Hermès Launch Home & Travel Fragrances with 5 Rêveries (2014) {New Perfumes} {Home Fragrances}
After introducing a new bath and body line last summer called Le Bain, French luxury house Hermès are expanding their sensory explorations to home fragrancing with a new collection baptized Rêveries, or "daydreams" in French...
Often seen as a lesser branch of perfumery in terms of creativity, so-called home or room fragrances are nevertheless essential in building a sense of intimacy and belonging for a household. It is a form of scenting which is based on sharing and conviviality. Such a fragrance has the power to construct an "invisible home" out of thin air and aromatic molecules to paraphrase authors Anna Barbara and Anthony Perliss who co-wrote Invisible Architecture: Experiencing Places through the sense of smell.
This is why some people will travel with a certain scented candle to recreate a sense of home abroad. Someone like actress Tilda Swinton even asked for her signature perfume Like This to smell like her home so that she could bring it with her while on a tour. A house, like a person, can have a signature scent.
Rêveries is less interested in signature and keener on inviting people to poetically wander,
Written in free form, as if following the mind's wanderings, the Rêveries spread their words throughout the home, offering each of its inhabitants a springboard to their own imagination.
There are five fragrances baptized Des pas sur la neige, Fenêtre ouverte, Temps de pluie, Champ libre and A cheval !. The scents were composed by perfumer Céline Ellena, the daughter of in-house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena.
The latter is said to have hand-picked her, a first for a type of collaboration which is not uncommon in the world of perfumers who often perfect their art over several generations of family members, but not witnessed before at Hermès.
The containers and carriers for the perfumes were designed by Guillaume Bardet who signs his first venture into perfumery.
He decided to rely on "the charm of imperfection" by selecting materials which would convey fragility yet presence at the same time. He chose ceramic, wax and paper with the pristine white ceramic on the outside mimicking the creases found on a sheet of paper. Each scent is color-coded with an enameled tint appearing inside the ceramic bowls: DES PAS SUR LA NEIGE (étoupe), TEMPS DE PLUIE (céladon), FENÊTRE OUVERTE (lagon), CHAMP LIBRE (soufre), À CHEVAL ! (potiron).
Prices range from 85€ to 350€.
