Phronema Perfumes - Masae Aida no Tebukuro Extrait de Parfum
The concept of Russian Leather in perfume is based on an idea of delivering the smell of legendary nobility and otherworldly grace to whoever could obtain a bottle: the smell of a rare leather that only a particular group of Russian aristocrats was even allowed to own. Even more than the rarity of this production of leather, fragrances can do something else: they can symbolize and represent true grace and nobility of the soul. Building upon this idea in crafting a scent that ethnographically represents nobility, we look east of Russia to Japan. In Japan, the jasmine flower represents the challenging relationship of purity and love, and is seen lavishly on display at weddings. This display shows us that when logic and reasoning fail, symbolism steps in to communicate something much deeper and much more true, such as the beauty of chastity in marriage. The most common communal participation in fiction for the past hundred years has taken place via cinema - which has famously achieved this paradox by communicating "24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.” Perhaps the figure that best encapsulates this symbolism is Setsuko Hara (born Masae Aida,) who was the central actress in many films from some of the all-time greatest filmmakers, including Yasujirou Ozu, Akira Kurosawa and Mikio Naruse. She lived a quiet and hidden life, seeing to it that we will never find out who she was. While seeming to codify the separate parts she played in the fictional worlds of her films, subsuming her own life and dreams into theirs, she proved herself to be far greater than the sum of these parts. Her choice of anonymity after such fame grew into the ultimate rebuke to the culture that sought to worship her. She thus earned the dual nicknames of "the Eternal Virgin" and "the Woman Who Never Was." Her mystery and beauty are at least temporarily enshrined in some of the greatest films to ever grace the Earth, and although we know not who she is, her films twinkle with the sublimity of art in its purest sense.
In 'Masae Aida no tebukuro' we have taken the traditional approach to a Russian Leather styled fragrance - exchanging cheap synthetic ingredients for the most sublime ingredients worthy of symbolizing true nobility, and punctuated it with a rich heady jasmine grandiflorum absolute to allow us to experience truly chaste beauty. All the while, refusing to ignore Masae Aida by presenting all of this with modern flourishes of sparkling golden ambergris, rich tea-heavy Hainan Oud, buttery Indonesian sandalwood, and crisp meditative black sacra frankincense.
TOP:
aldehyde, bergamot, blackberry, black pepper, caraway, celery seed,
hazelnut, lemon, orange blossom, raspberry, star anise
MID:
ambrette, artemisia, clary sage, heliotrope, honey, immortelle, jasmine grandiflorum absolute, lavender, rose, tobacco, tuberose, violet leaf, ylang ylang
BASE:
amber, golden ambergris, birch tar, castoreum, cedar, coumarin, civet, black sacra frankincense, labdanum, leather, myrrh, oakmoss, Hainan oud, musk, patchouli, Indonesian sandalwood, vetiver
The concept of Russian Leather in perfume is based on an idea of delivering the smell of legendary nobility and otherworldly grace to whoever could obtain a bottle: the smell of a rare leather that only a particular group of Russian aristocrats was even allowed to own. Even more than the rarity of this production of leather, fragrances can do something else: they can symbolize and represent true grace and nobility of the soul. Building upon this idea in crafting a scent that ethnographically represents nobility, we look east of Russia to Japan. In Japan, the jasmine flower represents the challenging relationship of purity and love, and is seen lavishly on display at weddings. This display shows us that when logic and reasoning fail, symbolism steps in to communicate something much deeper and much more true, such as the beauty of chastity in marriage. The most common communal participation in fiction for the past hundred years has taken place via cinema - which has famously achieved this paradox by communicating "24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.” Perhaps the figure that best encapsulates this symbolism is Setsuko Hara (born Masae Aida,) who was the central actress in many films from some of the all-time greatest filmmakers, including Yasujirou Ozu, Akira Kurosawa and Mikio Naruse. She lived a quiet and hidden life, seeing to it that we will never find out who she was. While seeming to codify the separate parts she played in the fictional worlds of her films, subsuming her own life and dreams into theirs, she proved herself to be far greater than the sum of these parts. Her choice of anonymity after such fame grew into the ultimate rebuke to the culture that sought to worship her. She thus earned the dual nicknames of "the Eternal Virgin" and "the Woman Who Never Was." Her mystery and beauty are at least temporarily enshrined in some of the greatest films to ever grace the Earth, and although we know not who she is, her films twinkle with the sublimity of art in its purest sense.
In 'Masae Aida no tebukuro' we have taken the traditional approach to a Russian Leather styled fragrance - exchanging cheap synthetic ingredients for the most sublime ingredients worthy of symbolizing true nobility, and punctuated it with a rich heady jasmine grandiflorum absolute to allow us to experience truly chaste beauty. All the while, refusing to ignore Masae Aida by presenting all of this with modern flourishes of sparkling golden ambergris, rich tea-heavy Hainan Oud, buttery Indonesian sandalwood, and crisp meditative black sacra frankincense.
TOP:
aldehyde, bergamot, blackberry, black pepper, caraway, celery seed,
hazelnut, lemon, orange blossom, raspberry, star anise
MID:
ambrette, artemisia, clary sage, heliotrope, honey, immortelle, jasmine grandiflorum absolute, lavender, rose, tobacco, tuberose, violet leaf, ylang ylang
BASE:
amber, golden ambergris, birch tar, castoreum, cedar, coumarin, civet, black sacra frankincense, labdanum, leather, myrrh, oakmoss, Hainan oud, musk, patchouli, Indonesian sandalwood, vetiver