Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
01/21/2015
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5
If a double-decker bus...
A kid- suede lined, antique, majestic forest green Jaguar crashing into a 80 year old Willow tree on a sun dappled Sunday afternoon is still just a car wreck. Bond No. 9 does it again! This whole line of fragrances is full of loud crashes, bold statements and gutsy moves. Perfumista Avenue is at first a bursting juicy plum and a magic trick involving a hat that produces a bouquet of lush deep red roses. Reminescent of "Madness" by Chopard for me, there is a aged dry woody note and something ancient, not unlike "the Mummy's Curse" popping out at me. This initial bite and rush of blood to the head is borrowed from Serge Lutens', take-no-prisoners "La Fille de Berlin", no doubt. But in the required loudness of all Bond No.9 creations we quickly sense there is a giant brown bear stalking us from the wooded area nearby! This bear is musty, carnal and jaded enough to eat people or trees without a second thought. Perfumista Avenue veers off the beautiful country road and into the trajectory of painful and the Macabre and filled with moth-eaten regrets somewhere around Saffron road. Here the saffron is different from the saffron in L'Artisan's "Saffron Troublant". Instead of intriguing, piquant and dynamic- this note is mournful, like granny's old hope chest- I feel as if Edgar Allan Poe is about to start a long diatribe on loss and longing. The final dry-down is tolerable and coming from (not a patchouli fan) me, I find the mate note (I am guessing) a delicate and unique take on the patchouli situation. Overall, I feel Regret is the mood conveyed by this piece and I envision Vincent Price or Christopher Walken is reading this review aloud from a musty dilapidated lectern. I give this fragrance a 3/10 for swoon-worthiness, a solid 7/10 for sillage and a 9/10 for longevity, 10/10 for bombasticity because that brilliant bottle design trumps everything regardless of content!
