Gallivant Los Angeles Review – Karine Chevallier; 2019

I’ve never experienced the USA first-hand – my knowledge of the country comes from people, movies, books, music etc – but I’ve always been struck by the feeling that there’s a very real, very dangerous underbelly to the place. The sense of livid, only-just-repressed violence that festers beneath the surface of some Edward Hopper paintings. It’s this expression of almost imperceptible danger that’s a notable aspect of the new Gallivant Los Angeles (composed by Karine Chevallier) — the brand’s seventh release and its second, after Brooklyn, inspired by an American setting.

A wonderful example of olfactory storytelling, its opening fizzes with a near-holographic representation of garish neon lights: pineapple, pepper and eucalyptus sharpened by what nearly feels like a jagged wasabi note. Then, beneath the glowing signs, are a subdued tuberose and narcissus: a figure tottering around in leopard-print stilettos and long, disheveled hair, struggling to remember the night before as anything more than an alcohol-blurred haze. And finally, fuzzy woods, musks and a tobacco-like note, somehow managing to convey both the sophistication of wealth and its propensity for shocking, callous vulgarity. The smell of a silence that’s been bought. 

Perhaps a touch more assertive than Gallivant’s earlier offerings, Los Angeles is an abstract, unreadable curiosity, aiming to convey not just the techno-embracing modernity of the new world but also its ancient, outdoor-dwelling roots. By and large, it succeeds, and in the process cements founder Nick Steward’s standing as an independent force whose output should be on all our radars. Do check it out.

[Gallivant Los Angeles review based on a sample of eau de parfum provided by the brand in 2019.]

Persolaise

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