Josh Meyer is the creative genius and self-taught alchemist behind Imaginary Authors; a concept of fragrances inspired by created writers and their imagined publications. The writers are an eclectic mix, echoing  Sylvia Plath, J.D. Salinger, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemmingway and Jack Kerouac. Literary Americana incarnate in fact, filtered through the medium of imagined prose and literary biography. Josh has tight control over his motifs and never loses sight of the most important factor – the juice itself. It is an ambitious collection of aromatic work, distilled and washed with wit, charisma and charm.

Josh Meyer in the  Imaginary Authors Perfumes  Lab

I have been a fan for a while now, and with the new A City on Fire, it's eleven fragrances and counting. Josh’s work fascinates me and my skin adores his mix of whimsy, art and olfactory élan. . Josh is not afraid to play and tease, give us oddity – tennis balls, oak barrels, limestone, walnut bitters, mountain fog, orchard dust, burnt match and the month of May! Fabulous aroma abstractions but so evocative, the imagination seethes. I LOVED Yesterday Haze, released earlier this year, a gloriously moody fig and nutty iris scent inspired by a love triangle amid orchards and crop dusters. It is the only fig scent I have ever liked so bravo Josh for that, but it was a remarkably moving scent, a woman’s lonely early evening walk in the orchard, torn between lover and spouse, the air tainted with damp fruit and shifting soil.

Imaginary Authors A City on Fire x Machus

Now we have A City on Fire (How good is that name btw…?), something new and rather different form Josh, created as an exclusive for Machus, a designer menswear store in Portland, Oregon. I ordered a bottle blind. I knew it would be amazing. As with all Imaginary Authors fragrances, the scent has been inspired by a created narrative, this time, oddly, a graphic novel with two matchmaking protagonists – Rupert who literally makes matches and Frances who runs a dating column for the City newspaper.

Graphic Novel Art by Charles Burns Lovefire

Night creatures, they spend the dark hours inhabiting shadows as voyeurs, distancing themselves from any actual participation. One night they both witness the same high profile murder and must struggle to keep themselves safe in a city burning with temptation and untruths.  This dramatic and tantalising synopsis has been rendered in smoke and dirty sweet flame. A City on Fire is an austere, smouldering scent of stalking and growing obsession. It’s quite claustrophobic in its dingy film noir enclosure. The lick of illicit is lovely, sticky and jammy as dark berries burst and ooze in the flames.

The main character of the scent is cade oil, a volatile and often brutal note, bruised and shadowed, perfect for scents of smoke and danger. Often known as juniper tar, the branch and twigs of this shrubby aromatic bush are distilled into a smoky, butch oil, reminiscent of gaiuaicol. Josh has tempered the potential violence of cade with the jadeite aromatics of spikenard, an offbeat vegetal musk and mucky leathered labdanum. The conflagration of petrolic reduction in the base reeks of birch tar poured over ripe hibiscus hips and set on fire. Just enough oily cardamom and its inherent tang of dry sweat filters through the murkiness of the cade to see the woody light of day. The cade imbues the juice with a burnt umber colour, like peat-infused well water, adding to the sensation of smoke, fire and gasoline.

TSF Burning Berries A City on Fire tableau

Over the day I wore it, the dark, slutty weather outside tore at the city’s skies and buildings. Waves of darkness rolled over the city, with screeching squalls of hail and spinning sleet.  Winter had arrived and never was the weather better suited to such a fierce and enveloping scent as A City on Fire. Imaginary Authors’ scents (on me anyway) have tenacious sensual hold. As A City on Fire strengthens its grip on the skin, the smokiness becomes dreamy and floats around the senses, but the body is sticky, tactile with crushed berry juice and ash. A scent for walking winding streets home alone, lost in thoughts of distant skin left behind in a room with snuffed out candles and fevered hands. You have to walk away, too much anointed desire and you could burn the city to the ground.

Disclosure – From my own collection

 – The Silver Fox, Sr Editor and Editor of The Silver Fox

Thanks to Josh Meyer of Imaginary Authors we have a 30 ml bottle of City on Fire for one US reader. To be eligible, please leave a comment with what you enjoyed about the TSF's review and your favorite Imaginary Authors Perfume. Draw ends December 14, 2013.

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