Lost traces of old iron. Where have my scissors gone. It’s hot in here. Everything smells like cumin. Is it the market out there or my skin? All those baskets where the spices are sweating, the tea leaves and strands of Persian saffron. Smoky-yellow eyes of weathered merchants staring at clay-stained turmeric roots on worn out leather sandals. Dusty streaks all the way down to the soles. All those bitter resins, smoldering in bowls beneath smoking yarn on incense sticks made of brown sandalwoods. Thoughts of animals. Tanned. Just like my skin. What has to be sewn. From dry straw and barks that are rotten. Fabrics woven from grass-root terpene. It’s getting cooler in this room. Where have my scissors gone.
***
With “Bespoke – Le Tailleur de Tanger,” a scent that was originally made for a Taylor in Tangiers, the olfactory space-time travel agency NOAM is breaking new ground. According to the artist—who uses only high-quality natural raw materials for his complex compositions and maintains personal relationships with small distilleries, merchants, and manufacturers—the heart of the fragrance is a saffron tea accord made from various tea macerates and Persian saffron, blended with Moroccan distillates and an amber accord in the base. This accord was created by chance from an empty Weck jar containing residual amber resinoid that had adhered to the inner glass and was infused over two years with fresh resins, floral concretes, and vanilla. The bakhoor accord is crafted in-house using aged resins, tinctures, and vintage distillates. Woven into this is the oud axis: Papuan Tigerwood (fresh pine, dark cream, dark berry fruit, smoked resin), Borneo Pontianak (citrus, oolong tea, sweet hay), and vintage Cambodi from 2016 (soft vintage leather, orange florals, smoked Loban incense). Accompanied by Mysore sandalwood from 2023.
At the start, I almost always get rusty associations; the saffron and spices seem to become overpowering before they gradually settle beneath sweaty cumin, turmeric becomes more prominent, and animalic, leathery notes combine with smoked resins and incense to create a chord of lived-in skin that reveals different nuances every time I wear it. Sometimes it’s smoky bark, sometimes it’s more like hay, and then again, clay on animal hide. Every now and then, vetiver also makes an appearance in the base with its sharp, cool terpenes. A masterpiece that allows you to experience a journey into an inner Morocco time and time again—multifaceted, intense, and incomparable.
