06/28/2018
jtd
484 Reviews
jtd
Helpful Review
4
fontevraud
Fazzolari calls his new perfume, “a celebration of the ancient and the contemporary” and names it Fontevraud, after a serially repurposed abbey in France. It is produced in a very limited run (50 bottles) in celebration of Los Angeles’s famed perfume retailer LuckyScent/ScentBar’s 15th anniversay. Combining a chypre with a fruity floral is a logical old/new combination, but as with Fontevraud Abbey’s cortège from monestery to prison to UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fazzolari’s Fontevraud is neither expected nor obvious. I’ll admit I had reservations when I saw the list of notes, which includes guava, rose and pear. Visions of Sophia Grosjman’s Calyx for Prescriptives came to mind. A gorgeous perfume, but perhaps the most hyperbolic fruity chypre ever made.
A chypre is not a new undertaking for Fazzolari, who previously nailed the genre with the voluptous Au Delà/Narcisse and the gleaming Seyrig, but true to his claim Fazzolari devises something new. Most attempts to resuscitate the genre try to fill in the hole left after oakmoss and all the other noxious materials were dug out. They shovel in patchouli, laundry musks and PR bullshit about how authentic the perfume is. But they’re counterfeit and they smell forged. The effort of wearing them without feeling like a fraud is too much for me.
Fazzolari punks us all by creating one of the mossiest perfume in recent history that doesn’t actually smell like a traditional chypre. Fontevraud uses the chypre’s compositional configuration as a starting place to build a perfume with a texture different than either the time-honored or spurious versions. It focuses on the material’s resinous facets more than its inky and smokey qualities and lends itself to darker hues like dry fruit and spicy balsams.
Rose chypres were known for their brassiness. The outspokenness of the flower often gave the perfumes hulking presences. Rose is seeded throughout Fontevraud, from top to base and from resinousness to fruitiness, but I feel as if I see it through a mirror. Visible, apparent but just out of reach no matter how close. Rose lines the whole perfume and carries a big stick but doesn’t push its way to the front. It’s a great way to tame a big note without actually declawing it.
Fruit is another common chypre component but guava and pear are unorthodox picks. Fazzolari plays both fruits against type. He avoids the predictable tropical clichés of guava by giving it a dark edge. It’s as if he compresses the fruit’s distinctive redolence into a compact shape and, while it smells like guava, it smells dark, almost bitter. On the tree or in the kitchen pear’s distinctive sweet scent really only comes forward when the fruit is ripe. Before that it smells more woody than fruity. Fontevraud plays on the woody facet of pear by emphasizing the sharp, almost vinegary taste of the skin of the fruit. Fontevraud’s pear appears within the first minute that the perfume is applied but the reveal is somewhat startling. A mineralic opening segues into a mushroom note (Fazzolari says it’s a function of opoponax) which in turn becomes a grainy pear note. It’s a surprising transition that took me a few wearings to wrap my head around but now I give myself a minute or so after applying Fontevraud just to get taken for the ride. It’s a blast.
The fruit tones that Fazzolari comes up with are unexpected but appealing and he has played fruit against type before. Monserrat uses a peach/grapefruit/osmanthus accord to create one of the more sophisticated fruity-florals you’ll find. Unsettled‘s smoky, buttery pineapple manages to be sultry without relying on the simple olfactory language of pineapple=tropical=exotic. Fazzolari calls Fontevraud bright but I disagree. By turning such uninhibited fruits into introverts and creating a reticent rose he designs a stylishly dark perfume that works for the same reason a little black dress or a tuxedo works. It’s impeccable and has a sexy silhouette.
from scenthurdle.com
A chypre is not a new undertaking for Fazzolari, who previously nailed the genre with the voluptous Au Delà/Narcisse and the gleaming Seyrig, but true to his claim Fazzolari devises something new. Most attempts to resuscitate the genre try to fill in the hole left after oakmoss and all the other noxious materials were dug out. They shovel in patchouli, laundry musks and PR bullshit about how authentic the perfume is. But they’re counterfeit and they smell forged. The effort of wearing them without feeling like a fraud is too much for me.
Fazzolari punks us all by creating one of the mossiest perfume in recent history that doesn’t actually smell like a traditional chypre. Fontevraud uses the chypre’s compositional configuration as a starting place to build a perfume with a texture different than either the time-honored or spurious versions. It focuses on the material’s resinous facets more than its inky and smokey qualities and lends itself to darker hues like dry fruit and spicy balsams.
Rose chypres were known for their brassiness. The outspokenness of the flower often gave the perfumes hulking presences. Rose is seeded throughout Fontevraud, from top to base and from resinousness to fruitiness, but I feel as if I see it through a mirror. Visible, apparent but just out of reach no matter how close. Rose lines the whole perfume and carries a big stick but doesn’t push its way to the front. It’s a great way to tame a big note without actually declawing it.
Fruit is another common chypre component but guava and pear are unorthodox picks. Fazzolari plays both fruits against type. He avoids the predictable tropical clichés of guava by giving it a dark edge. It’s as if he compresses the fruit’s distinctive redolence into a compact shape and, while it smells like guava, it smells dark, almost bitter. On the tree or in the kitchen pear’s distinctive sweet scent really only comes forward when the fruit is ripe. Before that it smells more woody than fruity. Fontevraud plays on the woody facet of pear by emphasizing the sharp, almost vinegary taste of the skin of the fruit. Fontevraud’s pear appears within the first minute that the perfume is applied but the reveal is somewhat startling. A mineralic opening segues into a mushroom note (Fazzolari says it’s a function of opoponax) which in turn becomes a grainy pear note. It’s a surprising transition that took me a few wearings to wrap my head around but now I give myself a minute or so after applying Fontevraud just to get taken for the ride. It’s a blast.
The fruit tones that Fazzolari comes up with are unexpected but appealing and he has played fruit against type before. Monserrat uses a peach/grapefruit/osmanthus accord to create one of the more sophisticated fruity-florals you’ll find. Unsettled‘s smoky, buttery pineapple manages to be sultry without relying on the simple olfactory language of pineapple=tropical=exotic. Fazzolari calls Fontevraud bright but I disagree. By turning such uninhibited fruits into introverts and creating a reticent rose he designs a stylishly dark perfume that works for the same reason a little black dress or a tuxedo works. It’s impeccable and has a sexy silhouette.
from scenthurdle.com
