L'Artisan Parfumeur Caligna (2013): Love Pean to Provence {New Perfume}

Caligna despite its name referring to courtship does not primarily aim to be a love story between two persons, but rather wishes to be a full-on love declaration to the Grassois hinterland, that sometimes fairy-tale like Provençal region poised between the mountains and the Mediterranean, so achingly-beautifully described by writer Jean Giono... 

L'Artisan Parfumeur stress that they were guided in the composition of the fragrance - signed by perfumer Dora Baghriche-Arnaud - by timeless, fugitive moments lived in the region like the breeze blowing through Provence, a mane of hair caught in the wind, the sound of a laughter echoing in the distance.

These impressionistic touches include a visual  for the first time in the history of the house, a portrait of a nude posed for by classical dancer Gudrun Ghesquière photographed by Michael James O'Brien. Niche perfumery houses, with rare exceptions, usually shun anything that might resemble a designer perfumery budget. Trying to capture different facets of the hinterland, the house however felt they wanted to offer a face for the fragrance seeing in Ghesquière the very incarnation of the "beauty, luminosity and freshness of Caligna" as she is made responsible for embodying a Provençal beauty. 

The eau de parfum centers on a perfumery material, clary sage, presented as emblematic of the Grasse country. "fresh and sensual, green and woodsy, fruity and ambery" the material is showcased with notes of fig and a jasmine marmelade accord further blending with lentisc, pine needles so as to recreate a Mediterranean impression of the maquis. 

Caligna will be available from April 2013.

Via press release

Perfume lovers ought to check out another composition which makes a noteworthy use of clary sage, Fil de Soie by L'Atelier Bohême.