Armani Privé - Nacre Giorgio Armani 2012

Niche brands often go a bit overboard when describing their fragrances. The most bizarre scent notes are sometimes claimed to be included, from gunpowder to tennis balls, and yet these fragrances often smell surprisingly - well, normal. Not necessarily bad, no, but nothing that deviates from the Douglas assortment they aim to stand out from. And then sometimes you find a perfume that promises you a noble, almost classic composition, only to deliver nothing of the sort and lead you down unknown paths. "Nacre" is such a perfume.

I expected iris, either creamy or powdery, with a hint of sweetness. Instead, I found dust and dry, gray wood, like the beams of an old attic, and the smell of old books, yellowed paper, and decaying fabric covers. No mold, no mildew has taken up residence here; it is dry, and the thin layer of dust and the scent of neglect are the only signs that this attic has been left to itself.

And yet "Nacre" smells damp, as if someone had thrown open the window and let in the scent of rain on still sun-warmed, dusty streets, the smell of a city under a shower that brings coolness after a hot summer day. Not wet earth, not moist greenery, but dusty asphalt, where the raindrops paint the first dark spots. That is "Nacre," rain on dusty streets, the first cool breeze in warm air.

It is actually not a pleasant scent, to be honest. There is no sweetness, no creaminess, and the promised flowers turn out to be dust. But that doesn't matter, because it is the scent of a memory; of late summer afternoons, sitting by an open window, one leg dangling and a book in my lap, while the first raindrops drum on the old slate roof, a dry shelter from which I watch the falling rain. It is a gray scent, "austere" is what I would call it if I had to describe it in a single word, but I also associate it with a feeling of coziness. Surely it is an odd scent, a creation I would have expected more from Comme des Garçons than to place it in the Armani Privé line. There is no opulence, no complex structure, no multifaceted progression. Just a captured moment, beginning rain.