Don’t say they didn’t listen. In what may well turn out to be an influential move, Dior have released a limited edition of Miss Dior (yes, yet another one) under a banner they’re calling Les Recoltes (harvests) with packaging bearing a specific material date. Perhaps our calls for greater transparency around vintages will be answered. I reviewed the scent, as well as several others, in a recent YouTube video. Here’s a link: Miss Dior Rose Essence 2021, Atelier Versace 2021, Masque Milano Sleight Of Fern and White Whale reviews.
As far as the Versaces are concerned, I have nothing to add to what I said during the broadcast and what I subsequently wrote in the video description. They’re unquestionably superior to the original Atelier batch, but they never take flight. And they certainly don’t justify their excruciating price tag. What’s most interesting about them is the resemblance between Olivier Cresp’s Fleur De Mate and his own Jean-Paul Gaultier Kokorico (which he made with Annick Menardo).
The Dior is as clean, pink and pleasant as you’d expect a rose water scent to be. (What I really want to know about it is who its author is: Francois Demachy or Francis Kurkdjian?) But the real stars of the show were the latest entries from Masque Milano. Stephanie Bakouche’s Sleight Of Fern is a knowingly, ironically retro take on fougeres, devoid of all the crass boorishness that the genre has come to be associated with. The interplay between the mosses, the lavender and the minty-rosemary facets is far more striking than it sounds on paper, calling to mind a vision of some sort of slick, futuristic android (the Michael Fassbender character in the Alien films, maybe?) suddenly sprouting chest hair and donning flared trousers. Meanwhile, White Whale (Christian Alori) is a compelling example of narrative perfumery, using salt-corroded marine notes, as well as cedar, violet and patchouli to tell a tale of hardship on the high seas. Both are recommended.
Persolaise
[Samples provided by the brands.]
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Thanks for your review of Sleight of Fern. That is a perfume I’ve come to love. I do appreciate green scents in general, and fougères in particular: I treasure my original metal cylinder of Rive gauche p. h. Sleight of Fern is a wonderful reminder of the heyday of this genre. I’m not sure that it’s ironic at all.
I would really love to hear more about “the crass boorishness that the genre has come to be associated with.” I could name a few green scents that I think are crass, Fathom V comes to mind, which I still love insanely, exactly on account of its relentless energy. And it isn’t a fougère anyway, no lavender. In the way of fougères, I remember Bracken Man (piercing lavender, biting spices and somewhat synthetic sherbet powder – badly done, but not boorish) or Fougère Emeraude (beautifully soft and understated, more mimosa-tonka than lavender, so I’d say a bit harmless though elegant, definitely not boorish) or Beau de jour (which I find totally nondescript with very abstract lavender, but not crass or boorish either). But obviously my knowledge of perfume is very, very limited.
Could you perhaps name some examples of 21st century fougères that you find crassly boorish? I’d be really interested. Before your review, I’d never heard the genre had an image problem, except it being regarded as somewhat old-fashioned.
Sebastian, the ones you name are actually interesting and noteworthy examples of the genre. I’m referring to the faux-fougeres (or fougere wannabes?) that come to us via the mainstream output of brands such as Versace, D&G, YSL et al.
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