Perfumes Inspired by Booze and Bijou
It’s clear that this will be a holiday season like no other, but there will always be reason to celebrate. And while the delicious pleasure of dressing up in our fanciest and most sparkly for a festive gathering is unrivaled—as is the sense of anticipation that comes along with it—the season’s most sumptuous scents, which are inspired by top-shelf libations and high jewelry, allow us to channel that feeling with every spritz, whether we step outside the door or not.
With the new Kilian Paris Liquors Collection, Kilian Hennessy—the eighth-generation heir to the illustrious French cognac dynasty—pays homage to his boozy heritage. Strong olfactive memories of cognac aging in oak barrels inspired Angels’ Share, a heady blend of cognac oil, oak absolute, cinnamon, tonka bean, sandalwood, praline, and vanilla that is as full-bodied and intoxicating as you might expect. “The ‘angels’ share’ is what the House of Hennessy calls the percentage that evaporates from cognac cellars during distillation, like an offering to the gods,” Hennessy says. “In some way, my fragrances carry my childhood memories of the sugar and the alcohol and the wood of the cognac barrels. I wanted to capture the emotion without being too literal.” The result of a collaboration with French perfumer Benoist Lapouza, Angels’ Share has a warm, addicting quality, conjuring the taste of a stiff drink in front of a fire on a cold night, the scent of leather chairs and antique wood.
Roses on Ice, the more feminine companion to Angels' Share, was inspired by Hennessy’s wife’s favorite tipple: Hendrick’s gin with a dash of lime. The creation of perfumer Frank Voelkl, Roses on Ice opens with a burst of cucumber and juniper notes that create an icy, herbaceous freshness before giving way to a voluptuous rose centifolia and a soft finish of sandalwood and musk. Both fragrances are housed in light-catching cut-glass flacons inspired by art deco barware, as beautiful for display as they are to spray.
Perfume is an accessory as elevating and as personal as a piece of jewelry, and perhaps no one knows this better than Cartier perfumer Mathilde Laurent, who crafts every scent with the meticulous care of a lapidary. For the newest iteration of the house’s now-iconic Panthere scent, which she created in 2014, Laurent added osmanthus flower, which has apricot-like facets to its olfactive profile. “I wanted to express the feeling of caressing the panther and feeling its delicacy and the velvety aspect of its fur,” she says of the La Panthere Parfum, “So I wanted to emphasize the warm and musky notes.” The Panthere franchise was inspired originally by the myth of the perfumed panther, an ancient belief that the panther was the only wild animal to have a beautiful natural scent. “It’s a very interesting myth to explore,” Laurent says, “because it was believed in antiquity that things that smelled good brought you closer to the gods. So the panther is a sort of goddess. I was very happy when I joined Cartier, because I was joining a house that had as its emblem a goddess of perfume.”
Laurent’s approach to fragrance is interwoven with the craftsmanship of Cartier’s fine jewelry, and she often studies the placement of gemstones in historic pieces to source ideas for her perfumes. “When you wear a perfume, you put it on to be more beautiful and more expressive, to show your style,” she says. “But it’s really like wearing jewelry, because it also affects the way you behave and the way you feel. I always work in the style of Cartier high jewelry. I choose my ingredients as the jewelers choose their stones. We are both taking incredible creations of nature and creating something to be worn on the body that gives its wearer beauty and also power.” A spray of Panthere on the throat or on the wrist is like adding a necklace or a bracelet, a sophisticated accessory that will make you feel dressed up—even if you’re not planning on changing out of your bathrobe.
Tiffany & Co.’s exquisite new limited-edition fragrance, Wild Iris Parfum, also began, in essence, with a piece of jewelry. The iris flower has been a recurring motif at Tiffany since the storied jewelry company’s inception, as it was an iris brooch set with garnet blossoms and Montana sapphires that earned Tiffany the grand prize at the Paris Exposition in 1900. Perfumer Daniela Andrier used the flower as a starting point for this very precious elixir, which features iris butter—one of the most expensive perfumery ingredients in the world—rose, and effervescent vert de mandarin, the combination of which smells like an exquisite, drifting, delicate bouquet. But it’s the bottle that truly takes this perfume to another level. Designed in partnership with Seguso Vetri d'Arte, a 600-year-old glassmaker on the Venetian island of Murano, the mouth-blown flacon is simple sophistication incarnate—a clear glass exterior housing a blue glass fragrance chamber. The coffret, which will be available for $6,500 beginning in November, includes this heirloom-worthy glass vessel, plus an 18k white gold funnel and two 25ml vials of the fragrance. It may cost more than a few actual jewels from Tiffany & Co.—but you’ll smell like a million bucks.
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