Samovar Dreams – ‘Russian Tea’ by Masque Milano

I first came across Masque Milano last year, when my senses fell victim to the smouldering floral-free vapours of Montecristo. Just when I thought I had put all contemplations of leathered air and cigar-stained ruination behind me, along came Delphine Thierry’s masterly composition for Masque Milano and I fell again.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – so much fine niche is coming out of Italy just now. Blood Concept, Hilde Solani, Nu_be, Tizania Terezni, Gabriella Chieffo, Meo Fuscini, Zeromolecole, Peccato Originale and Antonio Gardoni’s extraordinary Bogue: all of these differing, exciting houses, playing with science, food, sugar, smoke, memory, sex, family, love, death and desire. So much passion and intensity, emotion and spectacle.

Riccardo Tedeschi (left) & Alessandro Brun (right)

To this rather fabulous collezione of names I must add Masque Fragranze or Masque Milano as they are better known, co-founded in 2012 by Alessandro Brun and Riccardo Tedeschi, two handsome and dynamic young chaps with diverse and fascinating backgrounds, Alessandro a Milanese by birth and Riccardo hailing from Assisi in Perugia. As Creative Directors of an exquisite artisan fragrance brand, the boys came to scent via a eclectic route of electrical and management engineering, jewellery-making, leather-working and classical guitar. This giddy mix of arts, artisan application and research led to Alessandro the teacher meeting Riccardo the student at the Politecnico di Milano where they were mutually impressed by one other’s obsessions, knowledge and desire to do things a little differently – with edge, style, functionality and of course great beauty. An orchestration of ideas and desires set them on a path to a luxurious and precisely conceived future. They immersed themselves in the knowledge, technique and dedicated pursuit of the scented wing beat.

First came a gilded and precise collection of skincare in 2010 that also includes two fragrances: Petra and Dolceacqua. The other pieces include cleansing oil, body lotion, soap, facemask and aromatic candles. The line is strikingly presented in architectural gold and white minimal designs with the brand’s unique trademark Deruta ceramic caps.

Then Alessandro and Riccardo wanted to create scent on an operatic scale with soaring sensation to move us and tell stories, guide us through moods and moments. This would be achieved through the inherently Italianate artform of opera, constructing a perceived four act piece of olfactory imagination composed by a personally chosen ensemble of perfume talents. This collaborative assembly of talented noses would compose scents for each scene. Eventually when the project is complete, the harmonious whole will cover a diverse and complex range of aromatic and psychological styles.

It is a very elegant and simple idea but one fraught with potential pomposity and camp melodrama. I am not an opera fan. Never have been, never will be. I can appreciate the piercing harrowing range of a flawed soprano, arias delivered with fire and controlled rage. But generally it is a medium that has always eluded me. Age has not softened me either, I have become even less tolerant of it as I’ve got older, most classical music generally actually. Weird really, but I digress. Masque Fragranze – An Opera of Life in Four Acts is an ambitious undertaking, an attempt to roll out a manifold and multi-layered assemblage of incredibly high quality and challenging scent. The guys want us to experience the various scenes of their scented life, see how the noses have chosen to interpret the operatic briefs.

The opera is masque, performance, charade; acts and scenes of love, loss, life and continuance interpreted by perfumers as masks that we might wear in our own daily performances, moving through words, emotions, moods and time.

Act I is inspired by life experiences, the processes of existence, journeys.

- Act I, Scene I is Terralba by Delphine Thierry.

- Act I, Scene II is Montecristo, also signed off by Delphine Thierry.

- Act I, Scene III is Russian Tea by Julian Rasquinet.

Act II concerns the tightening of emotions, the chiaroscuro of desire.

-   Act II, Scene I is Luci ed Ombre by Meo Fuscini

Act III is about romance and the fragility of relationships.

-   Act III, Scene IV by Cécile Zarokian is Tango

Act IV is Dreams and Reveries.

The operatic gaps are slowly being filled in, with moody set pieces as and when the boys find inspiration and the right nose to collaborate with. I love this idea of Masque Fragranze being a work in progress, watching and then inhaling the complex pieces as they appear. There might always be gaps, an unfinished symphony of sorts; this is fine too, enigma and truncation create beautiful mystery.

You can see where they are going, using vocal and theatrical metaphor, counterpointing it with carefully chosen and beautifully pitched musical imagery to create a scentscape of textures, weathers and backdrops. This is akin to the rolling scene changes and illusory techniques used in theatre to support voice and performer, in this case, nose and perfume.

The stand-outs from the line so far for me are Montecristo, Tango and now the deliriously sexy Russian Tea. Who would have thought ANYONE could have induced me to wear mint? I normally abhor it in scent. I took a huge risk blind buying this, but I had a gut feeling after reading the notes and provenance that Julien Rasquinet’s creation would be extraordinary. I wasn’t wrong.

The inspiration behind this beautiful scent is tea drinking in a café in a bookstore on the famous Nevsky Prospekt thoroughfare in Leningrad. I assume the bookstore in question is the famous Dom Knigi or House of the Book in the stunning Singer Building, an arresting Art Nouveau hybrid designed by Pavel Syuzor. Now we like to think here in Britain we know a thing or two abut tea and while this is no doubt true to a certain degree, no-one has socialised and abstracted tea quite like the Russians. It is the national Russian beverage, introduced to the country in 1638. It is not necessarily just about drinking tea, but the sharing of it, the gathering around it. The scalding liquid lubricates social interaction and passes time; pastries, cakes and biscuits are consumed, gossip and news is exchanged.

The heart of this is the samovar of course, literally a ‘self-boiler’ an item we traditionally now associate with Russia. They are used to concoct a immensely strong form of tea called zavarka, which is then in turn diluted into cups by very hot water from the ever boiling samovar. Sugar, honey and jams are often spooned into the tea as sweeteners and the liquid is sometimes slurped into saucers and slurped to cool it down. There is an old Russian saying: Where there is tea, there is paradise.

So back to our boys in the bookstore tearoom overlooking a snowy Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral. They order the Russian Tea Ritual which is a teapot of boiling water, black tea leaves, mint and raspberry preserve. Now, I visited Moscow for work in early 2012 and the tea on my hotel breakfast trays always smelled smoky and burned, it was amazing. As a diehard drinker of builder’s tea, it took a good few days to adjust to this dense chewy tea. I could just have asked for something more generic, but I grew to rather enjoy this strange shock of churchy tea, watching early morning Russian TV as the light broke over the gathering angry cars in the gridlocked streets outside.

Pouring the boiling water over the fumy leaves and finger-crushed mint will smash together a duo of opposites: darkness and playful verdancy. This heady infusion would be further enhanced by a spoonful of sweet raspberry jam. This visceral shock of smoked caliginous leaf, berry and rubbed herb started the Masque Fragranze duo on an olfactory journey toward Julien Rasquinet and Russian Tea. Interestingly Julien’s wife Irina is Russian, so the marriage of olfactory ideas seemed a touch more perfect. In fact Russian Tea would turn out to be the last fragrance Julien would create as an independent in his lab in Normandy. He was offered a highflying position within IFF, based in Dubai and sadly had to close down his Norman base.

I was expecting an intense aromatic experience; both Montecristo and Tango have huge opening salvos, full of smoky, resonant promise. Tango develops into a lacquered bouquet of cinnabar spices and sticky resins and balms that just smells heavenly as skin heat activates the beautiful sweet clover and tonka in the base. The dance is one of spice and flowers, the exertion of sweat and physical heat and the veil of jasmine and hot rose. You have to be very careful with cumin in scent, it can be horribly overpowering and smell like old gym wear or curry leaf. In pitch perfect doses however it sets fire to petals and dusts an earthy peppered nuance through formulae.

The thing that really dazzles me with Tango though is how close the formula smells to being decayed and turned. In my scented travels I sometimes come across near empty flacons with the syrupy residue of perfumes lying stickily in the base. These evaporated, reduced, concentrées have strong vintage odours of creosote, face powder and sweet stale gateau. Oddly this is what I detect in the powerful drama of Tango and I love it. It’s a tricky balance, the suggestion of corrosion, whilst surrounding it in swathes of smouldering ambered ardour. But Zarokian knows her stuff and had produced in Tango (Act IV, Sc III) a scent of fire and passionate generosity.

Delphine Thierry’s Montecristo is simply one of the best parfums fumés I’ve come across in a while. It was my entry odour into the world of Masque Milano, so it set a very high standard. I love the olfactory work of Delphine Thierry, she has a singular atmospheric style that seems to imbue her fragrances with the romance and intense emotional blue of Turner’s more abstract oils. I have her smeared, unorthodox Castaña she created for Maggie Magnan’s gorgeous Cloon Keen Atelier. A scent of chestnuts, iris and woods that reeks of me in Paris when I was a student on time out, a little lost, grateful for hot chestnuts on a rainy Saturday with friends. She also made Akkad and Galaad for the resurrected Lubin line, two sensual and balmy essays in woods, vanillas, honeyed ouds, resins and the mysteries of ambrosial smoke.   

The beautiful turbulence of Montecristo is its ferocious animalism as it explodes out of the bottle. Yes, it’s a little faecal and dirtysexy but jeez so much fragrance these days is dull and sanitised to the point of tepid transparency. The sheer FUCK YOU of this is fantastic. It’s the Golden Stone/African Stone aka Hyraceum that really sets fire to this boozy bonfire of tobacco, woods and balms. Hyraceum is a rare sustainable source of potent animalic musk/hide like effect that comes from the weird little rock-hopping hyrax rodent things. Strangely, they are related (very distantly) to elephants and have unique sucker style paws that allow them to clamber and zip about on rocks successfully.

Over generations, hyraxes always locate their middens in the same place and over time, this collection of faeces and urine buries itself and essentially fossilises. Dug up, soaked in alcohol and distilled into tinctures, Golden Stone, in small doses can dramatically enhance the base notes and overall depth of oriental or woody formulae. The smell is incredible. The lovely Liz Moores of Papillon Perfumery very kindly sent me some recently, in 10% solution. Sweet Lord…it was fricking marvellous. She said it smelled of ‘horse urine soaked shavings and fox fur’..(she knows how to get my attention!) and indeed it did and then some. Horse mane, damp dog, but oh my.. into the skin, rubbed in, a little warmth, the animalic permutations are divine. 

I’m digressing a tad here, but it’s important to understand how singular the rawness of Montecristo’s impact is. Blending this visceral feral note with rum, ambrette and styrax is asking for trouble but in the hands of a talented perfumer like Thierry, the result is one of refined assault and abiding sensual surround. 

So Russian Tea had tough competition, but my god it delivered. The enormous mint note looms at you like a sudden vast liner in a mist-covered ocean. I have only liked one other mentholic scent and that was Phaedon’s über aromatic Oriental Mint, which smells of freshly, brewed mint tea and Egyptian cigarettes. This is a very different experience, sudden and very emotive. The mint is bitter, shredded and violently released, the peppered facet to the exhale is brutal. This is the moment in the ritual the boiling water hits the smoky tea and mint leaves, exploding the conflicting odours outward. Then the raspberry, a moment of sugared soothing, a spoon of red-berried glory sliding off a tarnished spoon. The raspberry is wild though, with a hint of feral leaf, the smokiness of the tea smelling of garden bonfires drifting over tangled fruit bushes.

There is a lot of wood in Russian Tea, stoking samovar fires or just plain birch forest, silent and silvered in the background. It is a very Russian theme, an echo of the Siberian woods and trade routes taken by merchants and their caravans of goods including the powerful black tea that is the sexy centrepiece of Rasquinet’s Russian Tea composition. Apparently the smokiness associated with classic Russian tea blends has its roots in the long, slow journeys across the Siberian steppes. The tea was obviously transported on animals and over time, the combination of nightly watchfires and close proximity to animal hide imbued the tea leaves with powerful, redolent aromas. The notes list magnolia, an odd and unpredictable note in perfumery, either utterly fake and cloying or so fleeting as be pointless. Here however it has a ghostly presence, like a flower blooming out of season. It lends a creamy, honeyed sweetness to the heart of a robust and unusual formula. I love the dryness of the scent. This sounds odd, considering how rich and baroque the fragrance seems as it develops, but it is fact remarkably austere. Each time I spritz it on my skin, I am struck by the wit and reverence of the blending. Rasquinet’s close collaboration with the Masque Milano boys and the brief given to him regarding his work has produced another bravura entry in the Masque Milano line. They haven’t really put a foot wrong yet really, each scent in their ambitious operatic arc has been unique and gorgeous. The assemblage of harmonious performance perfect.  

Like the hot, berry drenched, smoky beverage, Russian Tea is ideally savoured intensely, slowly, languorously, inhaled with pleasure and disturbance at the sheer wonder and eccentricity at such scented construction.

Returning to the thematics of opera, this scent is a journey of small experiences written large in olfactory fireworks. I was genuinely enthralled by the mint, tea and raspberry triptych; it smells divinely strange and unfolds on the skin with tremendous unorthodox beauty. Building a palpable sense of mystery into perfumery these days is well nigh on impossible, but Riccardo and Alessandro have achieved something rather deviant: a collection of embellished and aesthetic perfumes that engage, astonish, arouse and seduce. Bravo boys, my skin adores you.    

© The Silver Fox 2014

Disclosure – from my own collection

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Masque Milano

I Come To You, My Hands Filled With Smeared & Honest Blooms: ‘Dirty Flower Factory’ by Kerosene

I found this fragrance by John Pegg to be a disconcerting and strangely affecting scent. I have sampled all of his work to date and enjoyed his tenacity and olfactive alchemy. Not everything has come off; you can sense the experimentation and challenges in the blends of materials and creativity. Certain notes smell untamed, clawing away from themes and structures. Some formulae feel a little too grainy and unfinished. But John’s imagination is an extraordinary thing, building scent upon scent in his self-taught mind and just doing it, fuck opinion. Dirty Flower Factory, his most floral and unusual composition to date is a compelling blend of blue-collar romance, yearning and acquiescence.   

Todd Hido Witness 7 (2009)

It is the guy heading homeward after a long shift on the car assembly line. It’s late; he’s exhausted, stained and craving love and quiet comfort. He buys flowers, any flowers on the way, from some small late night brightly lit store and heads back home to his girl. She kisses his rough, ashen face and holds the blooms to her nose. In the subdued light of their traffic lit rooms, she smells oil, grease, dirt on petal and stem.

‘…All flowers should smell like this…’ she says, touching his weary skin.

Powdered Wing – Hermessence ‘Cuir D’Ange’ by Hermès

I know there are diehard fans of Jean-Claude Ellena out there, prowling the Hermès boutiques, following his every cultured move out there in the scented ether but I sometimes find his work a little on the aloof side, but then this may be the point. It is never less than intriguing however, he is a careful perfumer, who has evolved into an aromatic water-colourist of impeccable and impressionistic skill.  

He is unquestionably one of the most influential noses of all time. His trademark use of spiced ozonics and his relentless study of transparency and water in perfumery has made his work intrinsically vital and much copied during his olfactive lifetime. Not content with just creating scent, he also holds forth on the subject in a number of precise and philosophical journals including a strange and elliptical novel, La Note Verte, published last year.

He has been the in-house nose now at Hermès since 2004, in sole charge of shaping and presenting the House’s aromatic personality. Famously he only creates when the muse visits him. This is quite unusual and demonstrates the strong belief Hermès have in his abilities. He is a notorious perfectionist, his honed, skeletal work is transparently beautiful, assembled with a painterly eye rare in commercial perfumery.

Jean-Claude Ellena

While Hermès is perceived as a luxury brand, the fragrances now occupy a slightly blurred area between luxury and high street with other luxury brands such as Annick Goutal, Serge Lutens and Creed, who while not exactly cheap are not exactly hugely overpriced either. Hermès are quite careful about distribution; the more exclusive Hermessence line and some of the more limited editions such as the lock bottles and the recently tweaked Bel Ami Vetiver are only available in Hermès boutiques or exclusive concessions.

The Veiled Empress of Extreme – ‘Myrrh Casati’ by Maison Mona di Orio

It was always going to difficult imagining what those left behind in the wake of Mona Di Orio’s sudden death in 2011 would do when metaphorically speaking, they had to rise and inhale the raw materials of reality. Moving the House on would be complex and fraught with emotion. Her partner and cofounder, Jeroen Oude Sogtoen had built the House around her. Together, they had created a strong blueprint of scented identity, an elegant signature written indelibly across the memories of the maison.. a house of luxury, warmth and constancy.

Mona’s legacy was of course extraordinary; her Nombres D’Or collection redefined in exquisite detail the perfections, nuances and weather of classic perfumery tenets. Each year, as we approach the anniversary of her death, electronic and breathing keepers of the flame remember her, wear her fragrances and flood social media with emotional remembrance. We honour her best of all by clothing ourselves in her precious odours and allowing ourselves to wander amid complex and distinctive fumes.

A Floral for All Seasons -‘My Burberry’ by Francis Kurkdjian for Burberry

The Fox loves his florals, ivory, snow white and blinding, veiled, gauzy and dazzling. It feels like the wearing of light, my skin adores gardenia, ylang ylang, orange blossom, lily, jasmine, sweet pea and tuberose. It is the inhalation of carnality and innocence both glittering and corrupted. As a man too, there is subversion in the lavish embrace of florals. It is unexpected and sly with a nod to transgression and bygone dandyism. I think boys smell beautiful in blooms but then I am biased. Wrap a guy in roses, Madonna lily and rubbered fleshy ylang I can lose my scented mind.

Floral notes dominate both high street and niche main themes or frameworks for other formulations. In niche the flower is often diva driven signature…my gardenia… my rose... my multifarious jasmines. Perfumers like to imagine their shadowed violet, filthy rose or resinous mulchy muguet is the definitive version. The high street has its fair share of soliflores but they err on the side of feeble or just plain poisonous. Sometimes it’s a budget thing or the lack of a coherent brief or perhaps just olfactory fatigue setting in.

Sometimes I feel though an opportunity to really explode the diversity of white florals is missed. I like the concept of bouquets. In real life they can of course be dull and generic mixes of standard blooms but in the hands of talented green-fingered artists like my friends Fee and Tal who run the ridiculously gorgeous Pyrus Flowers from a walled garden outside of Edinburgh they become shimmering, emotional gatherings of leaf, petals, tone, shade and scent. The same applies to fragrance; it is not enough just to gather together floral motifs such as rose, jasmine, gardenia, wrap them in green and lay them on wood and earth with perhaps a dash of ozonics and white musks to suggest sky and rain. The Pyrus gals assemble with sensual intent, every stamen, pod, stalk, leaf, bud and fruit has its role to play in the overall composition of what the girls are trying to achieve. Combining this attention to detail with quirky containers and presentation allows the floral work to be interpreted in a joyous and interactive way.

I am intrigued by the occasional appearance of oddities in mainstream scent that question one’s perception of accessible fragrances. Some of these scents approach floral perfumery in a similar way to the Pyrus gals, creating bouquets of flowers in fragrances, challenging the general conception that the high street is a wasteland of innovation.   

I always sample new releases across the board, but there is immense satisfaction and joy to be had in finding something beautifully crafted and just a little leftfield from big name houses and designer labels. Who can forget how extraordinary Michel Almairac’s delicious leather and iris eau de parfum was for Bottega Veneta in 2011? It was one of the best new fragrances, niche or mainstream for years. Almairic was also responsible for the delicate Chloe L’Eau De Chloe that he drenched through with rosewater and rose petals and seductive vintage lemonade effect of soft dewy citrus notes.

Balenciaga’s Florabotanica was another interesting example of mainstream oddity. Launched in 2012 and created by Olivier Polge and Jean-Christophe Hérault, it was a scent that really rattled me on first sniff and compelled me to purchase. I go through bottles of it, imagining a sci-fi garden scent, created by colonists on a distant planet. There was a lot of PR and press nonsense about carnivorous blooms and the darkness of Florabotanica’s allure, but it was the subversive flattening out of the floral accords with very unusual metallic minty pressure that made the scent so distinctive and glorious to wear with abandonment.

Francis Kurkdjian is one of the most well known names in the fragrance world, one of the perfumed elite. Born in Paris to Armenian-French heritage he originally thought to dance, but fate led him to perfume instead and a career creating thoughtful quiet fragrances that err on the luxurious silken side.

He is probably best known as the creator of the iconic juggernaut lavender that is Le Mâle for Jean Paul Gaultier back in 1995. Despite the enormous global success of this scent, Kurkdjian has managed to combine a unique position in the perfume world of producing shimmering chic niche for his own stand-alone eponymous house while still remaining one of the most stylish scented guns for hire in the business.

Now, first off, I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of Maison Francis Kurkdjian, blasphemous as that may sound. There was tremendous excitement when FK announced his intention to deliver his own collection of scents after years of collaborating with other designers and big name houses. I know the FK line is much-beloved and I’ll admit there are petals and curves that are very beautiful. His original Oud is dexterous and creamily moreish and I am partial to the plummy depths of Lumière Noire Pour Femme, a powerhouse rose/patchouli executed with subtle force. Would I buy them? Probably not. It is undoubtedly an elegant and covetable brand with a luxury price tag but it leaves me rather cold. The look of his maison is cool Margiela-like white, everything has the feel of luxury wedding stationary. White, cream, gold, embossing etc. The bottles are very cool though, with their heavyweight metal tops, très tactile and desirable.

I think Kurkdjian does some of his most interesting work for other people, held captive as it were within a brief, looking at a brand, examining parameters, counting costs. This is certainly true of Carven Le Parfum, Parfum Elie Saab and Rumeur for Lanvin back in 2006, three fragrances I tend to always have in my Foxy wardrobe. These bright, sharp florals are sources of light and sensuous cheer in moments of darkness and shadowed days. I cant quite put my finger on why I like them so much if I’m really honest, I just know that in the last 6-8 years my senses have craved white flowers at certain times. Searching for the perfect ivory scented blooms it seemed the majority of the ones I have loved were been signed by one man: Francis Kurkdjian.  

The Carven, Lanvin and Elie Saab fragrances all bear his hallmark glamour and and sense of glittering simplicity. They may be considered mainstream or high street fragrances but sit amongst my all time favourite florals. The gentle, circumspect bouquet of Carven Le Parfum’s sweet pea, white hyacinth and jasmine was an enchanting release from Carven, the first new fragrance release under the artistic directorship of Guillaume Henry. 

Kurkdjian’s jasmine and orange blossom soaked debut scent for Lebanese designer Elie Saab was just thrilling to smell after so many mediocre feminine launches. It appeared at the same time as Almairac’s Bottega Veneta scent. He used sambac and grandiflorum jasmine and glazed them with a rose honey accord. This is divine perfumery; each time I wear it I marvel at the way the floral notes are seamlessly assembled over a shimmering raft of woods and patchouli. Elie Saab Le Parfum is bolder and warmer in tone than the Carven, which perhaps fades a little too quickly from its truly lovely apricotty breezy top.

Lanvin’s Rumeur… sigh. How much do I love this damn scent? Nine empty 100ml bottles much.. Launched in 2006 and obviously sharing a name with an original and very different Lanvin scent from 1934 created by André Fraysse. Re-using this name annoyed a lot of scent-nerds who felt it was disingenuous and misleading. But I think Alber Elbaz wanted to reference the house’s important heritage, while playing with the notion of rumours, whispers and the fickle nature of couture in general. My god it’s strong too, it just lasts and lasts, radiating its huge crystalline magnolia shimmer for hours. It’s my scented drug… there are times when I just drown in it and fall into to clean sheets, almost dizzy and blind on the fountain of aldehydes and icy petals. 

Kurkdjian said of Rumeur:

‘Being a perfumer is a bit like being a magician, it’s about realising your vision of someone else’s emotions. It took all my energy for six months to come up with the right formula for Rumeur because for me, it was not just about mixing raw materials, it’s about creating a memory that will last.’

(Francis Kurkdjian, ‘Fragrance Focus – Cosmetics International’ 18/08/2006.)

To this favoured trio must now be added the shockingly good new release from Christopher Bailey’s iconic Burberry. I say shocking because despite the enormous revenue Burberry (and Burberry Prorsum) generates as a successful global brand, they have seemed forever incapable of producing a scent of any distinction. Everything has been oddly naff and off-centre, unable to truly capture the undeniably stylish spirit that lies under the avalanche of mackintoshes, ubiquitous check and perversely tacky memorabilia created for Burberry’s overseas clientele.

There has been a relentless attempt to woo the youth market, overseas Asian, US and hip London scenesters with London, Brit, Rhythm, Beat and the vaguely improved reach of Body created by the surprising choice of Michel Almairic. Body’s silky take on the neo-chypré pointed to a potential development in quality in the Burberry scent department. Mind you this was all but destroyed by the utterly heinous flankers…. The Intense version was loud enough to flatten houses. One of my boutique clients, a man with wonderful taste in scent, a devotee of Serge Lutens, singles out Burberry Brit Rhythm, by the all star triumvirate of Anne Flipo, Olivier Polge and Dominique Ropion as his worst scent of all time.

Now, on an enormous (and very gorgeous) wave of Testino-lensed publicity we have My Burberry, a truly ravishing and juicy floral scent encapsulating the charm, eccentricity and reserve of British Burberry and more specifically the iconic charm of the classic Sandringham mac. The hype built up on this mega-launch for quite some time, particularly around the pairing of Kate Moss and Cara Delevigne working together in Mario’s undeniably lavish and sexy campaign. The carefree teaser pics of the models laughing on set, under artificial rain, naked under tightly belted trenchcoats made the imminent release of the perfume much more desirable.

There is genuinely lovely chemistry in the Cara/Kate shoot, both women, unconventionally alluring, rebellious and unpredictable. I’ve adored Kate for as long as I can remember, since I first saw her in The Face Magazine all those years shot by her friend the late Corinne Day, waiflike and disturbingly knowing. Cara I’ve taken my time to warm to, her face-pulling, sexed up street antics, the bi-sexuality, pretention and privilege were hard to take for a while. But in the last year she has become a spectacular model, walking runways with coltish, raw sexual energy and her face adapts to so many campaigns with seeming ease and chameleon charm. Testino seems to adore them both, (he has shot Kate for years) and has managed to capture a moment of perfect poise and status as befits the Burberry brand. But if you look a little closer, you will glimpse the polished thigh, the glint of sex under the carefully styled trench. The shoes catch my eyes, the girls’ ankles bound in leather straps, a counterpoint to the folds and gloss of hair and gabardine. It is a knowing campaign, pitch perfect in its calm, persuasive intent. But the awareness of these maverick women, held still in a monochrome momentarily is deceptive. It is a statement of surface versus the glory of juicy reality.

I have wondered for years why, with so much money to play with, Burberry have not produced better scents. I think the answer is, it is easier not to. Now however, with the luxury market becoming ever more cutthroat and demanding, it is not enough anymore for brand with the global status of Burberry to throw out duty-free style perfumery and hope the money comes rolling in. My Burberry is a HUGE advance in style and execution. The ownership implied in the name relates to the iconic Burberry trench, made in gabardine, a form of densely woven worsted twill with more warp to weft, invented by Thomas Burberry back in 1879 and patented in 1888. It is a staple item of any fashionista’s wardrobe, belted, loose, over the shoulders; the Burberry trench seriously never goes out of style.  

Even when the brand was brought to the brink of extinction by chav-tastic celebs and thugs decked out in fake Burberry checks, it was the classic beige trench, belted with discreet flashes of check that stood the test of time. Vintage ones are highly sought after. You have them for life, they mature and mould to you as you shift and move through life. The basic design has been tweaked endlessly over the decades; cut, colour, length, collar, all have succumbed to the vagaries of trends and the demands of foreign markets. But the original, as wrapped around Kate and Cara, is a timeless masterpiece of design, instantly recognisable in silhouette, tone and cut.

Paying homage to this icon is something I’m surprised Burberry haven’t attempted earlier. But in Francis Kurkdjian they have exactly the right perfumer for the brief. This scent had to smell as close to classic as possible, grand, bright and capable of huge generosity of spirit. A little touch of eccentricity and naughtiness would be nice of course. Being a British floral, it couldn’t be too reserved though. Rather like Cara and Kate; sublime and knowing in the campaign, but you know that booze, fags and dirty laughter aren’t too far away.

The heavy-weight bottle is a delight, the oversize faux-horn top a witty homage to the trench buttons and I particularly like the cute gabardine bow, integrated into the neck; this is a delightful and proper reference to Thomas Burberry’s original trench fabric. A lot of effort has gone into making the flacon this effortlessly chic. The trademark Burberry check is limited to a discreet knocked back ochre & olive rendition on the inside of the grosgrain textured box.

I really like this gorgeous rain soaked floral, it smells pretty damn perfect to me. The concept of having a fave old trench you can pick up, throw on and wear with just about anything is very alluring. It speaks volumes about iconic clothing. Burberry, Christopher Bailey and Kurkdjian have approached the creation of the scent in a similar way I think, attempting to formulate a perfume that can be worn with anything, bestowing an instant sense of timelessness. The principal floral motif is sweet pea, slightly creamier and less flounced than the one Kurkdjian used in his Carven Le Parfum. The bergamot is delicate and winsome with the effect of raindrops on urban trellises groaning with blooms. A dusting of peppered freesia heralds a geranium and quince effect which rolls off my skin like unripe Mackintosh (appropriately enough…) apples. Above all, this is reassuringly luxurious fragrance, air-after-rain clean, the notes sparkling as they open, making me smile.

I can’t smell much patchouli to be honest, despite its inclusion in the list of notes, although in many of today’s glassy, glossy launches a patchouli note can really anything from a hint of spice to smoke in your eyes. It very rarely actually smells of the dense, leathery, oily shrub that to me smells of dirty machines and bitter cocoa. It perhaps lays down the odd, rubbed linen effect I pick up in the later stages of the scent, something I find a little out of place amid the honeyed floral ambiance, but no matter, it fades quickly enough. 

It took me a few wearings to focus on the roses, but they are present and correct (damask and Centifolia) and they matter, adding a discernable romantic hue and slo-mo transparency to the beauty of the overall composition. It is an agile scent, despite the languor and elegance of the notes. There is briskness, laughter and defiance in the beauty of Kurkdjian’s masterly manipulation of classic white notes, musks and the concept of a skin bouquet. It’s all about balance. Few perfumers really understand the technicalities or indeed complexities of intricate simplicity quite like Francis Kurkdjian.

The scent returns to the concept of the trench, in the wearing and the settling, the notes like the trench itself, become familiar and mould to the body. The crispness and oddly uptight cluttered sweet pea and freesia duo soften up and become beautifully malleable with time. Everything breathes and flows with the body, My Burberry, your Burberry, my body, your body. I like the idea built into the whole scenyted concept of being asked…

‘You smell beautiful… what are you wearing…?

‘My Burberry..’

Trench or scent. Simple. Classic. Timeless.

For more information on Burberry, including My Burberry, please follow the link below: 

Burberry