Blind Sniff Roulette #1: Hermès Hiris

In 1997 Jean-Louis Dumas wanted to relaunch the Hermès house on the catwalks by chosing Martin Margiela as creative director. Martin Margiela's sharp and tactile elegance focusing more on cuts and fabrics rather than on decorations now needed an olfactory equivalent. In 1999 they decided to collaborate with a young perfumer which name was already known for creations for Dyptique, Guerlain and L'Artisan Parfumeur. Which material better than iris (another olimpic divinity) could conjure up a refined (veil, ermine) intellectual woman who's far from excesses and display (tennis court, to the lighthouse)? So Hiris is born, one of Olivia Giacobetti's most beautiful and misunderstood creations, a fruity-aromatic iris, a muted floral (silent white peacock, white sculpture in a garden, Silence) melting with the smell of a vicuña dress just out of the dry cleaner's (linen shirt, tennis outfit).

Bravo, all of you got its clean opaque surface revealing a misty hortus conclusus with iris, vegetables and violets.

Giampaolo Jicky Baldoni
This fragrance to me represents the silence of people having much to say but not daring to say things they can't confess because they don't want to expose themselves to the world because of modesty, pride or cowardice.

• if it'd be a colour? It would be opaque white slightly verging on lilac.
• if it would be an animal?  It'd be a white peacock, unaware prisoner of the Maharadjah's garden, looking marvellous, elegant but silent.

• if it'd be music? It would rather be the memory of a melody, a light music, a muted chant bringing back pleasant moments.
• if it'd be a place? It would be a small garden where spontaneous irises, small white flowers and herbs grow by a stream.
• if it would be a cloth? Rather than a cloth, I'd better go wth a clean white embroidered handkerchief. The hanky hides a souvenir of the happy days.
• if it'd be a movie/book? It makes me think of Eric Rhomer's movie Romance of Astrea and Celadon. Bucolic fairy tale of lovers that don't dare to declare themselves and use innocent children's tricks to meet themselves in an Arcady out of time halfway from reality and fantasy.
• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? Think of a white marble statue in a garden: it stays silent looking at lovers and listening to the secrets of young girls in a non mutual love.

Goldenswallow
I'd say this fragrance is a daydream of innocence, of an outdoors escape, of a woman that fighted for her independence. At first luminous and light thanks to gentle citrus and powdery notes, after some time it reveals shady depths and grassy, humid gorges (I barely detect a green, crisp jasmin).

• if it would be a colour? A shade of violet: amethyst, periwinkle blue, lilac and mauve conjuring up the longing for what's missed.
• if it'd be an animal? It would be a little bird in a cage close to an open window over a waste land scattered with puddles and marshes, crossed by streams and dazzled by a shiny sun after the rain.
• if it'd be music? If it'd music it would be the song "Silence" from PJ Harvey's album "White chalk".

• if it'd be a place? It would be the room where there's the above mentioned little bird. A room that was closed for long time, maybe a season, maybe years where there's still the echo of its inhabitants. Gloom cut by dusty beams of light breaking through the window highlights the opaque yet clean wooden furniture.
• if it'd be a cloth? It would be an accessory actually, a straw hat with veil and an organza ribbon.
• if it'd be a movie/book? If it would be a book it'd be Virginia Woolf's "To the lighthouse" not because of the setting, but because of its back and forth inside and outside the house, from present to memory, what's said and what's thought.
• if it'd be a personality (historical, pubblic,...)? It's hard to couple a "pubblic" face to such a soft, fleeting yet intimate and recognizable. It would be a bodiless apparition, a personal ghost not related to fear.

Malefic Blonde
The feeling I have is that of a unisex "eau de sport", fresh and not particularly sophisticated that makes you feel well and clean. I can feel citrus notes like the inner peel of lemon, the white bitter part of it. Then there are green aromatic notes like heather, moor herbs, a slight celery note, crisp green sweet pepper and a sugary dash of iris powder but everything is watered down like in a dirty iced glass box. I got also a soft new raw leather note followed by white musks in the base, luminous and masculine.

• if it'd be a colour? Pale green, liquid as a watercolour.
• if it would be an animal? An insect like a dragonfly in a rice field with its long green bamboo-like knaggy body and its opalescent clear wings.
• se fosse musica? Lounge music, something you can hear in lifts or in pubblic places, something catchy and easy.
• if it'd be a place? A tennis court not used anymore with small puddles and vegetables growing close to a deserted lemon-house.
• if it would be a cloth? A plain dress like a vintage faded green Lacoste polo-shirt.
• if it'd be a movie/book? It makes me think of the atmospheres portrayed in Chariots of fire.

• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? An ex sportsman (tennis player)  who keeps in shape but has grown older and now plays golf elegantly but without convinction. I can see him like the silhouette printed on Lancome's Trophee.

R. P. Dario
It's a light intriguing fragrance with a masculine character. On paper it opens slightly aromatic with a flowing freshness. Then there's a detectable creamyness, not opulent but discrete with some woods, maybe sandalwood. On my skin this creamy note gets warmer yet staying still faint. It's a light yet wicked skin scent that slowly grows on you like a subtle aura. It's not exactly my cup of tea but after wearing it for some time I must admit its creamyness won me: the scented veil it leaves on skin is teasing.

• if it'd be a colour? Yellow.
• if it'd be an animal? It would be an ermine.
• if it would be music? Easy listening.
• if it'd be a place? If it would be a place, it would be a shady desert beach.
• if it would be a cloth? An ivory white linen shirt with rolled up sleeves.
• if it'd be a movie/book? An adventure film.
• if it'd be a personality (storical, pubblic,...)? It would be Ulisses.

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