Costume National
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The cardamom arrives with an almost minty sharpness, its green eucalyptus facets tangling with pink pepper's metallic fizz whilst bergamot adds a fleeting citric brightness that's gone almost before you register it. Within minutes, the leather begins its slow creep from beneath, still raw and slightly feral, barely tempered by the emerging sweetness.
Geranium takes centre stage now, its rosy-minty character somehow making perfect sense alongside the leather, which has grown warmer and more supple, almost suede-like. The oud whispers rather than shouts, adding a resinous, slightly medicinal woodiness that keeps the composition from veering too sweet, whilst vanilla begins its slow seduction from below.
What remains is an ambered skin scent where patchouli's earthy sweetness mingles with vanilla-softened leather, the ambergris lending a subtle marine salinity that keeps things from becoming too cosy. The spices have long since faded, leaving only their ghost in the wood, a memory of that initial fire now banked to glowing embers.
Costume National Soul is Dominique Ropion working in that peculiar space between aggression and comfort, where cardamom's green, eucalyptus-tinged bite meets leather that's been soaked in vanilla syrup. This isn't your grandfather's oud fragrance—the wood here feels sketched rather than painted, a supporting player to the real star: a geranium note that somehow bridges the gap between the pink pepper's metallic tingle and the leather's animalic warmth. The opening practically vibrates with spice, that cardamom firing on all cylinders whilst bergamot tries valiantly to lighten the mood, but within minutes you're plunged into something darker, sweeter, more insistent.
What makes Soul compelling is how Ropion plays with temperature. The patchouli and ambergris in the base create this ambered, slightly saline warmth that should clash with the cooler, almost medicinal geranium, yet somehow the vanilla acts as mediator, rounding off the sharper edges without turning the whole affair gourmand. It's leather, yes, but not the pristine stuff of boardrooms or biker jackets—this is leather left out in the sun with a stick of Nag Champa burning nearby. The sweetness never quite dominates; it simply haunts the composition, making each wear feel like you're catching something just beyond full comprehension.
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4.0/5 (78)