By Stephanie Bennett
Browsing for shoes at Barneys New York in Beverly Hills, it’s hard to get your attention to stray from the exceptional selection. However, it is difficult to overlook the Frederic Malle’s Editions de Parfums, which is distinctly characterized by three large cylinder red vacuum tubes. These tall empty glass pods are actually called vaporisateurs and are featured only where Editions de Parfums are sold – Barneys New York and Frederic Malle’s storefront in Paris. Frederic Malle has a precise vision as to how perfume must be appreciated and the experience behind selecting a fragrance. Thus, Malle created these vaporisateurs so that people can become engulfed in the true essence of cologne by smelling the scent inside the vacuum, rather than simply sniffing coffee beans to cleanse a palette.
Malle applied the same attention to detail throughout the entire process of creating Editions de Parfums. It was several years ago when Frederic Malle first came up with the notion of creating a collection with the brilliance of perfumers who have invented notable scents for other designers.
Malle chose nine perfumers, giving them each carte blanche to produce scents using individual inspirations. At the end each of the process, all perfumers were given open credit with their names adorning each bottle of parfum. From the nine perfumers, 16 fragrances were born from Malle’s principle of “perfumes without compromise.” Each fragrance has its own personality.
Some of the parfums smell androgynous and have an amazing effect, whether worn by a man or a woman. One fragrance in particular that lends itself genderless is L’eau d’hiver. Jean-Claude Ellena was summoned to create this along with three other scents for the Frederic Malle collection. Ellena has a distinguished career in perfume, creating scents over the past 20 years for a list of design houses, including Yves St. Laurent, Giorgio Armani and Cartier. He was also brought on as the in-house nose for Hermes.
L’eau d’hiver is a soft scent with an ease to it. Floral notes of iris gently drift over traces of honey, caramel and musk. This parfum reflects the minimalist style Ellena is known for and is sheer enough to be worn any season. The lightness of the floral and musk perfectly complement each other, and even though the skill in creating such a gentle composition is not simplistic, nothing could be more simple than buying a fragrance that works both for you and your boyfriend.
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