Défilé New York, by Histoires de Parfums, is, in short, one of the most impressive fragrances I have smelled in a long time. It also has a highly unique form of distribution: it was only sold last night, September 10th, 2010, at Henri Bendel's, as part of Fashion's Night Out, and only 150 bottles were made.
I was lucky enough to get a bottle, and I also got to meet Gérald Ghislain, the man behind Histoires de Parfums; he signed my bottle, which was very nice. This is actually the first fragrance from the house that I've smelled (I also picked up 14ml bottles of a bunch of other scents from the line as well), and it is astonishingly good. I'm shocked that a fragrance this interesting and masterfully made was created with such limited distribution in mind.
The notes are as follows:
Top notes: fresh mint, bergamot and cut grass
Middle notes: water flowers, pineapple, rhubarb, clove, cinnamon and star anise
Base notes: coffee, chocolate, licorice, vanilla, Gaïac wood, patchouli
As befits a fragrance with such a unique collection of notes, this is a highly nonlinear fragrance. It starts with crisp green, and right out of the bottle feels like a sparkling green fragrance with a touch of warmth given by the base notes. Quickly, though, the fragrance settles into a dance between the green notes (grass, etc), the mint, and the ambery/gourmandy base notes. I was surprised by how well these seemingly disparate notes work together, but then I realized that the genius of this fragrance is that the mint acts as a sort of bridge between the green notes and the warm notes.
This is not a mint-heavy fragrance (which is good, because I don't like mint), but the mint is the key to the whole structure. As Défilé dries down, it becomes variously: gourmandy, green, minty-green, ambery. The balance between green and amber shifts and sometimes becomes almost bizarre, but in a good, novel way. At the extreme dry-down it reminds me of a warmer version of Geranium Pour Monsieur, and the coffee/chocolate/vanilla come out to give a hint of sweet mixed drinks or a warm dessert. But again, the green notes keep this from becoming too sweet: it never becomes cloying or overly edible. This is not a sweet, thick fragrance, but rather smooth and streamlined.
Anyhow, I am blown away. This is a brilliant fragrance and it must have been a huge amount of work to balance these notes, which represent a combination I've never seen before. I'm torn between hoping such a groundbreaking fragrance gets a wider release, versus wanting my bottle to be a sought-after holy-grail scent.
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Great. Just when I'd convinced myself I wasn't missing much. How good can it be? I told myself. What others did you try? My favorites are the Sade and the green-tinted absinthe-esque tuberose. And the patchouli. I was really surprised to see a few bloggers react to these as though they were just the most insipid things ever. 1740 seems profoundly exceptional to me. That said, the other two tuberoses weren't so thrilling to me, and Moulin Rouge was a disappointment, so I was secretly hoping not to covet defile. You're going to have to write more, so I don't keep commenting on these same posts, diary like. This is such good writing.
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