5 posts tagged "Juliette Has A Gun"
Romano Ricci’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
For the bulk of Romano Ricci’s olfactory career, the Juliette Has a Gun creator has focused on a single protagonist—an adaptation of Shakespeare’s great heroine infused with a whole lot of attitude. And so it went with scents like Miss Charming, Lady Vengeance, Citizen Queen, and his most recent release, Romantina, all of which honed in on different adaptations of the same rebellious-feminine theme with fragrance compositions that centered around antique rose notes. With his latest perfume, however, Ricci sought to create something that embodied the reaction of other people to his girl, rather than the girl herself. “Mad Madame enjoys being looked at and igniting conversations,” Ricci explains of the green chypre scent of the same name that boasts notes of black currant bud absolute; a strong dose of the synthetic ambroxan, which makes itself known in the dry-down; hints of soft, balancing peony; and earthy, sensual additions of patchouli and tuberose absolute. Its star ingredient is a rose heart, as you may have guessed, although this rose is anything but predictable. The green rose oxide, which has a metallic quality to it, imparts a cutting freshness to prevent this uncharacteristically red bottle from ever becoming too sweet—which makes sense for Ricci’s enduring character profile as well. “For this new episode I wanted to pay tribute to a woman slightly more mature than the previous episodes, but by no means better behaved.”
From Romantina, With Love
Two years ago, Romano Ricci took a slight detour from his original Juliette Has a Gun narrative with Not a Perfume, a singular ode to the synthetic, woodsy/musky ingredient Ambroxan. But up until that point, the niche fragrance line created by Nina Ricci’s grandson in 2006 had predominantly relied on the familiarity of antique rose essences spiked and spliced with a number of uniquely complementary notes: His debut offerings created by legendary perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, Lady Vengeance and Miss Charming, were rounded out with patchouli and vanilla, and wild berries respectively; Citizen Queen featured additional hints of leather, iris, and immortal flowers; and Midnight Oud showcased touches of oud, geranium, and saffron layered with its heart of Moroccan rose. With his latest release, Ricci is returning to his floral roots in a major way. “There’s a hint of frivolity,” he says of Romantina, a rose eau that’s inspired by a modern love story set in Rome and is blended heavily with a bouquet of white flowers—jasmine, orange blossom, and iris, specifically. A base of patchouli and warm vanilla ensure that the scent doesn’t err too far on the ultra feminine side and that it retains a certain depth, which is uncommon of most unabashedly floral flacons—not to mention Ricci’s perfume protagonist; his Juliette has never been much of the waiting-on-the-balcony type.
For Juliette Has A Gun, Revenge Is Sweet
The house that Nina Ricci built has a knack for churning out desirable creations. Take Peter Copping’s Spring collection for the brand that just wrapped in Paris a few hours ago: There were more girly and gorgeous, gotta-have-it pieces in the show than we can recall here (more on that in a bit). It seems the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. Much like his grandmother, fragrance connoisseur Romano Ricci has become similarly adept at releasing lust objects—and his new perfume venture is no exception. The latest scent in his Juliette Has a Gun range culls inspiration from his original, best-selling, rose patchouli and vanilla offering, Lady Vengeance. But as its name suggests, Vengeance Extreme is darker, deeper, and more robust than its predecessor. A massive overdose of the same ingredients in higher concentrations yields a truly sensual floral chypre that wears with a luscious, intoxicating feel on the skin. Ricci himself has always considered perfume the ultimate weapon of seduction, and in that regard, this eau should be considered armed and dangerous.
About $135 for 100 ml, www.colette.fr.
Byredo Goes Into the Mystic
Oud is many things to many people. To the musically minded, it’s an almond-shaped, intricately embellished stringed musical instrument from the Middle East; to those who imbibe, it’s a style of medium-bodied brown Belgian beer; and for the linguists out there, it’s simply the Dutch word for “old,” or “archaic.” For the perfume community, oud is an exotic and incredibly rare oil made from the wildly fragrant resin of the Aquilaria tree, also known as Agarwood. Originally from the Assam region of India and now found throughout Southeast Asia, the fragrant elixir has been prized for thousands of years for its purported spiritual, mystical, and aphrodisiacal powers. A bevy of noteworthy perfume companies have given the magical extract a starring role in their eaux; there’s Pure Oud from By Kilian, Oud Wood by Tom Ford, and Midnight Oud by Juliette Has a Gun. This week, Ben Gorham, the brains behind Byredo, adds his own pair of oud-centric blends to the pot. Accord Oud is a heady blend of smoky and sweet with notes of blackberry, saffron, clary sage, patchouli, and powdery musks to round out the composition, while Oud Immortel feels like an ode to the ingredient’s exotic origins with potent notes of incense, cardamom, papyrus, Brazilian rosewood, tobacco leaves, and moss. Is it an aphrodisiac? As far as we’re concerned, totally. From the second we spritzed each onto our skin, it was love at first smell.
Byredo Accord Oud and Oud Immortel, $195 each, www.barneys.com.
Juliette Is Back. And This Time, She’s Packing Heat
When Romano Ricci broke onto the niche fragrance scene in 2006, his first foray into the olfactory world had success written all over it before his Juliette Has a Gun collection even hit counters. He has a fashion pedigree that dates back to one of the original twentieth-century couture houses (his great-grandmother is Nina of the same last name), but his truly original idea (create a line of perfumes inspired by Shakespeare’s heroine, using antique rose notes at the heart of each scent) didn’t hurt matters one bit. Fragrance fanatics chomped at the bit to get their hands on his first two offerings, Miss Charming and Lady Vengeance. Now, after parting ways with his “nose,” Francis Kurkdjian, the third chapter in Ricci’s story arrives this month, intended to evoke the mysterious side of his protagonist with high concentrations of rare ingredients like Iris Absolute. Possessing the signature rose centerpiece, Citizen Queen, as the new fragrance is called, is destined to follow in the favorable footsteps of its predecessors—as the saying goes: “a rose by any other name…”