Aliage Alliage

Aliage is a fragrance that refuses to whisper. From 1972, Francis Camail crafted something deliberately austere—a chypre that pivots sharply away from the powdered florals dominating its era, instead embracing the sharp green architecture of galbanum and thyme like a modernist building's clean lines. The peach and lemon opening promises something fruity and approachable, but that's merely the anteroom; the real story unfolds in the heart, where galbanum's almost metallic greenness clashes brilliantly with rosewood's woody warmth and jasmine's honeyed softness. Thyme adds a culinary, almost herbal spice—you're not wearing flowers, you're wearing a botanist's field notes.

This is an uncompromisingly green chypre with genuine bite. The oakmoss and vetiver base anchors everything with earthy certainty, whilst myrrh introduces a subtle bittersweet resinousness that keeps the fragrance from ever feeling clean or fresh in the modern sense. Instead, it's deliberate, structured, vaguely intellectual. Aliage suits someone with strong opinions—a woman or man equally comfortable in a 1970s design studio or walking through English countryside. It's the scent of someone who chose precisely this, not something that happened to them. There's an almost masculine restraint here, a rejection of conventional prettiness in favour of green, woody complexity. You'd wear this when the fragrance itself matters more than conforming to expectations.