Byredo candles & Byredo Blanche: new fragrance

ByRedo Parfums is a Stockholm-based newcomer onto the perfume scene as a brand founded by Ben Gorham, a graduate of the Stockholm Art School and an ex-student of interior design. Acting as creative director for the new line, he has assembled the talents of perfumers Olivia Giacobetti, Jérôme Epinette, and Michel Almairac to compose a collection of eight fine fragrances so far: Gypsy Water, Fantastic Man, Bal d'Afrique, Green, Rose Noir, Chembur and Pulp.

Their new candle collection is comprised of 9 scents which seem just like the stuff to get home to, this autumn.


The 9 ByRedo candles are:
Ambre Japonais (Coriander, sandalwood, vanilla)
Baker's Guild (Bitter orange, star anise, ginger)
Bibliotèque (Peach, prunbe, violet, patchouli, leather, peony)
Candy Darling (Coriander, rosewood, patchouli, benzoin)
Carrousel (Orange, rhubarb, cardamom, vetiver, amber)
Cassis (Cassis, berries, strawberry, cedarwood, cinnamon)
Cotton Poplin (Linen notes, white cedar, blue chamomille, musk)
Loose Lips (Violet, black cherry, rose, rice powder)
Peyote Poem (Tonka bean, hyacinth, fir, vanilla)

Each candle is 225g for 50 Euros.

I am itching to try the Bibliotèque candle: How more perfect ~and Lutensian I might add~ can it get?

Ben Gorham, the creator of parfums By Redo, is also launching a new Eau de Parfum, called Blanche this autumn.

"The idea of Blanche is ~as its name suggests~ constructed around my
perception of the colour white. For the first time I have conceived a perfume
for and with the collaboration of one particular person. I wanted to capture
that innocent and immaculate side, a perfume that is of almost transparent
nature. Blanche also represents a homage to classical beauty. The
fragrance is pure and simple in its formula, but its character is extreme".

~Ben Gorham

Blanche ByRedo opens on notes of white rose, pink pepper and aldehydes, segues to a heart of violet, neroli, and peony and reveals a base of white woods, sandalwood and musk.
Available in Eau de Parfum spray, 100ml

notes & pics via press release

Brioni: new fragrance

On the 14th of October, Brioni, a independent tailoring house dedicated to fine garments for men since 1945, is launching their new fragrance, Brioni, the first one to hit the market since 1958. It was in that decade that the luxury house had issued a limited seris of fragrances for men, including the Eau de Cologne "Good Luck". It seems that the renaissance of fragrance is waking up traditional firms out of hibernation and the new masculine Brioni is further proof to this. Their motto "be one of a kind" (their suits graced James Bond no less) is the goal they are going for with their fragrance as well.

The official launch on October 14th will be fronted by Andrea Perrone and Brian Ferry of Roxy Music, while the masculine «Brioni» will be available for purchase exclusively by boutiques Brioni and luxury distributors in the last week of October.

pic via luxury-gadegets.com

Parfum d'Empire Wazamba: fragrance review

In the words of Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura "most human behaviour is learned observationally through modeling". And nowhere is this more cognitively apparent than in the beauty and sensual business in which perfumery holds an esteemed place. Wazamba by Parfum d'Empire is a prime example of the developmental incline which the niche house established by Corsican Marc-Antoine Corticchiato~assisted to by Elisabeth de Feydeau~ has been for a while now, influenced and influencing through modeling.

The resounding success of Ambre Russe, Cuir Ottoman and Osmanthus Interdite are a small testament to the power of quality materials, conceptual storylines (the recreation of the atmosphere of great empires of the past, influencing the Romea d'Ameor line as well) and an aesthetic focus which diverts from the torpid patcho-syrupy jingles of so many new releases to produce baroque, complex and refined sonatas.

In Wazamba, the name doesn't evoke a peruqued era with fake beauty marks travelling the rosy cheeks of decadent and unwahsed aristocrats, nor Tsardoms of fierce despotism drenched in samovars' inky liquid and potato grain liquor. Instead it is inspired by “a sistrum used in the rituals of West Africa” possessing a “heavy sound, full and deep” which one could imagine played by the regal silhouettes of Modigliani-like figures in the savanna evening bonfires. Perhaps a little imaginatively conceived, as the mysterious instrument is nowhere to be found (there is wazimbo though!), yet the merit of the composition more than surpasses the want of accuracy in the press release. A Lutensian web is weaved around almost every niche release, his pioneer work being the instigator in large part (excluding L'Artisan, Goutal and Diptyque who always travelled their own path). Parfum d'Empire is no exception, yet the familiarity is not contrite nor bellicose, but proud in itself.

Parfum d'Empire Wazamba travels the new route of conifers, surely pre-empting along with Fille en Aiguilles, a revisited appreciation for balsamic notes which I predict we will be seeing more of in the future: fir balsam, pine needles, cypress sap...Lubin's Idole and Black Cashmere by Donna Karan were incorporating some warmth and fir notes with their incense a few years ago and Zagorsk from the Incense series by Comme des Garcons was the first to marry pine with incense. But in Wazamba the synergy is more complicated, very interesting and sweeter. The burning, pyrocaustic frankincense of Serge Noire and Essence de John Galliano appears softly pettering out to ashy-powdery, slightly sweet notes (opoponax and the sensuality of labdanum). Yet the initial impression and one of the predominent notes on my skin is ~surprisingly enough but pleasurably so~ apple; a red, juicy and ripe variety that is miles away from the sanitary, upbeat, acid green and detergent-like apple in shampoos and fine fragrance alike in later years! The combination of this apple note along with long-lasting, delectable myrrh is joined at the hip via the cinnamon nuance that both materials evoke; one through allusion, the other through illusion. Yet Wazamba isn't spicy, nor is it gourmand despite its sweetness. Neither is it fancy, sophisticated, elegant or conventionally sexy and that's perfectly all right. The feeling it evokes is one of unadulterated, raw beauty: It relies on a forest of aromatic pine needles, laid out in an African sunset, when climbing the nearby knoll your hands are almost touching the copper clouds.



Notes for Parfum d'Empire Wazamba: Somalian incense, Kenyan myrrh, Ethiopian opoponax, Indian sandalwood, Moroccan cypress, labdanum, apple, fir balsam

Parfum d'Empire Wazamba is available in Eau de Parfum in 50ml/1.7 and 100ml/3.4oz spray bottles at Luckyscent and Aus Liebe zum Duft, as well as in the men's department of Le Printemps and the Old England store (corner of the rue Scribe and boulevard des Capucines) in Paris.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Incense Series, Pine scents

Pics from the postcard book African Ceremonies by Beckwith and Fisher via cas1.elis.ugent.be and salon.com.
Photo of Parfum d'Empire Wazamba bottle © by Elena Vosnaki.

Flou artistique: new ad for Chanel No.5 with Audrey Tautou

The new print ads for Chanel No.5 with its latest face are starting to spread over the glossies. Audrey Tautou, the French actress who stars as the young Gabrielle Chanel herself in the film "Coco before Chanel", of which we talked in detail here, divulged: “The feature film enabled me to learn a lot more about Coco Chanel. She was an innovator, ahead of her era. The fact that she created a fragrance in the 1920s that could just as easily have been created yesterday reflects the standard of excellence that applied to everything she did in her life. By playing Coco and getting to know her, I understood, even more, just how unique N°5 really is.”

The film commercial for No.5 with Tautou has been a resounding success ( Watch it here if you haven't yet). Can the new print ad compete with the previous representations? It all depends...

In discussing the visual style of the advertisement with my collaborator AlbertCan, we zeroed in the shots of Krzysztof Kieslowski's flou artistique in "La double vie de Veronique" (1991). The other references are there too if we take into consideration the commercial for No.5: The window pane, the missing element, the deja vu impressions, even the beauty ideal that Audrey Tautou and Irène Jacob both represent (not implying they're doppelgänger): elfin, dark, delicate but thoughtful. After all, as I had written in the past (scroll for "Perfumes in Dialogue with One Another"), there is a thing called intertextuality, which is none the less brightly running through the course of perfumery and the visual arts that accompany it.

The focal point in La double vie de Veronique was the existential question of free will or fate. Without resorting to such elaborate and antithetical to the premise of luxurious abandon that perfume should evoke, isn't Chanel No.5 winking at us through its commercials and advertisments, as well as their egeries, that there is a reason behind every choice we make and the choice has but one name, that of Chanel?

Audrey Tautou redefines the new path that the Chanel No.5 woman is travelling, a younger, less haute and less poised one ~away from the couture of Kidman or the world-wise beauty of Deneuve. Alone, with the inner reflection of herself, a point of departure for a journey to the inner side, the one which wants to be reunited with the past and the future. Her eyes, looking at us through the hazy contours of the window reflection, seem to speak to us of the above. The luxury we have come to expect from Chanel is there, in the form of the diamond starfish hanging from Audrey's neck, but her tousled hair, the emblematic little black dress taking an almost casual air on her and her expressive mien, speak of an effort on the part of the new direction of Chanel to speak in a language that is audible to a new clientele. This new introspection is the reflexes of a quick-pulsed team who monitor the recessive perfume market and are replying by a more modest but perhaps also more esoteric approach to the visualisation of what in essence is but a dream...that of perfume!
And perhaps to further the thought that cinematically started my musings "Each of us is matched somewhere in the world, by our exact double - someone who shares our thoughts and dreams". Perhaps one of you is that someone who shares those thoughts and dreams through No.5?

Pics frill.com and thestylophile.blogspot.com

Christopher Chong of Amouage Talks

Extrait.it is an Italian site I have been reading for a while, because I find their approach and layout quite interesting: They also happen to have all the Italian front coverage (such as the Pitti Fragranza exhibition) and lots of scoops and fascinating videos.
It was with immense pleasure (and naturally a sense of being honoured) I learned through Extrait.it that Amouage's artistic director, Christopher Chong, who has literally taken Amouage to a new level of sophistication and excellence, is a fan of Perfume Shrine! There is a wonderful interview of mr.Chong ~so meaty it necessitates a fork and a knife~ that fuses musical language (so very Italian by nature) and the artistic influences that form the core of his vision for Amouage. Along comes the news of the unisex novel project for 2010 that is called “The Library Collection” referencing the 20s and 30s. The text is in Italian but there are video-clips in English which non-Italian-readers can follow. Enjoy yourselves clicking the link!

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Amouage news & reviews