Issey Miyake
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The citrus accord lasts barely long enough to register before black pepper detonates across the bergamot, turning what might have been brightness into something sharp and almost aggressive. Grapefruit's bitter pith lingers like an afterthought as smoke begins threading through the composition, frankincense already making its presence felt far earlier than expected.
Leather dominates now, not smooth but granular, worked through with vetiver's green-grey earthiness and woods that smell more of bark than polish. The spices create a dry heat rather than warmth, prickling against the skin as patchouli's dark chocolate bitterness weaves between the cracks, filling every gap with shadow.
Tonka bean finally softens the edges, though never sweetly—its coumarin reading more as tobacco-leaf than vanilla. The frankincense persists as resinous smoke, clinging to the base woods that have gone almost ashen, leaving a skin scent that's quietly insistent, like incense embedded in worn leather.
Nuit d'Issey opens with a citrus feint—bergamot and grapefruit providing just enough brightness to make you think this might be another fresh fragrance—before Dominique Ropion pulls the rug out entirely. Within minutes, the composition plunges into a shadowy thicket where black pepper crackles against raw leather, creating an almost tactile sensation of suede stretched across charred wood. This isn't the polished, saddle-soap leather of traditional perfumery; it's something more feral, smoky, as if the hide has been cured over frankincense and patchouli embers. The vetiver here serves as architecture rather than decoration, its earthy, almost petrol-like facets anchoring the spice avalanche that threatens to overwhelm. As the fragrance settles, tonka bean emerges not as sweetness but as a bitter-almond warmth that tempers the woods without softening them. This is a fragrance for those who find conventional woody scents too mannered, too safe. It's the olfactory equivalent of a late-night walk through a forest where someone's left a fire smouldering, the smoke mixing with damp earth and leather gloves forgotten on a branch. Ropion has crafted something genuinely nocturnal here—not in the tired 'date night' sense, but in its embrace of shadow, its refusal to charm. It's for the wearer who prefers their elegance rough-hewn, their sophistication a bit dangerous.
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Korloff
4.0/5 (84)