Byredo
Byredo
245 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Blackcurrant arrives dark and almost jammy, but within seconds that violet leaf cuts through with its sharp, cucumber-like greenness, creating an immediate tension between sweet and austere. There's already smoke curling at the edges, giving the fruit an almost grilled quality, as though someone's holding berries over embers.
Ceylon tea takes centre stage, bringing its characteristic bitter-dry character that amplifies the violet leaf's metallic edge rather than softening it. The interplay between tea tannins and green leaf creates an almost mouth-puckering quality, whilst the fruit recedes to become a memory of sweetness rather than an active player. A subtle spiciness begins to warm the composition from within, like heat rising through floorboards.
The woods assert themselves fully now—birch's signature smoky-leathery quality merging with papyrus's dry, almost papery whisper. What remains is quietly austere: a smudge of fruit-stained smoke, the ghost of bitter tea, and those patient, contemplative woods that feel like sitting in an empty room after interesting conversation has ended.
Mixed Emotions lives up to its name by conjuring the strange melancholy of a smoky bonfire glimpsed through the window of a tea room. Byredo has crafted something genuinely intriguing here: blackcurrant arrives not as the usual shrill berry but as something deeper, almost savoury, its tartness muted by an earthy quality that suggests damp soil and crushed stems as much as fruit. The Ceylon tea note threads through the composition like bitter smoke, its tannins catching on the green, almost metallic snap of violet leaf to create a peculiar astringency that feels both refreshing and unsettling. This isn't the polite violet of powder compacts but the bruised, sap-green character of actual leaves torn from their stalks.
What makes Mixed Emotions compelling is how it balances fruit against char. The birch wood and papyrus dry down doesn't simply 'ground' the composition—it transforms it, pulling those initial fruity impulses into something altogether more contemplative and shadowed. There's a quiet spiciness that emerges, not from obvious culinary notes but from the interaction between smoky wood and bitter tea, creating warmth through friction rather than comfort.
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3.5/5 (75)