Perfumes by Daniela Roche Andrier ~ Best in Show

“When people ask me how I come up with a formula for a new perfume, I’m not sure I know myself. It’s like a wild bird that sings only when nobody’s watching. In a way, perfumery is like other creative processes, such as writing or painting, where you might have a theme or know what colors you’re going to use, but where there’s still that element of magic, and it just comes out of you. Sure, creating a fragrance involves equations and formulas… but at its heart, it’s an emotional process, evoking all sorts of things.” (-Via) 

When it comes to my change in preference from sweety-gourmand to leather fragrances, Gucci Eau De Parfum is one of my favorites. It’s the very first – not typical for me – grown-up fragrance I had back in the day; it was winter 2004, and I was gifted Gucci Eau De Parfum as a generous gift for my 20th birthday. As much as I was grateful, the young adult that I was, highly influenced by the many magazine ads and fragrance campaigns, was secretly dreaming of Lancome’s Attraction instead! But holding the heavy cubed glass bottle was utterly satisfying.

Gucci Eau De Parfum was serious in the way a well-tailored, second-skin leather jacket can be serious. The opening was resinous and chewy, and for the younger me, it was too “peppery” and masculine. I revisited the precious juice through the years and learned to appreciate how ahead of its time Gucci Eau De Parfum was.

The spicy opening is unique, carrying grand aims to be extravagant, with the sour caraway performing loudly – a long time before this was cool in modern perfumery. It’s simultaneously simple and intricate. The long-winded, spicy-sweet opening cools down later than expected into dark incense and ragged leather. The heliotropin, with an embrace of floral undertones and almonds, soothes the melancholic leathery heart. The perfume finds its character with a shooting nippy-bitterness at this stage; a powdery climax of impactful notes that should’ve been dirtier and more animalic but somehow aren’t. It develops leathery, powdery, spicy, and dramatically balanced; so unusual for a feminine release in 2002. While the industry was promoting the “fruitchouli” trend, Daniella Andrier crafted a textured suede composition for daring women; it was Gucci’s golden era led by Tom Ford.

Now this ship has sailed, and we’re mourning another discontinued gem of what visionary compositions can smell like. I still believe if Gucci Eau De Parfum were to be released today, the internet would be buzzing around its modern aesthetics and innovation. It would be a new trendsetter for perfume enthusiasts!

Along with the rather light and fresh offerings within the Les Infusions de Prada Collection, there is this odd brother. Something that doesn’t follow the same path. Infusion d’Oeillet is a floral-powdery-ambery scent with a very vintage DNA, and somewhat melancholic personality, unlike the other uplifting and joyful siblings. This is a carnation interpretation, and it comes with all of the preconceived notions we have about carnations – a masculine flower that smells dated or retro, powdery, spicy, elegant, and sober.

Infusion d’Oeillet is extremely poised and balanced, lacking the pungency of the vintage carnation scents, and being so, it brings this note to modernity with sobriety, tenderness, and a very fluffy woody base that includes iris materials too, for extra powder.

The gentle personality of this overlooked gem is key for the way it works so well. When I smell it from others (others I forced to wear this, I know nobody who has this perfume), I get whiffs of an incredibly sophisticated leather, along with the spicy powderiness. It gets into chypre territory, but without the cold facets chypres can sometimes offer.

Nowadays, carnation is never the star of a fragrance, and in fact, it’s a flower that seems to be almost forgotten, probably due to the associations to older fragrances. It used to be a trend in such a way that it might have marked a whole generation. Infusion d’Oeillet is still that retro flower, but it has enough of a modern sparkle to make it wearable, especially if you experience the elegant and comfy base notes with that powdery leather cushion in the drydown. I find this scent truly special.

In 2017, Daniela Roche Andrier helped Tiffany to re-establish itself as a perfume brand with the new Tiffany Eau de Parfum. The brand chose iris as the central element of their new perfume since the iris is deeply entwined in the brand’s DNA, beginning with the iris brooch that won the grand prize at the Paris Expo in 1900. But most importantly, Ms. Andrier had the task to create a diamond, which is what Tiffany is known for. The choice of iris with its buttery, textured, muted, earthy, and powdery olfactive profile was an odd one to make when you think about diamonds, but the perfumer accepted the challenge.

Tiffany Eau de Parfum (or, simply, the first Tiffany of the new line) is clean and pure, just as it was intended, and the iris here is paradoxically crystal clear, more silky than powdery, and very discrete. Rose, citruses, and black currant illuminate the bright facets of the fragrance – they glow in tender pink, sharp green, and dazzling yet cold yellow. All nuances sparkle colorfully but just for a split second because the diamond is clear, and the perfume maintains its purity till the very end.

Tiffany Eau de Parfum is exceptionally feminine, but at the same time it reflects the diamond’s extraordinary strength. The perfume’s backbone is masked by fruity-fresh, peachy nuances at the top, but gradually it reveals itself – a solid,  unyielding, clear, amber-woody grit that is not achieved by the usual overdose of some die-hard material but by the perfumer’s skill and brilliant intuition. The powerful sensation is exactly that – a sensation, more than a specific smell. Marketers often use the predictable phrase perfume for a strong woman, which has mostly lost its meaning, but not in this case. Tiffany Eau de Parfum, being so wonderfully feminine, has a very strong will underneath.

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Most of the time, when we mention worthwhile fragrances, we search for character, uniqueness, a certain self-confident presence that defies norms and cliches. There are some fragrances nevertheless that have survived and triumphed commercially, based exactly on their friendly vibes, which make them perfect for a vast majority of people, regardless of sex, regardless of age, regardless of occupation. I could effortlessly cite Infusion d’Iris among those. That does not mean it’s character-less, on the contrary. Some companies pay lots of attention to the nuance of good manners. You could bet that anything by Prada (or Hermes for that matter) is well-mannered and would not risk making people think you’re an uncouth brute. Daniela Roche Andrier has worked for most fragrances from Prada, her work being exactly that seamless and deceptively effortless success of making an impression without trying too hard.

Infusion d’Iris Prada, first launched in 2007 and then reintroduced as a rather less sturdy composition as Infusion d’Iris (2015,) is the one that started it all.
Despite the name, the fragrance is not particularly intent on iris roots, the rhizomes of which traditionally take ages to mature into that absolute which smells starchy and fluffy like fresh pasta and boiled carrots. Instead, the composition lies in the synergy between the light and bright citrusy-woody opening and the resinous nugget at the drydown. These two clash and mate all the while, revealing an odd freshness that is omnipresent; a sensual mantle that is herbal, rather than floral or cosmetics-powdery.

In many ways, Daniela Roche Andrier has offered us with Infusion d’Iris a modern take on the core idea of Chanel No.5, an infiltrating and pan-seasonal scent that turns heads without being bombastic but rather complementing the wearer’s skin. What is considered safe now is different from what was considered safe 50 years ago, though. Chanel No.5 was revolutionary at the time of its launch, thanks to its abstract bouquet and scrubbed clean, ladylike effect, but it has become hopelessly bourgeois and starched for most consumers nowadays, now that clean fragrances mean something else — namely laundry detergent musks and washing powder. Infusion d’Iris has become the scent of “clean,” but a sophisticated clean all the same, distinguishing its wearer by its lightly resinous aura that is abstract and mysterious but always perceptible and pleasant to all. You really can’t go wrong with it; it’s a modern classic.

Perfumes that create a bleu flanker usually aim for something watery, willowy, and very transparent. Daniela Andrier, creator of the first Miu Miu fragrance, decided to play on the strengths of that composition while imposing some curious counters to our traditional expectations. The first Miu Miu was a clean jasmine with just a touch of fruitiness, sweetened enough to feel perfumy but never overdone. There were also roses and pale musk, which gave it some distinction, but the trademarked Akigalawood (a fractioned note from patchouli oil) gave it a beautifully deep peppery base. Andrier decided that for L’Eau Bleue, this reimagined patchouli was essential as well, and so Akigalawood stayed, the fruits were removed, and more emphasis was placed on lily of the valley.

L’Eau Bleue then became something of a study in green leaves and white flowers. But there is more here as well – just the faintest suggestion of honeysuckle in the middle (not a listed note, but that kind of flower) is included amongst a wild rose, jasmine, and some lingering muguet from the opening. There is also very little citrus at the start of L’Eau Bleue, something that’s almost universal to “fresh” scents. Their absence is important because the perfume moves more directly in a delineation from floral sharpness to broader wood-musk focus – quite pleasantly cool and knife-edged in the opening and then gradually becoming fuzzier around the corners by the time it reaches the base stage of wood chips and soft, rounded musk.

Hedione, that important perfume component that elevates flowers and often acts as a bridge between top and middle notes, is used very effectively here as it has (at least to my nose) a faintly peppery smell, and it helps to underscore the other pepper-accented components. So instead of the sleek layers of ocean waves or sharp blasts of grapefruit, Bleue is far more interpretive of the notion of what the original Miu Miu was, reducing its palette to something more minimal and compact, edgier, but still elegant. The fragrance is a modern study of how wood and white flowers can be enough to carry an idea and do so with such distinction.