Inspired by the literary story Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, the perfume of the same name published by the perfume house Frédéric Malle is inscribed in the spirit and in the senses with the same olfactory fulgurance!
It’s a scent you won’t forget – a powerfully evocative scent. Without gender or color …
Portrait Of A Lady: An Olfactory Icon
The perfume published in 2010 by Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle is a baroque ode to grandiloquent, sublime and eminently elegant perfumery. And if the juice is stamped with the signatures of this very special perfume house, it is on the nose Dominique Ropion that we must have signed all the eloquence!
Dominique Ropion For Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle
Because this is what distinguishes the vision of Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle from the rest of the perfume houses – here, the nose signs its work. Literally as figuratively. Offering the public the author’s fragrances with which the latter fed the project for years, Frédéric Malle’s house behaves in the same way as a book publishing house …
Anchored in the tradition of the great French perfumery, it brings together the most brilliant noses of their generation. And among them, Olivia Giacobetti and Jean-Claude Ellena … Before he became the exclusive perfumer-creator at the Hermès house.
“The first thing Frédéric told me was that he was going to put the names of the perfumers on the bottles. It meant a lot: not only that we engaged perfectly in the creation, but also that we had to live up to our commitment, like an author to his publisher. Mutual trust was established, and I thank him for that, because all of a sudden we existed with the public “thus specified the perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena in an interview.
But the one who signed nearly 9 olfactory opuses for Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle is none other than Dominique Ropion. Alongside his creations which already count in the firmament of perfumery; creations of the caliber of Alien by Thierry Mugler or La Nuit de L’Homme by Yves Saint Laurent… The genius nose that is Dominique Ropion has indeed signed the icon of Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle – Portrait of a Lady.
An olfactory masterpiece that marks in its wake an intense and very sensual fragrance. A fragrance that exudes a deep sophistication.
Portrait Of A Lady: Perfume For Life
This is the idea of Dominique Ropion when he undertakes the composition of this exclusive juice – to translate in these scents the perfume that a man or a woman will wear for life.
A woman or a man yes because it is indeed in connection with his own creation Géranium pour Monsieur, already signed for the Editions du Parfums Frédéric Malle, that the composition Portrait of a Lady comes to be inscribed. “Certain elements of the background of Geranium for Monsieur had the potential to become the heart of a modern oriental perfume” – this precision brought by the house indeed leads to reconsider the scent built around a bewitching dose of Turkish rose. An oriental blend inflamed by blackcurrant and patchouli.
Insolent and delicious, the composition unfolds around main chords which, cheerfully, see the amber, woody, fruity and smoky aromas mingling with scents of rose, sandalwood, musk and balsamic, balmy … Very powdery !
Opulent, the Portrait of a Lady perfume finds its perfect harmony when distilled in a radically refined bottle. A bottle which, Frédéric Malle says, was inspired by a remark from Irving Penn. A bottle “should be as simple as possible” as he likes to remind her.
Portrait of a Lady is ultimately this astonishing and striking fragrance – a trail that awakens the senses and which remains in memory as soon as all the spectacularity of this very confidential composition is allowed to emerge!