Gülü seven dikenine katlanır.
(Who loves a rose will endure the thorns)
Turkish proverb
Istanbul is a
layered, complex transcontinental city, bridging Europe and Africa over the
iconic Bosphorus Strait. Previously known as Byzantium and Constantinople this
vital extraordinary metropolis is in many ways a historical palimpsest with
culture upon culture, faith upon faith conquering, erasing, rewriting and
adapting what had come before. Roman, Genoese, Byzantium, Ottoman and Islamic
structures stud the city like exquisite emotive pins. As you walk, strata of
histories are buried under your feet but also scattered across the city in
ruined fragments of the faiths and civilisations that have been built high and
low across this complicated and urgent metropolis.
Two huge suspension
bridges, The Bosphorus Bridge and the Fatih Memmet Sultan Bridge span the
strait, linking the European and Asian facets of Istanbul. A third suspension
bridge, the controversial Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge opened in summer 2016, with
four thundering motorway lanes and a rail line. The fertile political,
religious, geographical and cultural symbolism of Istanbul has echoed down
through the centuries and continues to do so, making it a city with
far-reaching and emotive resonances.
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| The opening of the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge |
This whole emblematic
concept of linkage, erasure, absorption, borrowing, adaptation and influences
is something of fundamental importance to bear in mind when it comes to the
House of Nishane, a lavish new line of eighteen new extrait strength perfumes
from two Istanbulites Mert Güzel and Murat Katran. The fragrances reflect this
vibrancy and eclecticism, journeying across the city and its quartiers in their
olfactive referencing. Echoes of the spice trades, Silk Road, tanneries, Grand
Bazaar, markets, waterways, busy Bosphorus, ornate gardens, cuisine, music,
art, exploration, conquerors and faith. All these elements are threaded through
the elegant and pungent tapestry of scented suggestion woven by Mert, Murat and
perfumers Jorge Lee and Sylvain Cara.
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| The Hagia Sophia |
I had the
beautifully boxed sample collection for a while, kindly sent to me by Mert. Initially
the large number of fragrances honestly overwhelmed me. More and more niche
luxury houses are doing this multiple launch thing with an eye on Russian and Middle
Eastern markets in particular. I’m not entirely sure it works; it places
enormous pressure on following up the initial drum-roll launch, although in
Nishane’s case the duo they launched at Esxence in March this year were
universally acclaimed. I like to work on four or five pieces of work at once
and during the first part of this year I returned to the Nishane samples and
started slowly inhaling my way through them.
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| Nishane sample set |
Mert kindly include the lovely
hand-illustrated postcards that accompany each scent and I used these to jot
down notes and impressions as the perfumes went on my skin and dried down. This
was done mostly at night; it is my preferred time to write. Some of them really
pack an aromatic punch and I was waking up to catch the final embers of roses,
woods, leather, civet and patchouli.
Wearing each of the
extrait strength perfumes I was struck by how much personal work and emotion had
gone into this line. I know Mert and Murat have done their homework and
researched the logistics, efficacy and profitability of the haute niche market.
Both men travel a lot, Murat through his work publishing lavish coffee table
books on the luxury Turkish hotel business and Murat through his busy
entrepreneurial role in the steel industry. I like a calculated gamble; it
demonstrates flair and a certain macho risk-taking I find oddly alluring. This
aside, the perfumes are a defiantly honed assembly of precise odours designed
to showcase and entice jaded senses searching for something a little different,
but still retaining an essence of the essential tourist Technicolor vibe.
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| Mert Güzel (L) & Murat Katran (R) of Nishane (original image ©Aksam apped by TSF) |
I admire the
ambition and reach of Nishane’s rambunctious vision, collided as it is with the
suggested mysteries of the Orient. But it all works I think, the mix of haute
luxe materials and occasional feral gutter lows, market stalls, seascapes,
secluded gardens, poetry and music by moonlight, moments of stillness broken by
the pouring of spiced tea, suggestive whiffs of empire dreams, sexual liaisons
behind scented doors and shifting silks. Nishane in it’s wide ranging gathering
of motifs and locations provide an intriguing way to sample a city. I am aware
some reviewers haven’t been as kind as they might in their thoughts on the
Nishane line, but they are steadily gaining momentum and have acquired quite a
devoted following. I’m not saying people have misread them or I know better, I
honestly struggled with them a little bit initially, worsted by the number of
the scents and by not really having a reference point. Once I started my usual
background research reading, in this case on Nishane, Istanbul, history,
geography, social-political structures, the cultural evolution of the city and
how the perfumes have been created to capture the essence and mood of certain
key places across Istanbul and beyond, the olfactive nuances began slowly to
resonate and coalesce.
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| Istanbul spice boutique |
An aromatic picture
began to form of a passionately loved labyrinthine city laid out before me in a
mosaic of intense and moreish perfumery. The more I inhaled and studied the
notes the more complex and yet more understandable a portrait of this vivacious
city by Mert and Murat became. Turkey is currently on a holding list to become
a member state of the European Union at a time when Union instability is at an
all time low with economic stress in Spain and Portugal, the narrow avoidance
of Grexit and Italexit and now the shock shadow of looming Brexit. It seems now
reading and listening to web and radio broadcasts that the spiralling face-offs
of terrorism and racism seem to be the blood-stained, poisoned threads that
ties the union together rather than any true sense of trade, fiscal or cultural
camaraderie.
Turkey and Istanbul
have been indelibly stained by brutal acts of terrorism in recent years, a
reminder to the country and elsewhere in the world of the volatility of
Turkey’s political and religious present shadowed by its past. An attack during
Ramadan on Atatürk Airport in June 2016 killing forty-five people was the third
terrorist attack in Istanbul after a suicide bomber in the Sultanahmet district
killed thirteen foreigners in January and four were killed in a bomb blast in
the Beyoğlu shopping
district in June in front of the Governor’s office. On 31st March in
Ankara, Turkey’s capital, thirty-seven died and many more were horribly injured
when a car laden with explosives went off near Atatürk Boulevard, near civilian
bus stops. While many of the atrocities are claimed by ISIL, the Ankara bombing
and one in March when a military convey was targeted were claimed by TAK, the
Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a brutal nationalist militant splinter group who
seek an independent breakaway state in Eastern/South-eastern Turkey.
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| Aftermath of bombing in the Beyazit district |
(Note: At the end of December the city
was once again rocked by tow more terrible attacks. On the 11th
December as I was writing the final words and editing this piece, news starting
coming through on my Facebook feed about a car bomb and suicide bomber killing
thirty-eight people, mostly policemen outside the stadium of top-division team
Besiktas in Istanbul. The PKK, Kurdistan Workers’ Party have been unofficially
blamed for the bombing despite no one actually claiming responsibility.
According to reports a further 155 people were injured in the blasts, fourteen
of them critically. Then on New Year’s Day an Uzbeki national called Abdulkadir
Masharipov gunned down 39 revellers celebrating the turning of the year in
Reina nightclub, on the shore of the Bosphorus. Now believed to have been an
Isis operative, his brutal bloody night seemed deliberately aimed at created as
much high profile damage and carnage as possible at what is considered to be
one of Istanbul’s chicest party spots)
It is the nature of
turmoil and rendered chaos that cities either fall or rise and heal, the scars
built over with resilience, cooperation and sheer bloody-mindedness. Some days
it seems Istanbul is a city under siege, its own unique set of historical and
religious phantasmagoria rising up to haunt its thronging streets, bazaars and
modern beating rhythms. The recently attempted coup on 15th July
this year to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan focussed the world’s attention on Turkey
once more. It was a strange and haunted affair, sporadically bloody, spiteful
and schizophrenic. The coup attempt was forced to go ahead six hours earlier
than planned due to plans being compromised. Chaotic organisation and poor
communication amongst the plotters led to the failure of capturing key state
cable, satellite and broadcasting networks and Erdoğan was able to speak via Facetime and appear
on television. The Turkish people were urged to overwhelmingly resist the
uprising and wait for normality to resume. Whatever the truth, 300 people died
and over 200 hundred more were injured during the attempt. A State of Emergency
was declared and Erdoğan’s post coup
purge was decisive and widespread, images of arrested manacled plotters beamed
around the world. Order was restored.
Against this
undeniably intriguing and fickle backdrop I have been wondering why I’ve never
been to Istanbul. I had two opportunities and missed them both. One, years ago,
living in Paris, I had an older lover who invited me to holiday with him in
Turkey. Looking back I can’t remember why I said no, I was probably just being
contrary. The other time was a couple of years ago, a trip cancelled due to
illness. So it is still high on my list of places to go. Some cities have more
trauma than others, it is what they do with the memory of the trauma that
determines how the city and its multifarious tribes more on. The intricate nature
of Istanbul and its heady mix of lifestyles and faiths, the continuing inevitable
collisions of modernity and tradition will go on. Judaism, Christianity, Islam
and other faiths practiced in this stirred, cosmopolitan metropolis will rub
along regardless.
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| Hagia Triada, Greek Orthodox Church |
Diversity,
tolerance, romanticism, history, pungency, landscape, semantics, drama and
sensuality, a myriad of alluring influences; such is the way of Nishane.
Reflecting the vibrancy of the essential Silk Road trading position of Istanbul
the eighteen perfume extraits contain a beautifully handled diversity of
materials both natural and synthetic that across the line produce a
consistently intense and persuasive portrait of the city in all its
rambunctious, multi-faceted way.
As I mentioned
earlier I have been carefully inhaling the samples sent by Mert from Nishane.
It resembles a vintage red pencil box with a little silk tab to pull out the
long drawer of sixteen samples. Lying on top is a handwritten guide to the
scents below. Handwriting and drawing is everything with Nishane, it’s a touch
I really appreciate. The postcards have sketched watercolour representations of
each scent on one side and keynotes on the other. It’s a simple and elegant way
of communicating info, executed in a quirky accessible way. There are a few
typos here and there and inconsistencies in style, but somehow this don’t
really matter in the overall tone and approach that Mert and Murat have
composed for Nishane, a judicious balance of luxury and heartfelt tradition.
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| The original Nishane colognes parfumées |
The first wave of
Nishane was actually a quartet of immaculate colognes parfumées in 2012 inspired by a shimmering and tailored modern
Mediterranean theme. Fragrances with studied polish and zing, they were made I
feel with the local market in mind but also with a nod to the traveller and executive.
They have a certain haute hotel de luxe texture and ambience to them. Eau
Istanbul, Eau Classique, Golfe Arabe
and Méditerranée are very different
in style from the extrait collection and owe their style and stylistic
parentage to an Ottoman tradition of cleansing hands with citrus colognes,
usually lemon based, when entering or leaving a house. Limon Kolonyasi is something you find everywhere in Turkey, a
simple, sharp, lemon cologne, poured into the hands to refresh weary skin or
soaked into a handkerchief to dab the throat and back of the neck in hot
weather. It can be atomised into fans in warm, clinging heat. Years ago,
working shifts in a hotel I shared a flat with a beautiful Turkish girl who
spritzed her ironing with bottles of the stuff her mum sent over Istanbul. It
filled the tiny apartment with the hiss of starched lemons and powdered cotton.
In 2013 Mert and
Murat started launching some of the first extrait perfumes including Santalové, Pasión Choco and Sultan
Vetiver. Now in late 2016, with the addition of the sublime Fan Your Flames and One Hundred Ways, which debuted at Esxence in Milan this year, the
collection (excluding the Colognes Parfumées) numbers eighteen. The line is
divided into three collections. The Blossom Collection contains Tuberóza, Duftblüten, Vjola and Rosa Turca. The Signature Collection consists of Suède et Safran, Pachuli Kozha, Mūsīqā Oud and Afrika
Olifant. The oddly monikered Miniature Art Collection contains Wūlóng
Chā,
Ambra Calabria, Boszporusz, Pasión Choco, Santalové, Spice Bazaar, Múnegu and Sultan
Vetiver. The latest creations, Fan
Your Flames and Hundred Silent Ways
both take their inspiration from the poetry of 13th century mystic,
poet and theologian Jalāl
ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī,
better known simply as Rumi. So this duo for now has its own little poetical party.
It’s a busy line of
fragrances with a wide-ranging and sophisticated infusion of influences and
olfactive personas. There are weak points, which are inevitable in an ambitious
collection, this size; I disliked only a couple and that was due to materials
and lack of perfumed substance. A few are a little weak in their olfactive
architecture and felt perhaps unfinished, more akin to sketches than final
compositions. Even these however had elements within them that I found
intriguing. The one thing I will say is that I am very pleased to have been able
to try the entire line, sample the different styles of fragranced tropes and
riffs side by side, this gave me a much more balanced view of the collection.
Also being able to step back from time to time and see the separate perfumes as
part of a larger more ambitious picaresque portrait of Istanbul; this was
important, allowing a unique set of scented threads to flutter beautifully in
the sea breeze coming off the Bosphorus.
 |
| Foxy Nishane samples |
It’s winter here,
the nights are falling darkly and the mornings are beautifully shadowed. I love
this time of year, I am a wintered Narnia creature and my skin and senses truly
come alive. I dislike the sun intensely and never understand the fuss; I did
the travelling thing as a child and have no desire to repeat it as I grow older.
I like my shadows and the fall of leaves, cold temperatures and the sorting of
cashmere, merino and fur. Why else would I live in Scotland? These Nishane
scents are perfectly suited to darker days and longer nights, the anthology of
spices, tobacco, leather, resins, smoke, lacquered oud and dirty blooms embracing
me as I wander haunted Georgian streets, the sound of Francis Couperin’s Leçons de Tenèbres echoing through my
night brain.
I’ve chosen my
favourite six to talk to you about, six that delighted me in terms of
materials, structure, impact and emotion. I’ll mention some of the others in
passing too, as elements, glints, shards, petals and impressions had great
beauty too. Bear in mind too, as always with perfumes as diverse as these that everyone’s
reactions will be apposite and atonal to mine and occasionally complimentary. I
like collections that divide and provoke, they tend to demonstrate personal
intent and force of identity. Mert and Murat have put all of themselves into
Nishane, I was very aware of this when sampling the line; it created in me as
such stuff does, an automatic sense of respect whether or not I liked the
perfumes or not. This is someone’s work, his or her potential livelihood,
business and dream. Respect does not cost much, but it is remarkable in this
day and age how few people feel it isn’t necessary.
So after weeks,
probably months of sampling I distilled my favourites down to Rosa Turca, Afrika Olifant, Suède et Safran,
Múnegu, Pachulí Kozha and one of the latest additions to the line, the
wonderful Narguile-inspired Fan Your
Flames. All of these were created in collaboration with perfumer Jorge Lee
except Múnegu, which was signed off
by Sylvain Cara.
 |
| Rosa Turca |
A collection of
Turkish perfumes must proffer a rose and this anthology would be most odd
without a study of rosa damascena and
Rosa Turca is a pungent study of this
iconic bloom, not exactly pretty or conventionally coy but dry and glaring in
places with strange soapy contours. There are whopping levels of sulking musks
in the base and a sulphurous jamminess that fades verrrrrrrry slowly to a
dusted gummy confectionary that makes it madness to sleep in. I’m pleased it
wasn’t pretty; I sprayed it thinking…please don’t be winsome petals and dewy
blooms or a glossy bridal bouquet construct. But it really isn’t, it has a feral
roses unchecked in savage garden ambience to it, drawing blood to remind you
that some flowers have teeth.
There is ylang in
the top, side by side with rose essence and it’s this I think that boosts that
sulphurous hit of indole, echoed in the heart of the mix by jasmine that seems
utterly bewildered at first like a new teacher’s first day in front of a new
class. They size him up and then decide to ignore him. But he persists and a
mutual sense of respect is established. The roses do the initial sizing up but
after a ritual back and forth between that huge rose essence top and the jammy
smeared base, the subtle elegant jasmine is quietly persistent in the face of
the more elemental Rosa Damascena.
I am a shameless
devotee of rose perfumes. This was not always the case, I have come to them
relatively late in my olfactive interests. I have never disliked them exactly,
but in the last ten years or so, I have become quite preoccupied by the nuances
and beauty wrought by roses through perfumery. It is a note that works
beautifully on my skin and one I find immensely atmospheric and soothing to
wear; the seemingly endless permutations of rosaceous arrangements continue to
intrigue and allure me. I am always happy to see perfumers and houses tackling
roses in major launches; they can be exhilarating and shocking, romantic,
giddy, soiled, electrified, threatening and intensely erotic. As a floral
staple of perfumery, they are still however alarmingly divisive. Along with the
white lily and the iris, the rose completes my divine triptych of sanctified
odiferous blooms. Roses make me feel alive, they are flesh incarnate. The white
lily is death, the passing over. Iris is the soul, the ghostly goodbye, ashes
to sky.
This selvedge style
of rose incarnate is very me; echoing my Middle Eastern childhood and wandering
stops in Bahrain, Saudi, Iran, Syria and Damascus. Turkey of course has a long
and enviable relationship with roses, cultivating, harvesting and distilling
their beauty for all aspects of life, sacred, profane, perfumed and gourmand.
The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul once had its own gulham or rose-room, a place used solely for the preparation of
rosewater. We hardly use it all in cuisine in the western food canon, maybe to
prettify the taste of cupcakes and macaroons or to dazzle the odd haute caketure wonder. But in the Arab
culinary canon along with orange flower water it is used to flavour jams,
pastries, halva, confectionary and nougat. Rose buds are often a component of ras el hanout spice blends, the flowers adding
a piquant florality to the other eleven spices that might include cumin, clove,
ginger, allspice and fenugreek. I add dried rose buds and rosewater to apricot
compotes and freshen my face with rosewater sprays. Rosewater sprayed on to
sheets and pillow linens as you iron and fold away is sheer delight. A memory
from Shiraz in Iran is jars of Turkish rose petal jam, shockingly aromatic, the
petals trapped like gooey butterfly wings, scooped up and eaten on warm shards
of bread from the Arab baker down the street.
 |
| 'Dans Mon Lit' by Editons Frédéric Malle |
I recently purchased
Dans Mon Lit from Éditions Frédéric
Malle, a scent for linen and bedrooms made by Bruno Jovanovich with excess of
98% rose in it. The blending is a light as air mix of Turkish rose essence and
Rose Water Essential™ (by LMR Laboratories),
a new way of rendering the scent of roses to perfection. It is divine
indulgence, just before sleeping, to spritz pillows and sheets and fall into a
bed of roses. (…and yes of course I wear
it as perfume, my hair and clothes adore it..)
As I’m writing, my
skin radiates Rosa Turca, the shifts of
wind-caught petals and chlorophyll weather. It’s a lovely companion. Most of
the roses in Turkey come from the Isparta region in the west of the country and
this reminded me of one of my favourite rose perfumes of recent years and a
hugely underrated one at that, PG26
Isparta by Parfumerie Générale, created as always by the sublimely talented
Pierre Guillaume. Isparta is a lush
and lyrical dream of tumbling roses and swooning plasticity. The tension
between realism and perceived artificiality is outstanding.
 |
| 'Isparta' by Parfumerie Générale |
It comes to mind as
I inhale Rosa Turca in its later
stages, dark and leafy, the original soapiness faded to a minty petrol haze. Isparta has a very distinctive
confectionary hit to it in places, a mix of gummy, dusted floral bloom that is genuine
Turkish Delight. I have a real penchant for rose and lemon flavours side by
side in a box, cut pieces of blush pink and pale topaz drenched in fine drifts
of sugar. Eating the two flavours together is irresistible, producing a tangy
citrus floral mouthfeel that I conversely sense in the muted embers of Rosa Turca, a rose for enquiring natures
and open hearts.
 |
| Múnegu |
The patchouli and
labdanum are beautifully rich and dry, burned to the edges of the scent with
the patchouli in particular becoming increasingly more handsome as the
composition warms up. The cedar in the top is lost for a while in the initial
shockwave of spiced up patchouli and Christmassy orange but reasserts itself
alongside the creamy inlay of ylang. Geranium instils a green soapy
fougère-ness to the mix and to me this has an odd whiff of sweet cough linctus
and dental mouth rinse. It’s a weird pause and kinda reflects what I meant
about cacophony of notes earlier. When I first sampled Múnegu, I scribbled down on the postcard, revisiting it; I noted I had
heavily underlined the phrase medicinal/dentist
rinse.. I’d revise its impact; a
little less medicinal perhaps, more minted and herbal, smoky green maybe from
the hazy double act of tobacco absolute and ambery notes rising up from the
base. This chewy, pervasive tobacco is in its various strengths and
personalities a leitmotif in a number of the Nishane line and if not an actual
note, then echoed in patchouli, benzoin, sandalwood and cistus. The amber has
less to do with perceived voluptuousness and more to do with warmth and light.
You have to be
careful with frankincense; too little and it smells lackadaisical, too much and
its funereal pyre- pall can be overwhelming. I personally love the smell and
burn the real thing, buying the misshapen tears from an online Catholic supplier,
the stuff they burn in their censers. I find it a deeply calming smoke that
focuses the mind and it flavours my cats’ fur, so they smell godly. The balance
is just about right in Múnegu, the
smoke spiralling opaquely from the base to gather gently with that well
seasoned patchouli and ripe orange. There is a whiff of culinary gourmandise
amid the notes, the mature citrus, crushed cumin and herbiness of the tobacco. Múnegu is a strange scent that at times
comes close to falling apart, but manages to keep itself together by the ballsy
triptych of patchouli, nutmeg and cistus. I like the oddity of it; the beauty
of certain moments is offset by pockets of irregular transitions and
diversions.
It lasts beautifully
and it’s here that Múnegu really
comes into its own, taking about a good hour for the composition to coalesce
and tenderise; you realise how damn fine your skin smells, how pervasive the
scent is. Any of the perceived high edges, points, shrieks, burrs and gaps
between notes, all these seem to smooth away as the dominant dry patchouli,
stained with orange tobacco fumes settles down for the long fade. It’s
interesting that Múnegu is the only
Nishane so far created by Sylvain Cara and yet it still shares the collection’s
vibe of vintage and preserved
modernity with tactile materials and a sense of cosmopolitan savoir faire, here reflected in a name
that means Monaco, perhaps reflecting the gaudy principality’s international
collision of wealth and influences. Who knows?
 |
| Pachulí Kozha |
After the strong
patchouli presence in Mùnegu, onto
one of my strong favourites in the line Pachulí
Kozha that translates as patchouli
skin. It is a sensuous and savory interpretation of pogostemon cablin that chimed perfectly with my senses as soon as
it hit my skin. Patchouli is a divisive note; one of the few that everyone has an opinion about. Those
that claim to hate it rarely have an idea of how it truly smells in its natural
state. It can small variously of cocoa, mint, truffle, freshly turned earth,
sweet incense and red wine. Folk tend to associate it with biased memories of
cheap, adulterated joss sticks and the room-slaying capabilities of harsh terpenic
oils that are poor reflections of the warm, embracing real thing. Having worked
for years in the increasingly unbearable front-line of perfume retail, clients
have become increasingly more bothersome in their demands and brazenly critical
of the industry. Suddenly everyone is an expert. I was always being asked for
patchouli scents or to avoid fragrances with any patchouli in it. ‘I hate patchouli in anything, it has a hippie
stench,’ one woman once told me. I took immense, very polite pleasure in
pointing our that her beloved signature Jicky
would be a sad thing indeed without the patchouli in its base. She reacted as I
had shot her dog dead in front of her. But such is the entrenched way we learn
and grow into our olfactive conditioning. Once set, it is very hard to
recalibrate.
I have always liked
patchouli perfumes, luxurious, hedonistic, raw, guttural, cheap and cheerful. I
like anything on the shrubby continuum from plush and textured papal to hippie stench. When I was a student I
bought my incense from Indian and Arab grocers and Church suppliers. I smoked
waaaaay too much back then and must have imagined it disguised or amalgamated
somehow; even now I have sharp, painful memory stabs for those nights of fumy drunken
miasma sound-tracked to The Pixies and Cocteau Twins. As a note, it seems to
hold you; you wear it like scented air or like the grieving Hanoverian monarch
Queen Victoria, wrapped in paisley shawls impregnated with patchouli oil. I’ve
worn a lot of patchouli perfumes over the years and mixed and blended my own
oils too. If I had to pick favourites I would go with Patchouli Patch (2002), created by Bertrand Duchaufour and Evelyne
Boulanger for L’Artisan Parfumeur and Psychédelique
(2011) by Jovoy, created by Jacques Flori. I’ve gone through bottles and
bottles of Patchouli Patch, it’s
glorious velveteen stuff, the patchouli twisted with star anise and dark,
bruised iris. Psychédelique is an
enormous ambered pyre of patchouli, musks and wood story. I love the deliberate
mix of vintage hippie stench and
sumptuous aromatic comfort.
Pachulí Kozha falls somewhere in between these two. The
hay and camomile are very distinctive from the outset and the patchouli has a
fragrant brewed tisane ambience that is quite lovely. The hyacinth in the top
was originally something I viewed with a narrowed eye; not a favoured Foxy
note, but it’s bittersweet boldness works well alongside the shrubby rub of
armoise and sunny brackishness of herbal camomile. Like many of the Nishane
compositions, the head notes serve as dramatic intros, allowing the other
aromatic players time to arrange themselves into positions of heartplay and
drydown. Leather is listed in the recipe, but it is very soft, akin to the
supple pouch that might carry the tobacco. It does intensify as the perfume
develops, but never to the point where it encroaches on other notes. The honey
and hay are both notes that naturally exalt the peltiness of leather while at
the same time bolstering the cured, henna-like tonality of the tobacco. These
Nishane scents often oscillate between cohesion and near-collapse, it is what
makes them so fascinating to wear. It is beautiful to feel loved so much by a
note like patchouli on your skin.
 |
| Afrika Olifant |
Afrika Olifant is the Nishane scent that has garnered a lot
of love and attention from press and perfume bloggers since the House launched.
It is a deeply weird scent, colliding an arid bouquet of chemical animalics,
dirty smoke and macrocyclic musks like muscenone, thibetone, muscone and
civetone with leathery skin, hide notes such as civet, castoreum, a biting
green leather and bitter shuddering oud. No floral aspects, no citrus, no
respite form the peau bête stampede
intent of the composition. The word battlefield
is used in the description of the scent on the Nishane website and on first
impressions this is an apt metaphor as the materials seem to hurl themselves at
each other with reckless abandonment. But as the churned, desiccated land
settles and the dry suggested African dust clears a little, structures, effects
and sensations begin to emerge. It is without a doubt the most potent of the
Nishane extraits and a daring cacophony of meaty anhydrous climates.
In fact Afrika Olifant plays beautifully with
the olfactive terrain of hide, the representation of pachydermal skin,
elephant, hippo and rhinoceros. Suggesting dust, parched epidermis, flies,
caked patterned mud and grassy dung cooking in the unforgiving heat of the
African sun. The perfume is designed to create a storm of emotions, a sense of
rout and scattering: the top notes of waxen, ambergris, sacred incense, myrrh
and deeply inhaled labdanum resins run at you like charging wild game on a
safari trails. There is little mercy in the initial assault of materials; it is
filthy roar, smoke over faecal-smeared revulsion over dusted long-distance arid
musks.
I like a piece of
brutalist perfumery, offering up no apologies for its growling, dirty desires.
I have a feeling that some of Afrika
Olifant’s more outré effects may have been achieved more by accident than
design, but whatever the process, the result is wonderfully POW! The
macrocyclic musks anchor the formula vociferously to the skin and clothing
making it a very tenacious extrait indeed. Having lived in Africa for many
years when I was younger, there is definitely an abstracted dust and dung tang
to the character of the scent that reminds me of the callous dry seasons that
stripped the land of colour, but somehow imbued the airless skies with the odour
of impatience, extinction and desiccated time.
To be honest I’m not
normally the biggest fan of these kinds of porno-zoology leather scents. I
don’t really see the point of them or those that love wearing them. They tend
to be the kind of people who like rooms of slightly unnerved people to revolve
around their animalised skin. Frankly their attitude bores me. Peau de bête = peau de frimeur. Oddly
though, I feel Afrika Olifant is a
slightly different proposition, sitting as it does I suppose amid a curated
collection of purposeful extraits that have been built around exotic
wearability, landscapes and chosen sensibilities.
The shift and
movement in Afrika Olifant is
sporadic and I think honestly it very much depends on your skin type and your
relationship physically and emotionally with strong animalic leather scents and
in this instance the brace of very particular macrocyclic musks. Even wearing
it I was both horrified and impressed by the panoply of rawness and bestiality
on display. I like the fact it makes you feel slightly self-conscious, perhaps
revealing the beast within. You do need to be careful with application;
overdosing means it will stalk you for days. You will be the literal elephant
in the room.
It is a wildlife
fantasia, a mix of projected gamy abstractions exalted with huge blasts of
aromachemistry. It just about comes together, battered and gleefully swirling
with in your face muskiness and ballsy leather effects. I’m not sure I like the
start, the earthy, slightly choky bitterness of it, but the middle section,
that herd of sweaty animalics lying amid churning gutsy musks; this I like. A
lot. Everything fights a little; struggling for space on skin, but in doing so,
makes for fascinating olfactive attire.
 |
| Suède et Safran |
Suède et Safran is on the surface of it exactly what it
says, an animalic melange of hide and spices. Like a couple of the other
Nishane perfumes I wasn’t quite sure about how it married to skin and the oddly
jarring ambrette top note that I found hard to get a handle on as the scent
really crashed open on skin. It smelled harsh and dissonant as if two unhappy
olfactive lovers were living in the same bottle. But again as I revisited the
collection and tried the formulae on again, concentrating on themes and tropes
within the overall collection I realised how fiercely I loved this rather
brutal insistent scent. It echoes motifs of other Nishanes, the spicy pungency,
the pelty texture of leather, and a certain musky invitation to dirty up the
skin. I love a suede effect; they vary enormously, from butter soft luxury
haute effect to raw tannery hides flung on the ground, barely treated but
reeking of abattoir. Suède et Safran
actually has elements of both, tendrils of the dusty sweaty tannery that rise
up after the much sweeter, more supple saffron dusted suede accord that really
dominates the top of the scent.
I was quite
surprised by how sweet the opening of Suède
et Safran was, it smelled like powdered confectionary sugar, slightly
roasted and transparent. It wasn’t what I expected and was one of the reasons I
chose this scent, this slightly saccharine edge worked so well with the
somewhat enigmatic ambrette and parched ginger that Jorge has mixed in around
his metallic saffron note. The familiar basmati rice facet I usually get from
saffron is very subdued here, muted below the murky musks and blooming leather.
The leather note itself smells pretty vegetal, as it finally settles, shedding
the coy reek that emanates through the early stages of the perfume.
For a scent with
suede, saffron and leather notes, Suède
et Safran is not as a long lasting as I might like and actually expends its
force quite early on, fading to a gentle and still very seductive echo of its
lovely, vigorous outset. I’ve been slowly wandering about the city, taking
pictures of things in the beautiful northern winter light that makes Edinburgh glower
and glitter. Suède et Safran has been
a wonderful scent to wear on skin and scarves, not overtly rude but with enough
carefully calibrated animalic charm to keep you intrigued and privately
sensualised.
Before I finish up
with my final choice I just wanted to touch on a couple of other perfumes from
the Nishane collection that while I haven’t covered them in more detail they had
some really intriguing things to recommend them. Wūlóng
Chā is an
unusual citrus with a delicious oolong tea note, the refreshing citrus aspect
provided by the usual suspects by also by litsea cubeba, sometimes known as
mountain pepper, an evergreen shrub that produces a fruit yielding an
astonishingly fragrant oil. It has to be handled carefully as it can totally
drown compositions, but used with discretion it adds a delicious spicy bright
citrus facet to formulae. It exalts the tea and fig in Wūlóng Chā, making it a delight to wear
and for a citrus-toned scent, it has pretty good longevity.
Boszporusz is the Nishane aquatic and could have been a mess; it still
doesn’t quite come together, something about the base notes bother me, they
seem to be far too insubstantial and barely hold the other notes aloft. The use
of galbanum and a meaty sage in the top are good, everything feels green and
choppy. I really liked the mix of an abrasive jasmine and gardenia duo against
the seaweed accord; it felt like they were floating and being smashed apart at
the same time. Salt and indoles. A nice idea. But then it kinda falls apart as
the base notes don’t really hold up. I do love the delicate blueness of Boszporusz
though; it has a feel of
standing alone at early morning harbour railings staring out at turbulent seas
as a salted mist begins to lift, dissolved by bright sun. It is surprisingly
floral in the final stages, the indolic wane of the jasmine and gardenia rather
poignant as the petals finally dip beneath the waves.
Vjola was another unusual perfume that caught my senses. I love the
scent of violets in perfumery, I’m well aware how nostalgic and old-fashioned
it is, but I’m a sucker for powder, retro boudoir ambrette, iris, and vanilla
in my perfumes. A favourite scent in my collection is Violettes du Czar by the wonderful Oriza L. Legrand, the
Paris-based house who have revived many old formulae from the original house’s ancien archive. I have five of their
perfumes and adore them all, but the leathered, bruised pungency of Violettes du Czar is outstanding. I
can’t see Vjola being a huge bestseller for Nishane, violet
scents are terribly divisive, but it is very delicately made, packed full of
floral notes, some more realistic than others. The mauve personality of the
violet is less powdered than a lot of other similar perfumes, the dust cut back
by a rather overt marigold insertion and the rise of bitter, shrubby immortelle
in the base. It’s strong stuff and really embeds in the skin, but anyone who
loves a violet note or a statement powdered floral should check it out.
 |
| Fan Your Flames |
I love Fan your Flames; it is hugely addictive
and has to my mind a slightly more polished patina to it than some of the other
Nishane scents. Again, as with many of the other compositions there is
attractive, intriguing dissonance; I adore the rambunctious smoky pina colada
opening colliding with the wet tobacco and cedar. It is like totally opposite
people in temperament and dress style finding themselves dancing next to one
another in a crowded club and realising instantly there is a strange attraction
and they just have to go with the chemistry wherever it takes them. It just pulls
and reveals things in themselves they had not noticed before. This slightly
reckless flow and acceptance of fate is something you have to live with wearing
Nishane, the structures and notes are adventurous love affairs.
Now I adore the
smell of coconut, especially in shower gels and body washes; in perfume not so
much, it is usually cloying, ragingly artificial and reeks of 1980s Body Shop
interiors and always always Malibu.
There are only two exceptions I have ever come across; one is Creed’s Virgin Island Water, any potential
tropical creaminess arrestingly cut through with a super-sexy and hyper-real
lime note, the other is Debaser by
DS&Durga, marrying delicious coconut milk to a stark dry iris and an airy
fig-summer backdrop to suggest the hazy, white heat and Pixies-soundtracked
youth of perfumer David Moltz.
Fan Your Flames is one of two later launches from Nishane, the
other one being Hundred Silent Ways;
both perfumes taking inspiration from the poetry of the thirteenth century
Persian poet, mystic, jurist, theologian and scholar Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī
(1207-1273), known simply as Rumi. This marks a shift away form the Istanbulite
influence of the previous sixteen compositions, but spiritually and texturally
this sensual and intriguing duo both develop and enhance the existing ethos of
Mert and Murat’s artistic ambitions.
The moist, sweet
tobacco centrality of Fan Your Flames
is a nod to its Narguile influence, those soft bubbling pipes with their
evocative flavoured fumes smoked by men throughout the Arab world. The name of
the scent is pulled directly from a quote by Rumi: ‘Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames’. A message
of empowerment and intense intent. We must surround ourselves with those who
would keep our impulses alive. Honestly, it sounds exhausting. I’m a loner, a
hermit, someone who prefers to create in private and shun any form of
limelight, party, gathering, crew or assembly. All I feel for that is fear. I
would rather set my feet on fire. However I understand the sentiment and have
worked for people for whom this is a powerful and vital maxim, either on a
professional or indeed on a private emotional one.
 |
| Hammam lightfall |
The scents debuted
in Milan in March 2016 and have been very well received since then. I
personally found Hundred Silent Ways a
little too sugared on my skin; it is very beautiful in an unctuous celebratory
dessert kind of way, but it just overloaded on my skin and I couldn’t quite get
it to love me. It’s a pity as the top is just gorgeous, a medley of mandarin,
tuberose, orange and luscious peach seem served up in whipped cream and honey.
A huge dose of vanilla oozes through the mix from top to base, lending
everything a rather excessive (but somehow addictive) sense of dizzying desire.
‘I close my mouth and spoke to you in a
hundred silent ways’. The Rumi quote that inspired the perfume is very apt,
no words are needed to communicate love and rapture, wearing Hundred Silent Ways, your skin would
dazzle a hundred rooms.
Fan Your Flames shifts gear quite quickly; that lovely
coconut note is quietly toasted, singed at the edges and the rum smells aged, a
quality swallow that stains the accompanying tobacco a moreish mellow
earthiness. The tonka exalts the liqour adding a vanillic furriness to
proceedings. The flames are never out of control, burning down houses, but
flickering, hunkering down to embers. The cedar effect and general overall
woodiness of the base is neither here nor there to be honest but it doesn’t
really matter in the overall schematic of the scent, it just needs something to
anchor its body to skin. Fan Your Flames
is really all about the head and heart and their smoky boozy love affair.
My skin really
amplifies the coconut and tobacco, which pleases me immensely, the potential
equatorial squeamishness of the fruit nicely counter the middle eastern wet
tang of Narguile baccy. Traces of fumed coconut and dry desiccated rum linger
on the skin loooooooooonng after the initial application. It is a wonderful
perfume spritzed in hair and in the fibres of cashmere scarves, rising to the
nose in winter weather and clinging tenaciously in the folded darkness of
wardrobes and drawers. It’s had a lot of compliments since I started wearing it
and I like telling people it’s called Fan
Your Flames for some reason. There are strands and fumes of some of the
other Nishanes in Fan Your Flames but
it does everything better with plush sensuality and grace. There is still a
little growl of roughness here and there, a dash of chaos in the heart notes
but it embodies all the adventure, cordiality and bodyheat I love about the
line.
Your opinion of
Nishane will depend on how you decide to approach the collection and it is a
collection, built by Mert and Murat beautifully around their dreams,
aspirations, business ideas and impressions of themselves, Istanbul, Turkish
perfumery and beyond. The mix of is a savvy one of layered Turkish identity,
sensualism, multiculturalism, olfactive exploration and experimentation,
commercial awareness, measured luxury and personal pursuit. I am aware I have
taken months to wear and familiarise myself with Nishane’s unique perfumery. I
have been criticised by a few people online recently for not writing enough and
not responding quickly enough to new launches. Interesting. I am not that kind
of writer. I am not really a reviewer as such; I don’t really sample enough to
qualify as that. I’m not interested in what is new and getting to stuff before
other people. There are other wonderful bloggers and writers out there doing
that. The olfactive work must first and foremost fascinate me; the odours must
draw words from me. I take my time because the perfumes ask it of me. Always
quality. Never quantity.
I take so much time
to write, it was a hard thing to do, this last year, it has been harder than
ever. Almost to the point of stopping altogether. As I mentioned earlier I
initially struggled with the collection a little, but Mert and Murat’s work
deserves time and commitment; Nishane is an unusual proposition, asking us to
look at a cartographic rendition of a city’s identity through a series of orchestrated
picturesque aromas. As I said, not everything is successful and perhaps one or
two are unnecessary, but there is so much vivacity and vibrant conversation
flowing from the imaginative mix of aromatics and the overall joie de ville…. It is well nigh on impossible to spend any amount
of time with these perfumes and not be caught by something, snagged by a part
of distant Istanbul or a fragment of imagined exotic geography and lavish
histories. Your mind will be replete with city love, your skin drunk on
beautiful Nishane magic.
For further information on Nishane, please click on the link below:
©TheSilverFox 09 January
2017
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