The object of the four-day exposition in Milan, Esxence-The Scent of Excellence, is to showcase all that is special about artistic perfumery. I just returned from my trip to Italy and based on all that I experienced this year’s edition did just that. Silvio Levi and his team pulled together over 80 perfumers who displayed their latest and greatest. Along the way I ended up having discussions with many of the perfumers and I would lead a roundtable on the business of niche perfumery in the US. Here is my re-cap of the weekend.
I arrived on the day before things got started and I had dinner with Hilde Soliani. She showed me the upcoming advertising campaign for Il Tuo Tulipano. I thought it was a quite striking series of images that display the ability of Il Tuo Tulipano to be worn by anybody. She once again gave me a preview of her upcoming masculine fragrance and I still believe it to be pretty amazing.
The next morning I was at the exposition site bright and early to set up my laptop. I introduced myself to my neighbors, Alexandra and Laura, at the Clive Christian booth. By the end of the four days they were my best friends. Clive Christian was introducing C for Men and C for Women in Europe at a black tie dinner later that night. It was fun to watch people react to a fragrance, which I already felt highly of, throughout the weekend. It was like conducting informal market research. My thanks to Clive Christian for the dinner and for being so gracious to me.
One of the things I was most looking forward to was the traveling edition of the Osmotheque. Their mission of being the conservatory of artistic perfumery is a grand and noble effort. I made two separate visits to try the fragrances I’ve only read about. Patricia de Nicolai was my guide for my first visit. Her belief in the importance of this project is evident in the way she presents each of the fragrances to be sniffed. That dedication was also on display when I made my second visit a day later as the Chargee de mission Laetitia Navarro finished my trip back through perfumed time. Both women intimately understand the history behind every fragrance they preside over and effortlessly communicate that to the people who visited. If you love fragrance sometime in your life you must treat yourself to some time at the Osmotheque. For those of us in the US that is going to get a bit easier as the New York Osmotheque is about to open very soon.
While the past was interesting it was the fragrances coming in the near future that were the stars of Esxence.
While I think a lot of the current Nez a Nez release; Hiroshima, Mon Amour it is this fall’s release Immortelle Marilyn which treats its titular component in a restrained way.
Immortelle also appears in the new Eau D’Italie fragrance by Bertrand Duchaufour; Jardin du Poete. Before the immortelle appears in the base it is preceded by tomato leaf.
Easily one of my favorite fragrances of the whole weekend was the new Humiecki & Graef release, Blask. This is fragrance as modern art. It has unusual facets and interesting intersections as bay leaf, red wine accord, and walnut comprise a bold olfactive architecture.
Xerjoff 1861, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, is a typical example of the high-quality ingredients that is Xerjoff’s calling card. In this fragrance it is the bergamot at the top that sparkles and glitters like the finest of fragrant gemstones.
I was familiar with the three brands above but there were a couple of European brands which also impressed. Carner Barcelona D600 has a cardamom, iris and jasmine heart that really caught my attention. Antonio Visconti Fleure de Nuit combines jasmine with a simmering pepper and it surprisingly works.
Cale Fragranze D’Autore has a new release from Mark Buxton, Roboris. Roboris was inspired by Cale’ owner Silvio Levi’s trip to the American Southwest. This leads to a fragrance that carries a desert feel just before a storm breaks
Finally, the new Laboratorio Olfattivo release by Pierre Guillaume is called Ezvedra. M Guillaume wanted to create an unusual vetiver and my initial experience with it indicates he has succeeded. This could have easily been part of his Huitieme Art fragrance line as it stays firmly focused on the vetiver but the surrounding notes make it something different.
I have to thank Silvio Levi for the invitation to participate in Esxence 2011. It was an immersive wonderful experience that allowed me to experience Artistic Perfumery from its beginnings straight through to its future.
–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor