Burberry
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The berry medley arrives immediately—strawberry and raspberry dominate, bright and jammy, with blackberry lending a slightly tart undertone. Within minutes, blueberry emerges from beneath, deepening the fruity accord into something resembling a compote rather than fresh fruit. The opening reads almost confectionery, lacking any true green or citrus brightness to suggest freshness.
By the first hour, violet and jasmine emerge like powdered sugar settling atop the berries, softening their sharpness into something more polished and decidedly floral. The synthetic quality becomes apparent here, making the violet particularly candied and the jasmine almost lipstick-like. The sweetness intensifies as the fruit and florals marry, creating an almost perfumed sweetness rather than juicy fruitiness—think berry-scented cosmetics rather than an actual fruit bowl.
The amber and musk foundation become increasingly prominent, though they provide remarkably little substance. The fragrance dries down into a soft, musky vanilla-adjacent sweetness where the fruit has largely dissolved and the violet-jasmine floats as faint, powdery echoes. Longevity is negligible; by the fourth hour, the scent has retreated to barely-detectable skin scent, demanding a reapplication for any meaningful persistence.
Her Burberry presents itself as a paradox: a fragrance that aspires to intimacy whilst possessing the projection of a whisper. Francis Kurkdjian has orchestrated a berry compote of considerable sweetness, where strawberry and raspberry form the primary architecture, with blackberry and blueberry adding darker, slightly jammy undertones. What could have devolved into saccharine territory is rescued—partially—by the heart's violet and jasmine, which attempt to inject some floral restraint and powdery elegance into the composition. The violet particularly reads as synthetic, which grants the fragrance an almost candied quality, as though someone has pulverised sugared violets into the fruity base.
The real intrigue lies in that synthetic accord reading of 76%. Rather than feeling like a defect, this lends Her Burberry an almost edible quality—something between a confectionery creation and a second-skin musk, where the amber provides warmth without depth. This is decidedly gourmand-adjacent, though the gourmand accord only registers at 52%, suggesting Kurkdjian deliberately restrained his hand from full dessert territory. The composition feels youthful, almost adolescent in its sweetness, yet the amber base grants a whisper of maturity.
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3.8/5 (161)