Città di Kyoto Santa Maria Novella 2005

Citta di Kyoto is one of the most recent releases (2004) of a house that claims a continuous production since 1612. Anyone who is familiar with their releases knows that they are quirky, not always easy to wear but always come through as unpretentious, clear and yet sophisticated fragrances. So how is this managing with its recent releases? In one word, perfectly.

Citta di Kyoto was released to celebrate the 40 year old affiliation of Florence and Kyoto and what better way to do that than combining notes of florentine iris and japanese lotus. I must admit I am not familiar with how lotus smells but had I read the official note listing I would have been put off: “The perfume opens with vibrant, fruity and fresh top notes of jasmine and ylang-ylang, which are punctuated by the deeper hints of bergamot and orange. These are followed by base notes of Florentine iris and lotus”. No, no, no, no! It starts with a magnificent paint diluent note (admittedly this can be attributed to ylang ylang as it sometimes has a mentholated aspect)that quickly fades into the driest, palest, softest cedar. The most opulent orris butter kicks in to smooth out the rough woody surface. The overall effect is that of velvety, dusty suede. It makes me think of smelling uncooked rice. Much to my astonishment this is listed as a feminine scent which together with the official description are doing a great job at restricting this fragrance’s target group. This is dry, woody, leathery iris at its best and Dzongkha lovers please give this a try. In another perfume world Citta di Kyoto could very well pass as a masculine version of Equistrius. It wears close to the skin, feels like it sinks into the skin and radiates from there but it has an exceptional longevity even though it is an eau de cologne.

Notes from my nose: paint diluent, cedar, butter, iris, rice, incense tears

This was one of my blind-buys that sprung from pure curiosity and from the fact that Santa Maria Novella was not available in Japan at the time. The perfume was created to celebrate the relationship between two cities I love, Firenze and Kyoto, featuring a flower that I adore, the iris. I can see why it will never be a popular perfume that you will smell on every corner, à la BR540.

Città di Kyoto opens with a strange vibe, a foggy citrus that comes across less floral and more dry powder and glue, the smell of a freshly papered shoji screen in a cold house. She remains cool and aloof throughout, never once sketching a smile or any scrutable expression. She is graceful but not pleasing, she doesn`t want to please or connect. I can sense the lotus floating in the heart notes with a touch of lavender, but there`s no trace of a peach or an iris such as I know the iris to be. What I sense are violets. Astringent violets. As the perfume warms up on my skin, the violets become a little sweeter, so I suppose that must be the peach doing her part. The woody notes start to become more apparent, leading me once again back to the idea of a papered shoji in a cold minka, an old wooden house somewhere in a Kyoto alley on a grey spring day, far back in time when the city had a pulse and wasn`t a corrupted Disneyland for throngs of tourists with no connection to the place or its culture.

Città di Kyoto is a kind of mourning for something precious that has been lost and may never be recovered.

I don’t mind the soft projection or poor longevity of Cittá di Kyoto, but what I can’t forgive is its vagueness. It is mostly iris – that rooty, plaster-of-Paris iris material that Santa Maria Novella uses – over a blob of bitter, musky cedar, but it is dry enough for people to imagine they smell Japanese incense, sweet enough for people to think they smell fruit, and softly hawthorn-ish enough to make people think of Daim Blond.

However, nothing ever tilts too firmly in one direction or another, so you get this diaphanous, blown out blur of root and wood and petal refuses to commit to even one of those ideas. It flip flops between one thing and another so quickly that it could get elected to local government at least. Some people find this charming. I find it irritating, just as I do that dreamy, opaque way old Irish people have of answering every question with a half-laughed ‘ah sure, now, you know yourself’ when in fact, no, we don’t know, which is why we asked the question in the first place, you muppet.

I suspect that were it not for the evocative name or the inspiration, nobody would peg it as smelling particularly like Japanese incense or the woody air of an onsen in the forest, and so on and so forth. Indeed, in the hands of any other brand, it might even be called – gasp – unfinished. I bought a bottle, and not even blindly, simply because I had successfully mind-swindled myself into hearing the rustle of silk screens and bamboo mats.

But repeated wear just erodes the fantasy of Cittá di Kyoto a bit more each time. I can squint my eyes all I like but no amount of mental acrobatics is going to turn that damp, bitter blob of cedar into the airy, silvery-green hinoki of my imagination, nor is that dry iris and hint of smoke ever going to transform into a wisp of coreless Shoyeido incense, which itself smells far more characterfully of cloves, benzoin, and aloeswood that anything suggested by this milquetoast of a perfume.

Every spring since 2015, I have dutifully taken the frosted bottle out of the cupboard, dusted it off, and hoped that this would be the moment when it reveals its true beauty to me. And in truth, I don’t hate it. It is not a bad fragrance, objectively. But life is just too short for such low-impact fragrance.

Città di Kyoto is one of the most contemplative perfumes I own. It is highly impressionistic, suggesting its notes rather than depicting them with any degree of naturalism. Where in other perfumes I sometimes find that type of depiction ambivalent and directionless, in Città di Kyoto it feels like a deliberate aesthetic choice, and it fully pays off. The iris sets the tone, rooty and earthy, lending the perfume an icy feeling. There is a lot of cedar as well, but that already sums up the notes that are clearly delineated. Next comes a hint of stewed, softly spiced stone fruits that accounts for the frequent comparisons to the work of Christopher Sheldrake. I smell more Féminité du Bois than the often-mentioned Daim Blond myself, courtesy of the cedar. And then there is a subtle, fleeting balsamic character, suggesting incense, which I assume is imparted by the cypress. Some days I pick up the bitter-herbal lavender as well. All of this comes together to a picture of clear winter days, the kinds of days that invite silence and introspection.

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Even as a young girl, I was drawn to the simplicity and modesty of Japanese spaces. Back then, I wished I could furnish my future apartment in that style. At 15, one doesn’t think about how rooms are heated with paper walls or where all the stuff can be stored when there are no cabinets. The only thing that remains from those daydreams is my aversion to dust collectors of any kind, and decorations for the apartment are allowed to come in only as single pieces, and only one at a time. I prefer to switch things up every now and then.

I’m not quite sure, but I believe my love for the books of Pearl S. Buck played a role in this phase. Today, she is often criticized for having written rather trivial literature - something she shares with Rosamunde Pilcher. But I remember devouring "The Good Earth" or "East Wind - West Wind." I certainly did not envy the main character for the agony she had to endure because of her bound feet. Even today, 13 books by Pearl S. Buck languish in my bookshelf. I think I’ll revisit them.

Città di Kyoto, of course, was created much later, as it was made to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the partnership between Florence and Kyoto. Thus, with this fragrance, one understandably does not experience a Mediterranean feeling, but rather, the scent reminds me much more of L'original by A. Putman. It embodies for me the simple beauty of Japanese spaces or ink drawings and makes me feel as if I can truly breathe again.

Since our Japanese clients either opted for very light fragrances or loved everything that came from France, I’m not sure if Città di Kyoto would have suited their taste, as the fragrance impresses with clarity, clean floral notes, and indeed a hint of woodiness in the base, but it surprises me with its unexpected longevity, at least on my skin. The Italian perfumers have obviously pulled out all the stops, as the pyramid sounds much more floral-heavy than the scent actually is, yet it accompanies me for many hours with its almost meditative aura.

The theme of partnership between East and West is excellently represented here. Italian craftsmanship meets Asian ambiance; Santa Maria Novella showcases all its skill not only with this perfume.