Città di Kyoto Santa Maria Novella 2005
2
Cool, aloof violets
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.
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.