The Silver Fox© Self Portrait

I write on scent rarely these days, the blog and Silver Fox are hushed.  Cafleurebon’s well-curated mix of olfactive authors, exclusives and scented know-how is one of my few industry check-in points, so at least I have some sort of awareness. Otherwise my immersion in floral photography has been sweetly, compulsively total. I have manifestly altered my attitudes and tastes in the last five years, in part due to illness but also to disillusionment with the perfume industry and its flibbertigibbet denizens. I still buy and sample perfumes but there has to be something unique and personal behind them for me to believe. The industry is worrying so much about terminology, definitions and one-upmanship that the fundamental tenets of beauty and simple enjoyment seem to have been jettisoned in favour of jaded rhetoric about lost formulae, baffling chemistry and the over-deification of perfumers.  I have written my fair share of this and for that I offer up vulpine apologies. 

When the vagabond cutie Nick Steward gathered concepts and ambitions for his brand Gallivant he had specific consumer-friendly ideas in his head. These were culled from years of industry experience, particularly an influential run as Product and Creative Director at L’Artisan Parfumeur. There were six Gallivant scents (until today M.C.) Brooklyn, London, Istanbul and Tel Aviv launched in spring 2017, followed by Amsterdam and Berlin in the autumn. I promised Michelyn and Nick I would review Gallivant and here I am wearing his seventh scent Tokyo in the most bizarre Edinburgh temperatures I have known to be honest. However, as killer heat waves and apocalyptic fires rage around the globe through, it does not do to complain too much. It is generally 10 degrees cooler up here than the pavement-buckling, Tube-furnace misery of London, but Foxy loathes the heat and tries to be out and about very early (bless coffee shops that open at 7:30 am) and hide in the shade like a shadowfox.      

'Tulipa, La Tulipe Noire' by Leenderk Blok  

The recent weather has not been the most conducive to wearing perfume but along with the exquisite Millésime Violette by Berdoues, I have been wearing Gallivant’s Amsterdam, my favourite from the line. There is something in Giorgia Navarra’s ghostly tulip accord, wrapped in elemi and mauve tinted roses I find very addictive. A soft wet mood gently reflects the canals of Amsterdam, suggesting but not shouting water.

Nick Steward and Nicolas Bonneville©

Since the launch, Gallivant has been gratifyingly successful. Great editorial, client feedback and this year, London, created by Karine Chevallier was a finalist in the Independent Category of the 2018 Art & Olfaction Awards fittingly held in London. For Gallivant Tokyo, Nick has turned to Nicolas Bonneville, a precise young French perfumer who has created work for Astier de Villatte, Atelier Givenchy and composed the tremulous Lithium for One of Those (formerly Nu_be) a scent I have always loved. 

"Passport" stamp of Tokyo by Gallivant©

We are all aware or should be by now how powerful perfume can be in the resurrection of memory, people and place. The Gallivant fragrances are Nick Steward’s way of bookmarking destinations, suggesting his impressions in modish and abstract ways while at the same time allowing his perfumers artistic license to wander the cities in their own way.  

Photo by The Silver Fox©

I asked to sample Gallivant Tokyo blind first, something I find myself doing more and more these days. I’m starting to think that notes in perfumery are actually increasingly irrelevant. Perhaps a theme or an ode, otherwise it’s all just obfuscation and marketing hoodoo. Anyway the idea of a ceremonial kōdō incense perfume is a nice idea and I needed something to focus on.

Tadao Ando©

My first impression of Gallivant Tokyo was the smell of fougère-damp seaweed rolling out of pale grey-green ceramic. Incense against a backdrop of bruised grey skies, the air soft with rain. The peppered quality of smoky skin is delicious, mauve smouldering notes drifting into air. As with London by Karine Chevallier for the same line, Tokyo has urban nuances; less the familiar neon touristic tropes splashed with kimonos, technology, anime and Blade Runner nights but rather to my wearied senses the odour of Tadao Ando’s serene smooth concrete, light falling through carefully controlled vents and clefts.

Iris Surgery I by The Silver Fox©

As I inhaled Nicolas’ carefully arranged mix of tart freshness and moistness over woody floral smoke I imagined Tokyo as fumes, spiraling in absolute silence from a grey imperfect in the soaring sacred atrium of an Ando building. If I closed my eyes, I could smell yuzu and black pepper, a fall of rose petals and bruise of iris.That weird coastal zephyr at the start was odd and created an intriguing off-kilter start.  

Wandering the backstreets of Tokyo by Nick Steward©

The drydown of Gallivant Tokyo is a perhaps a little dare I say it, generic, but I think in some ways the basenotes for the Gallivant perfumes are like sensible shoes, strong sneakers for walking and gallivanting. If you go walking in towering heels and say, polished leather-soled loafers you will come a bleeding cropper. However…. Nicolas Bonneville has fashioned a gently atmospheric portrait of Tokyo backstreets with tangles of cables, rain soaked stones, and lives lived with hidden precision. I can’t help smelling wet earth, not the over-used petrichor but something much more subtle, manicured shrubs, grass, potted plants and perhaps a metaphysical glimpse of ikebana through an open window.   

Imperial Palace in Tokyo by Nick Steward©

The actual notes for Gallivant Tokyo provided by Nick on the press release do include yuzu, the floral-tinted Japanese citrus that adds such happiness to perfume. I was delighted to see wasabi and while it doesn’t have the starring role that Clément Gavarry gave it in Panorama for Olfactive Studio, it still gives Tokyo that moist, coastal thing I was picking up. There are lots of black pepper and a nice cardamom thread winding its warm way alongside hinoki, cedar and of course some carefully calibrated incense. I say carefully as I don’t want to give the impression that Tokyo is any way an ecclesiastical thurible-swinging scent in the manner of Bertrand Duchaufour’s masterly Avignon or the fabulously explosive ginger and incense bomb that is Oliver & Co’s Gincense. Tokyo is more diffusive and approachable and as a result, beautifully wearable, in keeping with Nick’s brand ethos.

Tableau of Tokyo by The Silver Fox©

Each of you will bring your own perceptions to Gallivant Tokyo; it is a beautiful addition to the line and in my top three along with Amsterdam and London. This simple idea of wistful urban longings has been rendered with great charm and a perfect idea of how to do modern scent. I love the suggested clean unity of Tokyo, the incense presented as thought as opposed to fire. Gentle immersive work from Nicolas Bonneville and Gallivant; the more I wear and wander through Tokyo’s subtle form, the more I notice and love. 

 -The Silver Fox©, Guest Contributor (August 2018)

Editor’s Note: Gallivant Tokyo is on sale today August 22, 2018 and is available @Gallivant Perfumes and at select stockists near you. On a personal note, thank you my dear friend Alex for your   elegant essay/review and  for your extraordinary photography. Nick, as always, ÇaFleureBon is honored to be the first to "gallivant" to Tokyo.-Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief and Art Director

Thanks to the largesse of Nick Steward, we have a draw for a 30 ml of Gallivant Tokyo Eau de Parfum for one registered reader anywhere in the world. Please be sure to register. To be eligible please let us know what appeals to you about The Silver Fox’s eloquent  review, where you live and if you have a favorite Gallivant Perfume. Draw closes 8/24/2018

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like ÇaFleureBon and use our Blog feed…or your dream prize will be just spilled perfume.