Category: New Releases

There is a note in autumn that the great houses have long ignored: the smell of a wet leaf stuck to the underside of a paw. It is cold, green, rotting and slightly sweet, like a salad that has been told bad news. We spent six weeks on it, in the garden of the Atelier, standing in puddles and thinking.

The result, Wet Leaf, Unwanted, is a small experimental edition of only 200 bottles. It opens with cold earth, drops into a bruised apple, and ends in a faint scent of indignation. At $88 it is not cheap, but then neither is the experience of stepping in a puddle on the way to a nap. Each bottle is numbered. Each is accompanied by a very small towel.

Some doors are closed for a reason, and Forbidden Counter was composed for the cat who would open them anyway. It begins with a bright accord of lemon rind and cold stainless steel, the glint of a surface not meant for paws. Then, at the heart, comes a hint of butter, a trace of roast chicken, and the unmistakable warmth of something left out. It is, we are told, “a crime in a bottle.”

At $210 for 50 ml, Forbidden Counter is our autumn flagship and our most contested creation. Aurelien insists on calling it a study in longing. Céleste simply said, “Mine.” Wear it when you wish to leap, to linger, and to be moved on with a firm hand and a damp cloth. It will not apologise. Neither should you.

In late summer, a sunbeam changes character. It grows slower, more golden, and a little heavy, like honey on a spoon. Our perfumers have observed that the beam which falls on a wooden floor at four in the afternoon in August carries notes of beeswax, warm dust, old paper and, faintly, a sleeping dog. We have composed Sunbeam Absolute to capture all of it, except the dog.

At $160 for 50 ml, it is among our most generous scents, with a long, glowing drydown that will keep you warm through the first cold weeks of autumn. We recommend it for naps, for lying on cushions, and for the particular kind of afternoon in which nothing is required of you. Wear it, and be, for a few hours, a patch of light that has decided to stay.

When we announced Fresh Litter Noir, the response was divided. Some called it brave. Some called it a mistake. One lady wrote to our Chairman to say that it was “the most honest fragrance she had ever encountered,” and then asked for a refund. We stand by the work. The scent is a dark, mineral accord of clay, cedar and the stern silence that follows an act of privacy.

At $120, it is among our more demanding offerings. It is not designed to please. It is designed to be understood, in the way a closed door is understood. Aurelien describes it as “the smell of a decision.” Céleste has called it “a bold choice, for a bathroom.” We invite you to approach it, as we did, with an open mind and a closed window.

Corrugated board, at six in the morning, has a smell unlike any other. It is dry, faintly sweet, a little papery, with an undertone of the warehouse where it was born and the long journey in a van that followed. To most it is packaging. To us, it is a cathedral. Cardboard at Dawn, our Eau de Toilette at $95, captures the exact moment a delivery is opened and the contents removed, leaving the box, empty and entirely yours.

Notes of fresh pulp, tape adhesive, a flicker of vetiver, and a trace of the person who just walked away. Wear it when you wish to be low, square and sheltered. Pair it with silence, a patch of floor, and a quiet conviction that you are the true recipient. The best things come in boxes. The best thing is the box.

There are scents that announce themselves, and scents that merely arrive. Warm Laptop belongs to the second family. It opens with a bright accord of brushed aluminium and ozone, as if a fan has just woken in another room, then settles into a heart of toasted crumb, the faintest trace of someone’s lap, and a long, drowsy drydown of cooling plastic. It is the smell of being needed, and then ignored, and then needed again.

Our Master Perfumer, Aurelien Mewlet, spent fourteen months composing it, most of them in a chair he was told to leave. The 50 ml flacon is $185. We recommend wearing it on the pulse points, the keyboard, and any document of consequence. It lasts approximately eleven hours, or until the lid closes.