DKNY / Donna Karan
DKNY / Donna Karan
123 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
That first spray detonates as a bright, acidic apple-plum collision—the delicious apple's waxy, almost dry-skinned quality cuts against the mirabelle's dark stone fruit sweetness, whilst orange blossom adds a brief, honeyed spark. It's genuinely fruit-forward here, with minimal floral presence, almost resembling a pressed juice in its immediacy.
Within ninety minutes, the florals begin their conquest. The lily of the valley brings its characteristic green-pepper quality, but it's quickly subsumed beneath creamy vanilla orchid and those hefty white lilies that soften the apple's edges considerably. The fruit notes become muffled, trapped beneath layers of floral cream, and a subtle sweetness blooms as the composition settles into something far more powdery and intimate.
By the fourth hour, you're left with a softly musk-forward composition—that teakwood and sandalwood base providing a warm, slightly artificial embrace. The fruit is now merely a distant memory, a ghost of the opening's brightness, whilst the florals have faded to a creamy, soap-like residue that clings closer to skin than the earlier projection suggested.
Golden Delicious opens as a surprisingly crisp fruit cocktail, one where the apple's waxy skin and the plum's jammy interior refuse to play nice with one another. The golden delicious apple provides the structural scaffolding—that slightly astringent, almost grainy quality that apple fragrances rarely capture—whilst mirabelle plum adds a honeyed, almost apricot-like sweetness that borders on confectionery without tipping into gourmand territory. Orange blossom arrives as a bitter-sweet mediator, lending a subtle indolic quality that prevents the opening from becoming a simple juice bar experience.
What's fascinating about Golden Delicious is how it treats florals not as delicate whispers but as substantive architectural elements. The lily of the valley arrives with its characteristic green, slightly peppery character, then gets smothered by the creamy, almost buttery warmth of vanilla orchid and the heavier white florals. Those casablanca lilies are particularly conspicuous—they've got that dense, slightly soapy fatness that can overwhelm if you're not expecting it. The white rose tethers everything back toward reality, offering a whisper of dew and green stems.
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3.4/5 (275)