L'Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier: fragrance review & history

Composed by perfumer Olivia Giacobetti exactly 20 years ago in 1994, Premier Figuier still remains one of the very best out there, conjuring a vivid image of late August days spent in the Greek countryside when cicadas are loudly singing at the scorching hour of noon and people hot and weary from a sea dip are sitting beneath the shade of the fig tree to enjoy their Spartan meal of fresh fruit and cool, still water. The coconut curls note is rounding the foliage with just the right sweetness and provides an euphoric touch.

via behance.net

Giacobetti in an unstoppable strain of fig-producing mode, went on to create an Eau de Parfum version to the best-selling Premier Figuier, baptized Premier Figuier Extreme (2004), highlighting the rounder elements and extending its stay. She also created Philosykos for Diptyque, two years after her seminal "first fig tree" for L'Artisan. Philosykos, the friend of figs.

The re-creation of the smell of fig trees in perfumery is possible thanks to two crucial ingredients: stemone and octalactone gamma. Stemone (Givaudan tradename) imparts a green, fresh tonality like mint that combined with octalactone gamma (prune-like) evokes the earthy, sticky green of fig leaves (a smell of dry earth, scorched by the sun of a hot place with a hint of bitterness) and the milky sap of the young fruit plus the acid green of galbanum. The always handy Hedione (a fresh jasmine note, Firmenich tradename) and Iso-E Super (a dynamic and shape-shifting woody synthetic, IFF tradename) are often utilized to bring “lift” to the genre. The coconut note is an important part, not because it imparts a tropical feel (figs grow in the temperate zone) but because the young fruit sap contains a sensitizing "milk," a lactonic note. Coconut is also lactonic, i.e. milky in nature, hence the inclusion more realistically brings to mind the fig tree burdened with its succulent-to-be load. The milky note isn't a random thing, nor has it escaped attention through the ages. The classical Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis writes in Deipnosophistae how rural populations were making cheese out of milk by curdling it using the twigs and leaves of the fig tree. It is even described in Homer's Iliad!

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It's not decided whether Giacobetti was intimate with this bit of classical knowledge when she added a milky, butyric note into the green woody skeleton. All I know is that in Premier Figuier it was crucial that the tempering of bitterness (naturally occurring in the fig leaf itself, smelled best when crushed between the fingers) with the sweetish milky note is done just right! The effect is not too dissimilar to an apricot (another lactonic note in fragrance) run under fresh water and opened in two halves in a cool yard. While wearing Premier Figuier I am often reminded of this little fact as I receive compliments on the "apricot scent" on me… :-)

Springtime awakenings: Green Fragrances & Green Shades in Perfumery

Among fragrance families, only "green" scents are classified through a visual connotation, specifically a color coding. You could argue that color plays an important role in the perception of fragrance anyway: "noir" or black connotes a sense of nocturnal danger, of priceless and unusual objects or of mighty seduction; spicy orientals are routinely being encased in reddish or brown boxes to evoke the materials associated with their make-up and the exotic East artifacts and textiles they are inspired of; marine scents come in blue bottles to recall the "big blue" of the sea they try to reference etc. And you would be right.

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But green is a category all its own because the smell so categorically corresponds to the color for once that there is just no other way to "view" them: snapped leaves, mown grass, young stems retaining the dew, young buds striving to grow, pine needles all fresh and tingling in the forest air ... there's something about green scents that makes even the most die-hard urbanite of us yearn for the call of nature, of open spaces and of the freedom of an existence lived in a timeless way, in unison with earth. Today when the Green Movement is rampant, they seem particularly "now."

Green scents can be said to be unisex, though many women consider them more masculine or casual. But shed a thought for supermodel "The Body" Elle McPherson, a legend in the late 1980s and early 1990s and still a force to be reckoned with: her signature scent has always, famously been Guerlain's masculine Vetiver. Think of Sycomore by Chanel too: the concept was to offer a classically masculine targeted scent (a vetiver) to women who were busy buying off Les Exclusifs range. Or consider that super-sexy Christina Hendricks (of Mad Men fame) is a fan of the smooth green of Premier Figuier by L'Artisan Parfumeur!  Vetiver is technically a woody scent, coming from an exotic grass, yet because green packaging was first used for the first "stand alone" Vetiver (that of Carven in 1957) and all the others copied the color scheme, the association of vetiver with "green" has stuck!

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Green fragrances are not necessarily always "earth mother" types, "Om" chanters, dressed in hand-knitted woolies. They can be refreshing, upbeat, cheeky even! Etiquette Bleue by Parfums d'Orsay is a lively, citrusy scent which is underscored by greenery to render a playful and classic herbaceous ambience. O de Lancome is as fresh as tomorrow, its geometric packaging (in the words of Susan Irvine "reminiscent of 1960s wallpaper") denoting a modern sensibility; the basil, petitgrain, rosemary, witch hazel and vetiver notes give a decidedly green character to the hesperidic and floral notes that would speak of a simple cologne. Green fragrances can lean a bit more sophisticated too, borrowing facets from the fougere and chypre classification: Koto by Shiseido, Eau Parfumee au The Vert by Bvlgari, Diorella, Givenchy III, Safari by Ralph Lauren, Jacomo Silences, Niki de Saint Phalle and Eau Sauvage by Dior are all class acts in their own way and they all have perceptible "green" elements.

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So beloved were these green scents once upon a time that the inclusion of a "herbal green" aroma in a functional product (namely the original "Herbal Essences" shampoo) has nostalgizers scouring Ebay for remaining bottles fetching stratospheric prices, even if only for opening the cap and getting a good sniff!

Green shades can technically veer into two main directions: fresh or resinous; leaves, floral notes with green elements such as lily of the valley/muguet and herbs are classified in the former (and accounting for green florals), with some citrus peel materials (bergamot notably) and grasses (such as galbanum) classified in the later, accounting for green chypre perfumes and green citrus fragrances.

Certain raw materials naturally tilt the scales into greenery indeed: galbanum, the driving force behind the classic green Vent Vert by Balmain (1945, its very name meaning "green breeze"), but also an indispensable addition to Chanel No.19, a green floral; pine needles (is there any other way to think of classic Italian Pino Silvestre but as intensely green?); cut grass, lemon leaves, petitgrain and eau de brouts (a by-product of the distillation of the Citrus aurantium tree), violet leaves (as opposed to violet flowers), mint leaves, spearmint, angelica, wormwood, lily of the valley (a green floral note indispensable to perfumers), even absinthe notes, all lend that touch of emerald that makes a composition at once majestically glow and refresh. Bring on the springtime greens!

Perfume and the Perfumed: When Icon & Fragrance Delightfully Clash

Imagine the jaws dropped when Christina Hendricks, the one of voluptuous bosom, retro colouring and glamorous role in Mad Men, the cult TV-series, revealed some of her favourite things on People magazine, naming a fragrance among them: The fragrance was Premier Figuier by L'Artisan Parfumeur, a fig fragrance. It's quite usual to think of perfume in the way of a glamour accessory meant to evoke a specific image, but how can this astound us when a perceived connotation of a specific fragrance is shattered by its actual use; especially when it is by someone famous which we envisioned a specific way. For many seasons fans of the series imagined Hendricks oozing sex-appeal in something that was come-hither and ripe of the seductress, in the context of a 1960s classy one, not withstanding.

It's an automatic reflex to think of fragrance as a very specific symbol of self, the most pliable perhaps of all, since it does not evolve neither a sanctimonious financial overlay (like a condo would), nor an extreme make-over. Spray and you're good to go; or so the thinking goes. After all, we have been told that a fragrance wardrobe should be our goal, fitting scent to time & place and to outfit, not to mention our mood.

What happened with the above scenario is that we had pegged Christina a certain way: the curvaceous glamour puss and we -more or less- refuse to believe that she is a living, breathing woman with tastes of her own who chooses an outdoorsy, intelligent scent that is reproducing something that is not meant specifically for seduction, but for one's self. It might have helped that we saw a shot of Christina as Joan Holloway (office manager of the advertising agency Sterling Cooper) in front of a mirror preening, applying lipstick, with an array of glamorous bottles in front of her, one of which was the seductive Shalimar by Guerlain in one of the stills from the TV-program. Premier Figuier has its own special sex appeal, but it lacks the edge that a certain mythos over the decades has given to Shalimar. We have come to associate the actress with the role of the sassy femme fatale, as if she is incarcerated in her DD-cup and her cinched waists, smart reply hanging on rouged lips. And yet, her style is not without substance. On the contrary. But like in many cases of projecting a certain image in olfactory terms, it's another example where the mold is broken and we raise an eyebrow in surprise.



I hear similar pronouncements all the time perusing some of my favourite perfume-discussing boards: "Jackie Kennedy Onassis was the epitome of elegance, it all fits she wore Joy and Jicky". (But not only!) "Maria Callas was so loyal to Chanel, she must have worn No.5, her style was so timeless." (We'll never know for sure though the hypothesis holds water) "I can picture a chypre perfume on Katharine Hepburn". (and yes, she scored one or two, but not only!).

In our above exercise, Peggy Olson would wear the cool, brainy chypre fragrance. "Keira Knightley must have an endless crate of Coco Mademoiselle, oh look here, she says she only wore men's scents before!" (absolutely not true). Madame Sarkozy, previously known as Carla Bruni, is an Italian aristocrat who modelled for a hobby, so it fits she would wear something with a pedigree of taste and quality. (voila, indeed!).

I had the easiest time while composing my Vetiver Series picturing each and every one of the vetiver fragrances featured on the visage of some male actor (even though they did not necessarily wear said fragrance in real life): smart and facially rugged Hugh Laurie, alluring and insinuating Jeremy Irons, straightfoward old-school Gerald Butler, virile and seemingly cocksure Russell Crowe, suave but enigmatic Ralph Fiennes. Was I guilty of free-associating thanks to no more than the persona they project? Most certainly.


To cut a long story short, celebrities choose what they choose for various reasons, one of the lesser or grudgingly admitted ones being that they are people like us with their own set of criteria, tastes, memories and dislikes. But try to take that out of our heads? Not so easy...

And on to YOU: Are you guilty of associating specific fragrances to specific people and why? Share your thoughts in the comments!

*Note on picture of Christina Hendricks as Joan in Mad Men bathroom scene in front of perfume display: The AMC photo is from Season 3, Episode 3: “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency”. The fragrances tray includes for sure Houbigant's Demi Jour, a Lauder bottle (same shape as the later Estee but it's probably Youth Dew) and Intimate by Revlon.

Christina Hendricks photos via wikimedia commons, Huffington Post and Haircutting in High Heels