To smell is to believe

September 13, 2024 | 12:00am

Since the beginning of time, the perfume world has created fragrances to preserve bouquets of nature, capture memories and convey feelings, all in a whiff. Diptyqye stood out in the industry when, since the house’s first fragrance in 1968, its founders — interior designer Christiane Gautrot, painter Desmond Knox-Leet and set designer Yves Coueslant — translated their memories of nature and travel into fragrances with drawings and graphic compositions, activating memories of what was seen through smell.

Fifty-six years later, the pioneering house is utilizing scent the other way around in an olfactory note-defying collection, assembling the top names of the fragrance world to make what’s imperceptible to a human nose palpable, as if by synesthesia.

The result is Les Essences de Diptyque, a collection made up of five eaux de parfum created in honor of natural treasures — beautiful as they are — that have no scent.

Housed in new bottles inspired by the original, Irish plastics artist Nigel Peake reduced each scent’s elements to their most essential form in black line work — finer, more abstract, traced on the glass in relief, and capped with a spherical aluminum stopper.

Venetian Coral as Corail Oscuro

Taking its name from the contrast between the darkness of the Venetian Lagoon seabed and the vibrant vermilion of the coral that lives there, Corail Oscuro is a floral mineral inspired by chiaroscuro, the artistic technique so beloved of Renaissance masters such as Caravaggio and Titian. “I wanted my work to suggest salinity, and the fiery red color of a coral garden. Plus the undulations of a stony mineral flower suspended between sunlit skies and the darkness of the sea,” says Alexandra Carlin, whose other creation for the house is the Grand Tour 60th anniversary exclusive Kyoto in 2021. In this fragrance she blended rose bourbon absolute with the crystalline sparkle of mandarin, cultivated in Madagascar by local communities. A warm, salty, mineral accord captures the very essence of this marine creature.

Mother of Pearl as Lunamaris

The evocative name “Lunamaris” celebrates the mother of pearl, and that delicate shimmering that calls to mind the reflection of the moon on the waters of the sea. Imagined by Fabrice Pellegrin, known for creamy white fragrances Do Son and Eau Duelle, he says “each ingredient has its proper place, creating a radiant signature with silky subtleties. Pink peppercorn with its vibrant effects and spicy colors, the pure, resinous note of incense and the amber warmth of rockrose.” Rockrose harvested by Diptyque has been cultivated by local growers in Andalusia for over 30 years, following a sustainable harvest cycle.

Tree Bark as Bois Corsé

“For Bois Corsé, I drew inspiration from the beauty of nature at its most unvarnished,” says Nathalie Cetto in one of her first two fragrances for the house with the late Olivier Pescheux, the nose behind many Diptyque fragrances, notably 34 Boulevard Saint Germain and Eau Capitale. “I played on the texture of wood, and particularly the roughness of bark, so pleasant to the touch despite its irregularities and randomness.”

A true woody amber, there are also full-bodied aromas of coffee in there, enveloped with the softness of tonka bean, reflecting the feel of living bark in the milky fluidity of sandalwood essence from Santalum spicatum, the Australian sandalwood.

Water Lily as Lilyphéa

Another Cetto and Pescheux creation, Cetto reveals, “In Lilyphéa, I played on the leaf of the water lily. The green of these leaves is at once crisp, lively and smooth, but also mellow, fleshy and brimming with sap.”

Inspired by Claude Monet’s majestic Water Lilies series, she continues, “To keep the energy of this green scent while also introducing a relaxing feel, I contrasted the heady aspect of essence of galbanum with the sap-like qualities of violet leaf, then blended in the gentle warmth of Madagascan vanilla absolute.” Cardamom adds lively freshness to the blend.

Desert Rose Crystal as Rose Roche

Also by Pellegrin, he was “inspired by the winds that shape the desert sands with surprising precision over the course of time. By combining vegetables and minerals with aromas redolent of the Orient, he explains, “My aim was to evoke the elemental heat of the desert winds through a perfume crafted to recall the warm, mineral feel of grains of sand.”

Notes of lemon (sourced from Sicilian and Calabrian private groves known in Italy as “little gardens”) illuminate the petals of the centifolia rose, while mineral patchouli adds a mesmerizing depth that creates an endless sillage, like traces blowing in the wind as it sweeps across the dunes.

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Les Essences de Diptyque is available in the 100ml format and a miniature format in a limited edition Discovery Set. In the Philippines, Diptyque is available exclusively at Rustan’s The Beauty Source.