Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
From The Tyger by William Blake
Malbrum
Parfum’s debut collection of peculiarly frayed and sensual scents has urgency
and mischief in its juices. They proved popular at Esxence in March this year
as did Creative Director Kristian Hilberg himself with his striking Nordic good
looks and intricate knowledge of both the natural and synthetic components of
his chic new house.
Creative Director Kristian Hilberg enjoying a quieter side of Cannes 2015
(Malbrum Instagram)
Reading the notes for the extrait strength parfums on the website Kristian has
chosen interestingly to list the traditional head, heart and base notes
separately from the synthetics such as Exaltolide, Toscanol and Ambrofix.
It is an intriguing and seemingly unnecessary separation until you start to sample the fragrances more intently, then the naturals/synthetics divide becomes vital and fascinating.
It is an intriguing and seemingly unnecessary separation until you start to sample the fragrances more intently, then the naturals/synthetics divide becomes vital and fascinating.
Vol.I of
Malbrum consists of three deftly constructed formulae each one housed in robust
rectangular 30ml bottles affixed with short retro-style bulb atomisers. These
have an elegantly manufactured 90º turn & lock system for spraying, ensuring
safe travel with no spillage. (Kristian
suggests you travel with book-box and scent together… just in case). The
three are Tigre du Bengale, Psychotrope
and Shameless Seducer. Volume II is
already under way apparently and will (fingers crossed..) appear later this
year.
Each of the
three bottles has a patterned backdrop down one side; a grid of black dots like
stylised spots for Tigre du Bengale, ragged
animal print or Rorschach blots for Psychotrope,
and for Shameless Seducer a large sensual ‘S’, emphasised
with a heavy dot beneath it. I love the overall packaging and design identity;
it was conceived by multi-disciplinary design agency Olssøn Barbieri based in Oslo,
Norway. The flacons are presented in muted vintage inspired cloth bound boxes.
Placed on shelves, they look like old novels or textbooks.
In fact the
perfumes are located in two very different worlds, the high cold places of
Northern Europe, Norway to be precise, homeland of Kristian and the iconic
perfumed microclimate of Grasse in Provence. For this is where Kristian’s nose
and collaborator, French parfumeuse Delphine Thierry has chosen to anchor
herself after stints in Paris, New York and Mexico.
Grasse + Norway = Malbrum
Along with
perfumers like Cécile Zarokian, Luca Maffei, Amélie Bourgeois, Ann-Sophie
Behaghel, Dora Baghdriche-Arnaud, Emilie Coppermann, Ralf Schwieger, Quentin
Bisch and Julien Rasquinet, Delphine Thierry is of a generation of vibrant
young noses, knowingly composing within the shifting restrictions of IFRA and
choosing to view this as challenge and normality rather than the seemingly
futile harking back to vintage and obsession with he death of materials.
Delphine is independent, set up as Inspiration
Libre, working mainly with niche houses but also offering a bespoke
creation service for these looking for something personal and unique.
Delphine Thierry
You can
smell woody, sweet threads throughout her work. There is a signature of
beautifully played natural and fantasy woods, wreathed in gauzy smoke, reaching
upward off skin like ghost trees. Her best work to date for me include Castaña, a smeared, nutty iris and
chestnut wonder for Maggie Magnan’s Galway-based Cloon Keen Atelier and Akaad and Galaad for Lubin, a pair of smooth and resinous undertakings with
immense biblical beauty in the choice of woods, spices, balms and unguents. But
it is probably her powerful, cinema-verité
Montecristo for Masque Milano that really proved how immensely talented Delphine
Thierry is. In a previous blog piece on Masque Milano’s magical Russian Tea this is how I described Montecristo:
’The beautiful turbulence of Montecristo is
its ferocious animalism as it explodes out of the bottle. Yes, it’s a little
faecal and dirtysexy but jeez so much fragrance these days is dull and
sanitised to the point of tepid transparency. The sheer FUCK YOU of this is
fantastic.’
A lot of
perfumers are genuinely afraid of sexy, really good, dirty close up sexy. The
kind of fragrances you smell on people and think..I wanna fuck you.. what happened to that and why are we so timid
about scent that might suggest any asking, any flirtation or signaling for bed,
skin and abandonment? I have always had fragrances in my collection that act
like honeytraps, formulae that transform the skin into canvases of shifting,
shimmering desire.
Delphine is
fearless. These three philtres are suggestive and daring, not really for the
wallflower. The alliance of Kristian’s Viking masculine intensity and Delphine’s
resolute French femininity has produced a debut volume of erotic veiled intensity.
I bought Tigre du Bengale and
Kristian very kindly sent me samples of the other two to try.
Shameless Seducer has the oddest ‘lime-fraiche’ accord smack bang out of
the formula. It smells fatty and enticing like fresh key lime pie studded with
unrepentant clove and cocky ambrette. There is a streetwalker swagger to this
motherfucker scent, a fag butt crushed under a patent pointed heel, the scent
of fantasy boywhores and weary night ladies exiting pungent cars, leaving trembling
johns. Still dangerous, still relevant, still going on.
The mimosa
smells bruised, damaged, wrecked by the filthy blare of civet in the base and
the beautiful synergy of materials provided by a dose of Exaltoide. A
combination of synthetic Ambrettolide and ambrette seed really ramps up the
sensation of dirty, smeared powder as Shameless
Seducer settles into the skin in the later stages. But the piquancy of the
original lime-fraiche accord holds steadfast throughout the evolution of this
morally dubious aroma. My skin loved the ambrette theatrics and truffly,
civetty base; everything fell beautifully into place. Delphine’s lime-fraiche top
is innovative and necessary to counteract the impending red-light quirkiness of
the scent’s seductive body. Fascinating.
Psychotrope is intended to suggest in olfactory form the hallucinogenic
effects that psychotropic, or mind-altering drugs have on the human body. An
intriguing intent for such an elegant and smoky perfume. My first impression
was of luxurious folded cashmere, with that just
out of wooden storage scent, perhaps some of last winter’s perfumes tucked
away in the fibres. I was quite taken aback at how serene this perfume was; the
opening spike of pungent cypress is contrasted nicely against pimento and elemi
resin, creating a resinous sheen for the soft fumes of saffron-infused incense
and woods to wander over like weary migrant birds. There is a sudden throw of
amber in the base, a little bitter, a little vegetal and salty that fades into
languid greyness under the glowing woods. These are hugely amplified by very
adult doses of Timbersilk and Ambrinol, which while hardly subtle, still manage
to lend Psychotrope a compelling
vastness. It has the visual odour of smoke behind glass, clean, rolling in
elastic petal-form. But much as I admired parts of the construct and hypnotic
incense tendrils it was perhaps my least favourite of the three, but I was
feeling very fickle when I sampled it, so my opinion may shift.
I smelled
bits and pieces of Comme des Garçon’s synth-oozing Wonderwood, Spicebomb by
Viktor and Rolf and the delightfully smooth Bottega Veneta for Men that has a
similar closed down elegance at the heart of it. It is much more refined than
these of course and does throw touches of Delphine’s Galaad into the mix; I can smell traces of her signature in the
woods and smeared resinous sillage. She has used the Cashmeran rather
beautifully, poured like dry ice over the rough and tumble of woods and
aggressive styrax, soothing edges and relaxing the smoke into a layer of
languid haze. Psychotrope is hardly
hallucinogenic, more contemplative and provoking. For now, I’ll reserve a
little judgment and revisit it in a month or so.
(So yes, I revisited Psychotrope, wearing it over two days
and yes of course I loved the damn thing, I was overtly fickle when I first
sampled it. To be fair, my hay fever this year is heinous and I’m getting nosebleeds;
these things are really damaging my sense of smell. But the hazy languid
woodiness had me wondering who smelled so good. It was me.)
Tigre du Bengale is a quietly complex scent, a formula of study and
intent. It stalks the air like its brooding killer namesake. The website
mentions a ‘dry aromatic coke accord’ in the top and it’s quite true, it smells
like classic coca cola poured over hot dry pavement; a little bubbled and dusty,
a touch tarmmaccy. This lovely and unexpected opening segues into a warm mix of
soft chewy licquorice and animalic burnished myrrh.
This
strange canvas of effects is blindsided by the echoing expanses of icy Nimberol
flooding the skin for a moment, obliterating any real nuances of effect. It
takes a moment for anything to surface. I really like the slow tendril of
tobacco, Burley tobacco according to the Malbrum notes. I did a bit of quick
research on Burley tobacco; it’s more traditionally air-dried, rather than
cured, barn air flowing over the drying leaves imparting a nutty, cocoa facet. This
choice and attention to detail emerges in the languorous kindled drydown as the
skin turns to amber and the tiger’s roar mutes to a guttural rumble amid the
darkening night trees.
I love the
mix of sweet shadow and spicy wander, the smoke and woody bite. Tigre du Bengale has beautiful
resonance, it lies down on skin with belligerent grace, snarling a little, but
ultimately allowing a sense of great beauty and sexuality to glow and
fascinate.
Delphine
Thierry’s work on all three of these fragrances is exemplary; there is
delicacy, finesse and just enough brutality and sex to catch a jaded mind. A
truly selvedge Nordic texture has been woven beautifully with classical French
aromatic sophistication and knowability. It must have been very tempting for
Thierry in particular to resist honing and smoothing the compositions, but they
ideally represent a near perfect correlation of olfactory yearning and
specifics between two distinctly different artistic individuals who desire only
that skin smells magical, luminous, feral and carefully shadowed.
This
triptych of sensual and thought-provoking formulae really
charmed me, each of the extraits are beautifully wrought with a delicate
balance of distinctive personality and offbeat erotic allure. But for me their
success lies in the decision by Kristian and Delphine to forge an alliance of beautiful
and deliberate contradiction, a sense of Nordic Fatale overlaying the eternal
beguilement of French classic aromas. I suggest you all try these now, let your
skin decide. I can’t wait for Vol. II if this is the quality and artistry of
Volume I. Merci Delphine and takk Kristian…
For more information on Malbrum please click on the link below:
©TheSilverFox
26 May 2015
Disclosure
– From my own collection
No comments:
Post a Comment