Considering that Frédéric Malle’s Géranium pour Monsieur is one of my all-time favorite scents, I was excited to learn that the Dominique Ropion, the nose behind the scent, had created another fragrant wonder for Malle: Portrait of a Lady. The master perfumer’s newest feminine fragrance, with a name inspired by the same-named novel by Henry James from 1881, focusing on a heroine who afronts her overwhelming destiny with all the tragic mood of a classical Greek tragedy and set in a context which clashes the Old and New World sensibilities to great aplomb, is centered around the Turkish rose. Complementing the master top note are spicy notes of clove, cinnamon, incense, musk and–get this–raspberry! The woody note in Portrait of a Lady is patchoulol, a terpene extracted from natural patchouli, whose one isomer is responsible for the scent of patchouli itself. Malle’s workmanship is comparable to a bespoke tailor, and this scent is undoubtedly one of his best. Specifically, Portrait of a Lady was created to celebrate his company’s 10-year anniversary–and this lady has some serious sex appeal.
$280 (100 ml), available at Barneys New York and at Frédéric Malle’s NYC boutique (212 249 7941)
