Unlike some of her indie perfumer colleagues,
Vero Kern doesn’t belong to the school of Naive Art: her work is deeply
cultured, steeped in the history of perfumery, tearing swathes off classics to
reassemble them into broad-stroked compositions ripe with dense materials. This
is, along with memories that seem to stretch back to an era before her birth,
what gives her perfumes a quality that isn’t so much vintage as it is archaic.
Mito belongs to a much more easily identifiable
fragrance family than Kiki’s gourmand fougère or Onda’s leather chypre gone feral. Smell it and you’ll think of soaring citrus-green-hyacinth-jasmine
masterpieces like Cristalle or Chamade. Sniff deeper and you’ll draw out the
yielding fleshy fruitiness of Mitsouko or Femme.
But Vero Kern, though well acquainted with the
exquisite sense of measure of classic French perfumers – she received advice
from the late, great Guy Robert – is more of a wise, light-hearted she-wolf
with a ringing laugh. She’s never been trained to play nice. Mito is bigger-boned that a latter-day tribute to 70s green chypres like the lovely Jasmine White Moss (Estée Lauder), lustier than Ormonde Jayne's Tiaré. Her bold
approach to materials pulls her gentle magnolia accord into a springtime bower,
prickly with citrus, dripping with sap, thick with turgid petals: an Italian
Renaissance garden on the verge of turning back to wilderness, rather than some
pristine, untainted state of nature. Vero sniffs nature within its most
cultured expressions – the art of gardens, the art of perfumery – and tugs it
out from behind the bushes, like a disheveled nymph.
Big, bold, emotionally expressive and joyful,
Mito is also an eminently amiable perfume, and one that feels more approachable
than her earlier offerings, which are very much “commitment” scents. I’ve had many
spontaneous compliments while testing it, which also proves it’s got volume and
sillage (never an issue with Vero). Plus, it just makes me
silly-happy.
Illustrations: Nymph and Satyre by Henri Matisse.
This sounds like the kind of floral I like - that is, something along the lines of Manoumalia, perhaps?
RépondreSupprimerAnd by the way, my bottle of Seville a l'Aube arrived today from LuckyScent, so I'm a thoroughly happy perfumista! ~~nozknoz
Nozknoz, no, to me it doesn't smell at all like Manoumalia, the only common point would be the floral fleshiness, but it's much brighter and not tropical at all.
RépondreSupprimerGlad the bottle made it, another friend in the US got her LS delivery as well. Apparently they've had to place another order for every bottle they could lay their hands on, such is the demand!
I do like magnolias, in any case, so I'll give this a try, for sure.
RépondreSupprimerWearing Seville a l'Aube this morning, I was reflecting on how the main notes would have been present in Moorish Spain, as well. I especially loved seeing the Alhambra and the Cathedral/Great Mosque of Cordoba when I was there, so this beautiful perfume is like an imagined memory of Moorish times for me. Think of all the memories your perfume is becoming part of now! ~~nozknoz
What a lovely description. I am looking forward to trying this.
RépondreSupprimerNozknoz, definitely something Moorish about Séville à l'aube, but more importantly, something you can blend with your own memories...
RépondreSupprimerAs for Mito, it's much more than magnolia of course, and what there is ain't for sissies!
anotherperfumeblog, it is, as the ritual phrase goes, well worth seeking out!
RépondreSupprimer