Antonio Alessandria: Hommage à la lune (2014)

"What in short you ever lost down here
you will be able to find going up there"
L. Ariosto - The Frenzy of Orlando

He's a dear friend sharing with me the passion for perfumery as an art. He is also a source of stimuli and ideas and this led us to make the first polysensorial tasting events in Italy. Yet it's not for this that I want to talk you about Antonio Alessandria, but because he's the true revelation of this year at Esxence.

Electronic engineer during the day, in the evening he opens his Boudoir 36 downtown in Catania for everybody aiming to discover artistic perfumery surrounded by music, candlelight and congeniality in a bygone era salon atmosphere.

A decade ago passion led him to attend Mouillettes&Co courses where he builds his background about raw materials and classic accords. He decides to study fragrance composition at Cinquieme Sens in Paris and later on, thanks to the connection with famous independent perfumers, he refines his style. But I bet you're guessing when does he create perfumes, don't you?

At night and that's why he pays a tribute to the mooon, charming and mysterious muse of a trilogy reflecting Antonio's vision of artistic perfumery: "Once the composer was able to impose his style and express himself. Nowadays nobody wants to take the risk of proposing a composition that's expression of a style with a character. On the other hand this is the reason why perfume got deprived of meaning and expression, or if you like of its artistic side to become a consumer product". In these eau de parfum you can breathe what he means for taking the risk expressing his creativity and love for beautiful raw materians and for the classics.

Mortified by continuous launches applying the easy equation that modernity equals flatness (but also poor ideas and contents), the nose gets thrilled with the rich, longlasting evolution and the balance mixing embarassing amounts of naturals with synthetics in a leathery leitmotiv that's the Alessandria signature. It's moving to be penetrated by these smells moulded by time and immagination, feeling them throbbing with '40s moods painted in lively contemporary colours.

Nacre Blanche

"The moonlight reflection, candid as pearl, illuminates through a mirror the skin of a young woman white and transparent as alabaster. The intense fragrance of the night blooming tuberose, drifting from the garden merges with the scent of a private chamber"

The fragrance is full of hope, like eyes glancing behind the boundary wall. They scan through the citrus foliage. They claim for the flesh breathing the sweetness of jasmin and the daring of tuberose. Like the moonlight they lay on the ivory breasts. They want to slide into the sleepy gloom of the smooth thighs that crease the sheets like petals, uninhibitedly caress them in a bed of leather, dark woods and benzoin.

Notes: bergamot, grapefruit, mandarin, petitgrain, coriander, tuberose, jasmin, osmanthus, leather, patchouli, sandalwood, benzoin, vanilla, musk

Nuit Rouge

"A silvery room illuminates the frosty night. The volcano looms volatile in the dark. The red glow of a sudden eruption inspires both fear and attraction"

Bitter and sharp like obsidian, the androginous surface of the perfume reflects cold beams of citrus and geranium drawing in black circles the pungent, animalic swirls of blackcurrant. The crust then breaks letting out earthy smells of roasted beans and minerals, puffing out soft spicy clouds that leave on skin a sensual aromatic touch, soft as a suede glove.

Notes: bergamot, citrus, blackcurrant bud absolute, grapefruit, rhubarb, geranium, iris, saffron, black pepper, nutmeg, coffee, leather, cedarwood, patchouli, sandalwood, incense, vanilla, tonka bean, musk

Noir Obscur

"In a dark still night of a new moon, the memory of light makes its way through the maze of soul to lead the way along unknown paths. Soft as a cloun, sensual as velvet, sweet as sin"

The most intense and mysterious scent of the trilogy is the olfactory negative of a picture, like an alter ego that only in the darkness discloses its hottest desires of pepper and saffron. The gloom is full of presences coming from the past, palpable nudities of osmanthus and rose boozed by rhum. What makes it my favourite one is the indecent exploration of the intimate, that ruffling of hairs and bodies in the salty ambery basenotes that more than others connect it to the sinful, troubling elegance that modern coward cleansing perfumery has erased.

Notes: orange, mandarin, davana, rhum absolute, spicy notes, bulgarian rose, jasmin, iris, osmanthus, leather, patchouli, vetiver, cedarwood, incense, amber accord, musk

Please leave a comment if you're curious about Antonio's creations. Within a week I'll draw five lucky readers that will receive a sample set.