Prada
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The limoncello sorbet announces itself with genuine citric bite, that mouth-puckering quality of lemon zest macerated in alcohol and sugar. It's bracingly cold and sharp, more gelato trolley in Milan than dessert menu, with an almost effervescent quality that lifts rather than settles. The sweetness is present but checked, held at arm's length by that decisive sour-bright lemon oil.
Peony unfurls with a watery, slightly soapy cleanness that contemporary florals do so well—it's recognisably flower, but rendered in broad, simplified strokes. The limoncello recedes into a faint citric halo whilst honey begins its slow creep from beneath, not yet sticky but lending a golden warmth that rounds out the peony's sharper edges. There's something deliberately artificial about this phase, like smelling a beautifully designed fragrance advertisement rather than a garden.
Benzoin and musk form a soft, resinous bed where traces of caramel finally emerge, though they're more suggestion than statement—a faint toffee sweetness that's been diluted and diffused. The whole composition sits close to skin now, that synthetic accord creating an almost plasticky smoothness that's strangely compelling. What remains is clean, vaguely sweet, and entirely modern—skin that's been lightly glazed rather than drenched.
Prada Candy Florale strips away the cloying excess of its gourmand siblings and replaces it with something surprisingly lucid—a floral sweet that feels filtered through frosted glass. Daniela Andrier opens with limoncello sorbet that's more about the tart brightness of citrus oils meeting sugar than any creamy indulgence, a calculated sharpness that keeps the peony at its heart from drowning in syrup. This isn't your grandmother's powdery floral; the peony here reads contemporary and slightly synthetic in the best possible way, as though the flower's been preserved in a block of translucent resin rather than pressed between pages.
The base reveals Andrier's sleight of hand: honey and caramel lurk beneath, but they're muted, almost ghostly, prevented from turning sticky by a substantial benzoin-musk foundation that leans more towards clean skin than patisserie. This is where that 52% synthetic accord earns its keep—there's an unmistakable modernity to the way these notes slot together, like interlocking pieces of polished acrylic rather than a romantic watercolour wash.
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3.4/5 (415)