Amouage Interlude 53 Review – Pierre Negrin; 2020

If you felt a tremor in the force yesterday, that was probably me dabbing a few drops of the new Amouage Interlude 53 on the back of my hand. The latest release from the Omani brand – an extrait of the original Interlude Man eau de parfum from 2012 – was featured in episode 145 of Love At First Scent over on YouTube. I was fortunate enough to be joined by the brand’s Creative Experience Officer, Renaud Salmon, during the broadcast, so when you watch it, please make sure you’ve enabled the live chat, otherwise you won’t be able to read his answers to the questions that came up. Here’s a link to the video: Amouage Interlude 53 review.

In what turned out to be a pretty long broadcast focussing on only one perfume, I covered just about everything I wanted to say, but there was perhaps one issue that I failed to address completely: the question of whether this is a release we need. If we’re being black-and-white about this, the answer has to be No. But then, the answer would almost certainly have to be No in relation to every perfume that’s ever been released. Trying to match need with fragrance is a pointless non-starter of an exercise. We don’t need Nutella, Botticelli’s Birth Of Venus or Badedas bubble bath either, but the world would be a much darker place without them.

If we agree that the eau de toilette, the eau de parfum and the extrait of, say, Shalimar or Bois Des Iles individually present an interesting, subtly unique dimension of the scent, then by the same token, we have to accept that Interlude 53 can justify its presence in the world. Wearing it isn’t quite like wearing the eau de parfum. Neither is superior to the other. Each serves to accomplish a different purpose: to play a different tune.

As regular readers will know, I became an ardent admirer of the edp from the moment it arrived, so you might have thought that I would have been resistant to any attempts to dilute its authority. But no, I’m delighted that it’s been joined by this extrait, because if anything, it helps me appreciate all over again precisely how special the Interlude Man story is. Kudos to Salmon and Pierre Negrin for helping us experience this masterpiece as though we’re encountering it for the first time.

Persolaise

[Amouage Interlude 53 review based on a sample of extrait provided by the brand in 2020.]

—
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please consider supporting my work
by ‘buying me a coffee’ using the panel below.
Thanks very much indeed.

—