Intersport

Body Paint was a phantom for a long time; when I heard a good three years ago that Marc-Antoine Corticchiato had created something new for a brand that hadn't particularly inspired me before (or since), I naturally wanted to try it out: easier said than done, so for about a year I rattled off one 'Vilhelm Parfum' point-of-sale after another, my question about Body Paint was met with astonishment throughout: no, never heard of it, no, I certainly mean Chicago High from the same year (which was also speculated to be possibly. also by Corticchiato), no, there is no such perfume. In a store in Vienna, a printed 'Vilhelm stock & release' list was even pulled out as quasi-official proof: Body Paint doesn't exist... What was going on? A fragrance, although listed on the company's website, completely unknown in the dedicated sales outlets!?

I don't know, just that I was probably not alone, Gentilhomme, it was apparently similar, merci beaucoup for your bottling back then, extremely helpful, I could probably have searched much longer. When I finally had Body Paint in front of me, it quickly became clear that the fragrance was an alien, a foreign body in Vilhelm's spectrum.

The opening, a mixture of solvent, wall paint and pear, mixed with something vegetable-like (sliced green and red peppers here), slightly chlorine-like to boot. The press release mentioned the year 1988, here I think of the first versions of Maître Parfumeur et Gantier's Garrigue and its slight chlorine note, or the contemporary interpretation of it, Pluie Noire (2017). The whole thing is like a ritual, scenic cleansing that gradually makes way for a far more classic, aseptic note, here in the leading role - clove: very clear, almost monolithic, yet without the oriental warmth that often resonates, the still present top notes seem to set limits to the clove here. This is supported by other spices, for me more dried mace flowers than nutmeg per se; and yet, a kind of nutmeg note like the one celebrated extensively in the 80's by Cacharel pour Homme (1981) is not entirely far-fetched. Other references, the clearest perhaps being Comme des Garçons' Guerilla 1 (2008) where the combination of clove & fruit (pear) plus champaca and overall darker spices could shine. Body Paint remains more transparent, finer, even more modern all along the line, a slightly shimmering oak moss note gives the fragrance a seriousness in the finish that plays against the initial effervescence, only on fabric do I notice slight artificial wood residues the next day, which I could have done without.

Even if Body Paint sounds quite solitary at first with all these references, I gradually had to place it in the vicinity of a Corticchiato style: the notes I described as pear/solvent, could easily pass for eau de vie, i.e. high-proof, distilled, as first introduced by the perfumer in the delightful triple-mastix gem Corsica Furiosa (2014), later taken up in the ambrette-heavy Cri de la Lumiere (2017) [which in turn continues the ambrette/booze note of Jacque Polge's magnificent Chanel No 18 (EDT version !) (2007)], and which was most recently used in the sweeter, less high-percentage but thoroughly potent Salute! (2019) was used. The spirits note of Corsica Furiosa could serve as an 'organic' counterpoint to Body Paint's solvent facet. Naturally, such a note is rather fleeting, and overall I would describe the volume of the composition here as narrow; quickly close to the skin, but I can always feel it coming back to life over hours ...

All in all, Body Paint oscillates between the long tradition of clove-heavy fragrances, early Comme des Garçons artificiality and Corticchiato's own spirit distillates. A modern, without any citrus, fresh and somehow spring-like perfume, both for non-food lovers who like well-realized eau de vie / solvent notes, as well as for neo-clove fetishists who want to renounce the Caron magic of past decades.

Jean-Claude Ellena made no secret of the far-reaching influence that Edmond Roudnitska had on his work, especially during his employment at Hermès. He repeatedly named Eau d'Hermès (1951) as the fragrance he would wear from time to time, his extremely respectful restoration of it speaks for itself, or rather the explicit homages to it, first through Déclaration (1998) and then again more clearly via Épice Marine (2013) and Muguet Porcelaine (2016), his commentary on Roudnitska's Diorella (1972), to stick with the most obvious ones.

Besides the brevity of a 'formula' he likes to mention, however, it is probably Ellena's urge to write that he learned most from Roudnitska. Together with Hermès' marketing activities, a dream combination. Ellena's writings may lack the urgency and the seamless transition from the specialist literature of the time to the general that made Roudnitska's writings so special, but they are certainly entertaining, and the almost impressionistic, narrative style corresponds well to Ellena's image of fragrance as he has created it since the 2000s. However, I also assume that Ellena and Hermès had an immense influence on the (linguistic) reduction of communicated notes: Even in the titles of the Hermèssence range, the focus has been hard-hitting, name-wise, on just two protagonists since the beginning.

The corresponding notes are then often expanded to three: head, heart and base. A formula for success, it seems, which does experience the necessary headwind from the straight-edge hardcore realists of some indie labels, I'm thinking of N-O-A-M's sympathetically consistent transparency in naming what's really in it, for example, or of Versȧtıle, which in turn lists all (?) synthetic fragrances; but on the whole, this reduction in information is still standard, easier to convey and understand, or to 'recognize' all the notes given in texts - a similar trend could also be read on menus of trendy restaurants almost at the same time, around the end of the 00's, for example at Fergus Henderson's St John's in London.

While Ellena was able to live out this celebrated reduction with the Hermès fragrances - some of his most beautiful works are among them, which hardly smell 'aged' even years after their release - it is the three variations on the Hermès classics Bel Ami (1986), Amazone (1974), and Equipage (1970) that I appreciate as particularly successful, above all the Equipage Géranium, which has since been discontinued.

Geranium, clove and sandalwood, that's how it is outlined in Ellena's new-speak. If Equipage Géranium were a completely new fragrance, this would not be surprising, except that Equipage Géranium is a commentary on Equipage, the Hermès classic, which is always treated as a superlative among the old Hermès men's fragrances, from the hands of the legendary Guy Robert, and was therefore equipped with a far more extensive note pyramid(s), which has certainly changed over the years.

Equipage Géranium and Equipage are immediately very similar, so much so that I wonder if Ellena didn't go all out and try to clone notes with non-obvious substitutes or fragrances of a completely different origin, such as in his rose-free rose perfumes, Amazone Rose (2014) or later Rose & Cuir (2019)?

However, if you give yourself over to Ellena's trinity, it is definitely fun: the geranium note is particularly great here, as it is not that very minty rose geranium that was most lavishly realized in MPG's Jardin Du Nil (1988) or more technicistically clear in Geranium pour Monsieur (2009) or more recently in L'Eau Revée d'Hubert (2023), but rather resembles the geranium varieties that I know more from southern German flower boxes than from perfumes, and which continue to characterize certain regions in the foothills of the Alps, whose waxy, hairy leaves stink rather vehemently and peculiarly, especially for children's noses. Ellena has staged this kind of geranium note here, at the interface with clary sage, with a hint of additional mint and subtle soapiness that already linked the old Equipage with Calèche (1961).

Clove is representative of a spice blend through which the old Equipage clearly speaks: cloves, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, a little cumin, dry, almost dusty, difficult to divide as befits well thought-out blends. Basically all warm spices, which are counterbalanced by the initial geranium freshness and do not drift into the warm and cozy, quasi oriental. A slight soapiness that was already associated with the old Equipage with Calèche (1961) resonates in a subdued form.

The base remains mysterious and the part that took me the longest to make sense of - especially since the old Equipage base contained just about everything that made up a civilized 70's base - oakmoss, musk, dark woods - but certainly also (still natural) sandalwood, i.e. Indian sandalwood, which Ellena counts among the 'light woods', as the botanical name for Santalum album suggests. An equally dry sandalwood note infused with preceding spices and floral notes, but hardly creamy, as sandalwood has always been since Ernest Beaux' production in No. 5 EdT (1924) and Bois des Iles (1926), among others.

Sandalwood fragrances also fascinate because of their high potential for abstraction: far less than representations of other woods, they do not resemble their natural equivalent so obviously at first glance when isolated; the trick with many sandalwood fragrances seems to be a combination with spices, as Equipage Géranium also makes use of: Elizabeth Arden's Sandalwood Cologne (1956), MPG's Santal Noble (1988), Etro's Sandolo Cologne (1989), Lutens' Santal de Mysore (1991) or Santal Blanc (2011). Santal Blanc (2011) or Yann Vasnier's Santal Blush (2011) work with this constellation, albeit in very different ways - Ellena, of all people, created an interesting exception with Santal Massoïa (2011), which almost completely dispenses with the spicy counterparts in an independent way.

Back to Equipage Géranium and its sandalwood finish, which most likely makes me think of a slimmed-down and drier interpretation of the 'old' Santal Noble - the effect is astonishing, a remarkably reduced, yet very solid and seemingly small-scale composed Equipage base, as if pressed into a mold of sandalwood is the result. Despite this simpler, more modernist form, it is still very, very Equipage.

Even if a good starting position was secured with Equipage, Ellena has achieved a great but very discreet success here, which probably came onto the market a little too early in 2015, as the retro wave was not yet as clear as it has been for a few years. What's more, the certain seriousness of Equipage was worlds away from the plaisir gardens, Terre vintage bottles or Hermèssence Haiku's. In his writings, Ellena speculated on further variations of Hermès classics that were never to come. The pyramid on pyramid is coherent for me, Ellena's logic of reduction in formula and language, as well as its implementation, is convincing in Equipage Géranium.

After just five years, Le participe passé was removed from the Lutens range in last year's restructuring alongside my favorites such as El Attarine (2008). Now, five years is nothing special for many manufacturers, but it is for Lutens, which has had a large number of similar 'special interest' fragrances in its range for two or three decades. Sign 'O' the Times. To mark the occasion, I'm revisiting my old text on this fragrance - I found Le participe passé too quirky, idiosyncratic and, above all, likeable.

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Through the repeated, consistent use of 'bois' since the beginning of the 90's, Lutens is certainly - historical examples à la Bois des Iles (1926) excluded - partly responsible for countless 'bois' titles with other manufacturers, or entire brand names. There are over 400 entries in the database here alone. When I first heard of Le participe passé, I realized that grammatical forms would probably never achieve similar popularity as titles, but it is certainly a memorable name.

Le participe passé was the result of an interesting development that was to be followed by several closely related releases. in 2014, Lutens began releasing fragrances as a perfume concentration, in the same, classic rectangular bottles the brand used for its, at times, 'export line' to emphasize the distinction of the bulk bottles long only available at Palais Royale - these, categorized as Section d'Or, were priced at around 500 EUR, and represented a significant price-jump, especially given Lutens' still reasonably moderate prices at the time; on top of that, Lutens was not throwing any notes into the speculative space here at all. The packaging was exquisite, perhaps one of the best examples of the long tradition of gift packaging in Japan: an inner carton made of seemingly textured crepe paper, a plastic outer shell colored in a gradient from dark to transparent, the mechanisms for removing the actual bottle so well thought out that they simply work and at no point cause any surprise or headaches about product design. An experiment? It remained to be seen how long this would last in this constellation of contextualization and price at this point in time - and on top of that, some of these fragrances were not easy fare. Bourreau des Fleurs (2017) was the last of this series, I recommend Gold's review of it, an abstract floral fragrance with a carrying immortelle note despite its title.

Apart from its olfactory profile: Bourreau des Fleurs was the impetus for three or four further releases: Le participe passé, L'Innommable (also 2018), L'Eau Armoise (2019) and La proie pour l'ombre (2021) - the green thread in all of them is a strongly modulated, yet central Immortelle-like note, although this is consistently concealed in the marketing; only in L'Eau Armoise was it briefly referred to at first, but soon rowed back.

This was not always the case: even with Chergui (2001), for a long time certainly the brand's driving force, Immortelle was mentioned directly as a contributor in print advertisements in the early 2000s - which spoke of 'le Parfum du desert', i.e. the scent of the desert, as a subtitle: But Santal de Mysore (1991), Arabie (2000), Chêne (2004), Chypre Rouge (2006), El Attarine (2008), Jeux de Peaux (2011) also relied on immortelle, sometimes more clearly, sometimes more abstractly, the complex, often already dominant character of the note is illuminated in the most versatile way, Christopher Sheldrake seems to have spent a long time on it. Perhaps the trio or quartet based on Bourreau des Fleurs was also an internal announcement of this long-standing preoccupation?

Le participe passé starts with green mugwort, far more clearly than in L'Eau Armoise, but Le participe passé is only herbal and refreshing for a few moments, the spectrum quickly shifts: at the time of publication, 'Egyptian balsam' was mentioned here, the name of an edible, date-like fruit, Balanites aegyptiaca, which also fits well into the picture, but its name was soon dropped. Abstractly dry-fruity, more tart than in Arabie, for example, less concrete than in El Attarine, less wild berry-like than Chypre Rouge, paired with a viscous, more summed texture than concrete conifer species pine(?) resin note, overlaid with menthol-like streaks, embalmed meters high, almost mummified, massive, but difficult to grasp. Beneath it slumbers something immortelle-like. In the year of its release, I was able to look into IFF/LMR's 'Immortelle extrait', this extremely dense product, which also resembles Le participe passé in its coloration, starts with a malty, bitter, almost coffee-like note, which at first has little in common with the typical smell that the plant gives off in vivo; Le participe passé picks up on this quasi savory-gourmand aspect, slightly syrupy, burnt sugar, but not explicitly sweet, with celery-like spicy nuances (à la L'Être Aimé Homme (2008)) - and stretches it all out, a kind of molecular time-stretch. This facet resembles the 'soy accord' from Comme des Garçons Series Luxe: Patchouli (2007), albeit one that I have imaginatively isolated.

I can imagine that this non-floral, non-Hesperidic, non-classical-ambient, non-western-orientalist, but in the best sense thoroughly spicy perfume with such a title should not be a hit and possibly defies description in a 'sales conversation' - unpronounceability ultimately became a theme with L'Innommable from the same year - perhaps that is also why Le participe passé remained an underexposed fragrance, which, with all the more internal references mentioned, was very unique.

Camille Goutal, as the daughter and sometime representative of the house founded by her mother Annick Goutal, certainly thought twice about releasing an immortelle fragrance: Sables (1985) is the historical reference par excellence in the immortelle field and a benchmark that is hard to ignore, and one of the few exceptions to the much-cited Goutal watercolor palette.

When the Goutal brand was taken over by the Amoré Pacific Group years ago, the mandatory repackaging redesign took place as so often, everything was supposed to appear lighter, tidier and more reduced, in keeping with the spirit of the times (Sables in particular had a hard time in those years - which fortunately was easy to recognize thanks to re-design). In an interview from September 2023 (http://tinyurl.com/mrx5dj6p), the Managing Director responsible for Goutal, Kay Lee, also addresses these circumstances: "Since Amoré Pacific acquired the brand in 2011, Goutal has undergone several managerial changes, each of which had a different vision for the brand." ... "...The brand needs to be what it was when it was founded in 1981..." and even suggests a revival of the fantastic Vétiver (1985), but let's wait and see what exactly Ms. Lee's ideas are and whether this re-engineering will succeed. Sables, at least, has been pleasingly re-improved in recent years since it moved back into a cylindrical bottle.

Sables and the Goutal brand, Sables and Annick Goutal, their daughter, Camille Goutal, and the perfumer Isabelle Doyen are all names that buzz around here in a closely interwoven orbit, although Annick Goutal was apparently supported in the early days (including with Sables and the aforementioned Vétiver) primarily by the perfumer Henri Sonoma and only later by Doyen. Whether it is apparently a break with the House of Goutal and the ownership structure, or whether Voyages Imaginaires is just an organic spin-off of the two ladies is an open question, but Camille Goutal and Isabelle Doyen are the official co-authors of L'Eau des Immortels.

So much for the preface ... and right up front: there are plenty of similarities between L'Eau des Immortels and Sables. The name L'Eau des Immortels underlines this literal relationship: for years Sables was, for lack of alternatives, simply the 'Immortelle water', i.e. the 'Eau des Immortels' and here this relationship is challenged or claimed, look, I, Annick's daughter am defending her heritage and, in keeping with family tradition, making an Immortelle fragrance with an announcement and, on top of that, pragmatically calling it L'Eau des Immortels.

It is also all there, the lush Immortelle note, completely underlining the character of a high-quality Immortelle Absolute, which smells different and far more deeply layered than the plant itself, but which has also clearly significantly conditioned the widespread opinion of how an Immortelle note should smell in perfumes. Only very few immortelle fragrances match the profile of the plant. The ambery, spicy aspects, the light fenugreek and maple syrup associations, the vegetable-like, Mediterranean and subcontinental notes, the hint of tobacco and hay, all facets that several Immortelle fragrances by other authors have worked out in detail in individual fragrances (see my other Détour texts or the corresponding collection) are present here in sum, in balanced proportions. If Sables were no longer available, L'Eau des Immortels could indeed be a worthy successor.

Fortunately, Camille Goutal was aware of this loaded or rather special proximity and Isabelle Doyen is too sophisticated a perfumer to design just a shiny Sables off-spring, the successful trick with L'Eau des Immortels is an emphasis and extension of the patchouli note already present in Sables. This is intensified here, the patchouli also unfolds its camphor-like aspects more clearly and is supported by a dark cocoa note. This combination of patchouli and dark, chocolate-like notes was, of course, wonderfully realized by Christopher Sheldrake in Bornéo 1834 (2005), whose roots lie in Vétiver Oriental (2002) and whose popularity peaked with Coromandel Eau de Toilette (2007), before the same was spoiled again as Eau de Parfum (2016). Yes, a cross between Sables and Bornéo 1834, perhaps in a 70:30 ratio, that's how I would describe L'Eau des Immortels. The whole thing harmonizes, indeed works amazingly well. Every time I tell myself how close the whole thing is to Sables, this patchouli / cocoa note comes in like a reliable corrective and puts L'Eau des Immortels back in its place. At the same time, the ever-present immortelle prevents us from thinking too much of Bornéo 1834. This back and forth goes on for hours, for an 'all natural' perfume, L'Eau des Immortels holds up very well, even if it is close to Sables, or rather due to the use of Immortelle Absolute. The whole thing never becomes sweet or even gourmand: Goutal and Doyen are unabashedly focusing on Immortelle in all its bulky grandeur, characteristics and charm. Fortunately, the increasing trend of using an immortelle note merely as a slightly ambery filler, as is the case with so many new fragrances, is something the ladies are far removed from. The cocoa note is also slightly bitter, which in turn supports the bitter facets of Immortelle Absolute. The ease with which the two shaping facets of the fragrance compliment each other is impressive, here someone knows his Immortelle, so to speak, Camille Goutal due to family ties, and Isabelle Doyen as an experienced perfumer in exchange with both Goutals. Many hours later, the remnants of L'Eau des Immortels remind me of another, unfortunately discontinued all natural Immortelle fragrance, Karine Vinchon-Spehner's Maquis Exquis & Immortelle (?).

Apart from the fact that the combination of immortelle/patchouli/cocoa simply works here, it also makes the perfume more accessible than Sables is for a wider audience - Ramsauerin's comment here in the statements is a good one, but I would still give preference to Sables, especially in the more recent versions. L'Eau des Immortels will probably not achieve its cult status - too many very good fragrances that are more or less entirely dedicated to Immortelle have been released in the meantime, such as the beautiful Immortelle Corse (2019), which plays out a similar duality of two complementary accords, or the quasi-coded and far more ambiguous Immortelle-heavy fragrances by Serge Lutens (2017, 2018, 2021); sables was also in Goutal's range for a long time as a relatively 'normal' perfume and not, as here, as a rather high-priced segment in very specialized distribution. All in all, a very digestible, well thought-out and carefully executed new addition to the Immortelle field, whose proximity to the aforementioned Sables is easy to understand due to the personalities involved.

... or to be more precise, clearly from the Sheldrake cosmos was the reaction of an esteemed colleague here in the forum. The fact that this perfumer released his first 'official' fragrance in a long time outside of one of the most special and productive collaborations with Serge Lutens and later again at Chanel - presumably in the role of 'R&D Director', under the project of photographer Roberto Greco - was almost a small coup for 2023.

Sheldrake, whose work can currently also be experienced at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris as part of an exhibition on oriental fragrances, remained sympathetically professional in the background for a long time: there is not much biographical information, childhood in Mysuru / Mysore, India, first collaboration with Polge at Chanel in the early 80s, followed by many years at Quest, since '92 responsible for almost everything at Serge Lutens, occasionally a few, but unusual side projects such as a reconstruction of a fragrance recovered from the Titanic. But surely it is the decade-long collaboration with Serge Lutens that places Sheldrake in the small circle of a handful of perfumers who will forever be associated with a brand, and more than that, who have all made perfume history in their own unique way, like Ernest Beaux & Chanel, Roudnitska & Dior decades before...

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Roberto Greco, who is also active in product and cosmetic photography, is also working with an older generation of perfumers with Rauque. After Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, whom he was able to bring to top form with Œillères, and white-blooded grandmaster Rodrigo Flores-Roux, now Christopher Sheldrake. Respect, I say, starting and carrying through such collaborations is not without its challenges, and all with authors I hold in high esteem - but there has to be that much space - I also ask myself the question: why these in particular, why the big names that have established themselves elsewhere over the years, why not work with a younger generation or a generation of the same age, as the Rubini/Canali team, for example, so convincingly demonstrates?

Be that as it may, the result is extremely good - and yes, I think it is unmistakably the work of Christopher Sheldrake.

Greco, all perfume aficionado, of course knows his sources: The brief 'A Body about to implode' quoted in the press material is as rich in associations and open as, say, Rei Kawakubo's 'a swimming pool filled with black water at night' which circulated at the time with Comme des Garçon's first fragrance; Here too, as with the two preceding fragrances, everything is supposed to revolve around corporeality, transience, and in a certain way, negation: 'Anti-flower' in Œillères, implusion instead of explosion in Rauque. I'll leave Greco's statement in response to Musicorgan's Instagram post that the only specific fragrance discussed with Sheldrake was, of all things, Caron's cult classic Narcisse Noir (1911/1960/etc.). Here again, the brand proves to be unerringly tasteful. There are not (yet) as many 'big names' for Rauque as there were for Œillères. But Narcisse Noir - a Caron fragrance from a time when the house was still above all doubt - is a 'safe' and cleverly chosen reference.

And yes, Rauque is a fragrance that flirts with a 'well-curated' past, fragments of the 80's and 70's are hinted at with partly loaded notes (narcissus, cassis, myrrh), modern-unconventional through scenic (mushroom farm) and fragrance namedropping (here Ambrarome, next to the Animalis base, another 'classic' by Synarome, already released in 1926), but I don't have to go back that far into the past:

Of course, an experienced perfumer like Sheldrake does not come along without 'baggage', i.e. not without a signature, without style, but that is exactly what clients are looking for when a collaboration with such personalities is forced; and Rauque is unmistakably Christopher Sheldrake for this very reason - the fragrance oscillates between two styles that Sheldrake has realized excellently or was involved in. on the one hand, there is the large, full-length perfume, rich but never overwhelming, as in Coromandel or Sycomore, or perhaps, most clearly related to Rauque, Chanel's flagship neo-chypre 31 Rue Cambon (Eau de Toilette) (all 2007), all by Jacques Polge, with Sheldrake's input: abstract-floral, crisp,cistus-balsamic, oakmoss-free yet voluminous but never retroesque - 31 Rue Cambon was even then a quite sophisticated quotation of the chypre form. On the other hand, there is the oriental: spicy, profound, transcending gender as he suggested for Lutens' tuberose confusion Cèdre (2005). Yes, a darker and at the same time fresher Cèdre due to the acacia/cassis combination (here, of course, without tuberose) with a hint of the big, broad-spectrum perfumes with a capital P, like 31 Rue Cambon, that is Rauque for me, should I be looking for the past, more than a reminiscence of the Caron classic.

The initial refreshing sweetness is cleverly spun further by narcissus, osmanthus and violet leaf and quickly darkens: depending on the focus, mood and temperature, these three floral aspects shimmer almost solitarily in the foreground at times or again in combination, with the violet leaf shining through the longest - yet the combination is Sheldrake's art of disguise and ambiguity in its purest form.

The finish is largely a playful labdanum abstraction with a slight animalic quality, probably owed to the ambrarome, which I know in this way, but at a much higher pitch, cleaner and more un-botanical from Comme des Garçons excellent but unfortunately discontinued SKAI (2006) and which is certainly also used in many Lutens and Chanel releases - old and new, original and reformulated. Perhaps in a similar form in the base from 31 Rue Cambon... something benzoin-like and a myrrh veil makes the whole thing a touch more decadent here, however, and the cassis notes make a surprising and gratifying reappearance. Central to Rauque remains the balsamic-floral core that determines the structure of the perfume until the end. Despite all the similarities, Rauque is still very unique, I don't see it in the portfolio of either Lutens or Chanel, what more could such a 'young' project wish for in a collaboration with such an experienced perfumer? Even if I can't find a precise indication of the concentration of this one, with its close but very persistent presence, we are in the league of an extrait in terms of quality.

Despite all the underlying details that may have played a role in the conception of Rauque, the perfume is extraordinarily easy and uncomplicated to wear. And: the bottle is a feast for the eyes, with its horizontally structured bottle reminiscent of Paco Rabanne's wonderful Ténéré (1985) bottle. Perhaps due to Greco's photographic/haptic experience with bottles, this is one of the most successful packaging designs in a long time, which is on a par with the contents. If I had made a 2023 resumée that was limited to this year alone, I would choose Rauque alongside Odenaturae and Caravansérail Intense as my 2023 top three.

Dear Gentilhomme, thank you for sharing Rauque and Sheldrake over the holidays, I share your enthusiasm and reaction to the fragrance very much!