Dries Van Noten and Herve Laurent – Skin Time May 2022

Dries Van Noten

Since I broadcast my recent video review of the new Dries Van Noten perfume collection* – in which I promised to share more thoughts on the range – I haven’t been able to stop wondering about the various behind-the-scenes processes that might have brought the scents to life. This curiosity has been sparked by what I perceive as a cavernous mismatch between, on the one hand, the perfumes’ names and packaging, and on the other, their actual juices. It’s almost as though at the genesis of the project, someone, somewhere envisaged the fragrances as fairly bold pieces of work. But then the Puig machine kicked into gear, and the inevitable dilution commenced. 

Take Raving Rose (Louise Turner), for instance. A pleasant enough floral, to be sure, with a good deal of Cashmeran in the base, but its moniker and its woody structure suggest that it may have been intended as a laser-charged, super-spicy riposte to Portrait Of A Lady. Sadly, it’s about as ‘raving’ as a suburban branch of Tesco Express on an especially slow Sunday morning. And about as memorable. Unless of course your local Tesco Express plays more Prodigy tracks than mine does.

Jardin De L’Orangerie (Daniela Andrier) features a mercifully none-too-cheap smelling combo of white florals, but as above, it doesn’t deliver on the promise made by its name. A more accurate description would have been En Route To But Still Several Miles Away From And Only Just Within Smelling Distance Of The Jardin De L’Orangerie.

Santal Greenery (Nisrine Bouazzaoui Grillie and Amelie Jacquin) mixes fig and sandalwood in a manner we’ve seen before, albeit with less complexity. ‘Greenery’ suggests a range of hues, but what we have here is decidedly mono-vert. Cannabis Patchouli (Nicolas Bonneville; originally called Velvet Cannabis, I believe) pushes its sweet herbal idea with such strident force, it abandons any sense of the mellowness for which its main ingredient is famous. Voodoo Chile (Nicolas Beaulieu) is almost laughably devoid of even the slightest hint of danger or dark arts: a green herbal composition with nary a spell in sight. And the boozy, leathery, resinous air of Amelie Jacquin’s Rock The Myrrh (more than a whisper of Amouage Overture Man here) is less ‘Mick Jagger strutting in the 60s’ and more ‘Paul Simon circa 2020 curling up under the sheets with a cup of hot cocoa.’

As I said in the YouTube review, they’re all streamlined, well-composed pieces of work. But they’re not the DVNs some of us were hoping for. And I certainly can’t see myself parting with my pennies to add a full-bottle to my collection.

Herve Laurent

Speaking of pennies, let’s end this month’s Skin Time with a few lines on Herve Laurent. Until recently, the brand was unknown to me, but I see from its website that it has a sizeable number of fragrances in its catalogue, as well an almost laughably dubious sense of what counts as ‘good taste’ advertising in the third decade of the 21st century. But never mind. We can push that to one side for a moment, because it’s more important to talk about the price of the house’s wares: £380+ for a 100 ml bottle.

I’ve long maintained that what counts as expensive or affordable is a highly personal matter. But few would disagree that anything above the £300 mark places a scent in the ‘super pricey’ bracket. And it’s certainly not a sum that I would recommend spending on what are, at best, derivative pieces of work. For the record, I should point out that I’ve tried only five from the range*: Affluent (tart fruit over leathery woods); Bergamo (an optimistic, Italianate floral); Sir Laurent (1970s, Lauder-style resins and balsams); Dichi (nondescript citruses); and Fergamo (a shock of stale vomit on car upholstery followed, unexpectedly, by Badedas soapiness). But on the strength of this quintet, I am not tempted to spend any more time looking at the pouts and clenched jaws on the HL website.

Persolaise

* sample provided by the brand
** sample obtained by me

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

—