a new perfume in their collection Parfumeur Voyageur (Perfumer-Traveler) titled Secrets de Hammam (Secrets of the Hammam).
The brand is slowly building a reputation for hiring promising young talents in perfumery and giving them the opportunity to create noteworthy fragrances. After Céline Ellena did Rose Divine and Jérôme Epinette proposed Ilaya, we now have a chance to acquaint ourselves with perfumer Alexandra Kosinski, a former student of Calice Becker (see her interview on the ISIPCA site). She debuted as a lab assistant despite her brilliant studies at ISIPCA (she graduated at the number 1 spot of her class) and became a fine fragrance perfumer at Givaudan recently, two years ago. She has already composed an experimental perfume for Philippe di Méo called Tears (with Frédérique Lecoeur)...
Kiehl's, a brand now owned by L'Oréal but which was originally an apothecary brand established in 1851 in New York City, have launched a new perfume called Forest Rain. They are famous among perfumistas in particular for their musk oil.
Interestingly, Forest Rain is presented as an unisex fragrance and by the look of it the notes make it tip quite a bit in the direction of an unisex with characteristic masculine overtones. I would be curious to know on what gradient of the gender scale I might place it once I smell it...
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