This perfume is special in more than one way, most notably being the first cooperation between three creative minds of very high refinement. Belgian designer Dries van Noten, French perfume-editor and brand owner Frederic Malle and French perfumer Bruno Jovanovich.
“Dries van Noten” has a unique lemon tanginess and effervescence, combined with the smell of fermented milk or butter milk. This might sound like a scent to avoid, but just as butter milk tastes quite good, only rather special when you compare it with “normal” milk, the perfume has the force to quickly capture its wearer. On a scorching hot summer day, it physically cools you down and gives some freshness, without the nemesis of so many citric perfumes, the cleaning-products-smell. It is a fresh scent, yet sophisticated, with aquatic tinges and sugar on top. Like a caipirinha with little sugar and a liberal amount of fizzy water instead.
One smells lemons, limes and other non-sweet citrus fruits, spices and saffron and somewhere there is a sweetness that I cannot compare other than with candy sugar. It is a plain sweet smell, not like vanilla or musk. I read somewhere the perfumes in the Frederic Malle line are all built around 3—4 scent notes only. If so, here it is lemons, fermented milk, pure sugar, and fizzy water.
Bruno Jovanovic, the nose behind the scent, mentioned in an undated interview on “Nose Paris (dot) com” that the perfume was created by him on Frederic Malle’s wishes around sweets and sandalwood. This description leaves quite some lemons to be accounted for and I must confess I do not get the sandalwood at all.
“Dries van Noten” was launched in 2013 and -horror, again- seems to be discontinued.
The colour of the perfume is a light brown-yellow with greenish and white traces.
“Editions de Parfums by Frederic Malle” are an outstanding line of different fragrances. The concept behind the line is to let a perfumer be creative and bring to life a scent that existed before only in his imagination. The perfumer is not badgered by time or marketing constraints and his name is on the bottle, something that even the most famous of the profession can rarely achieve somewhere else. The “nose” is always in the second row, behind the perfume brand or the star who gives his name for the fragrance. Most of the contributing perfumers are famous already, and all are personally known to Frederic Malle. He himself is the scion of a family of perfumers and an old hand in the business, more on the consulting side, though. He is no perfumer himself, but found his role in giving the unique opportunity of brand-less creativity to others.
Frederic Malle started his special line of high-end perfumes in the year 2000 and since then perfumers like Jean Claude Ellena, Olivia Giacobetti, Dominique Ropion, and Sofia Grjosman have been adding fragrances that were almost universally praised. The brand used little marketing efforts and the perfumes were kept minimalistic in design. In 2015 the company Estee Lauder bought “Editions de Parfums by Frederic Malle”, but for the time being the former owner is still the creative mind behind the brand.
The creation of a scent is a lengthy process of consultation between Frederic Malle and the perfumer. In the case of “Dries van Noten”, Frederic Malle seems to have acted like the bridge between the Belgian designer and Bruno Jovanovic, as some surviving statements from 2013 and 2014 indicate.
Dries van Noten, one of the most famous Belgian fashion designers, was one of the few non-perfumers invited by Frederic Malle to inspire a perfume. He is famous for his contrasting style in fashion, between minimalistic and opulent. For a long time not using any outside money for his company and investing little in marketing, he sold his company in 2018 to the Spanish fashion and perfume brand Puig. Now in his 60s, he stayed on as creative mind and co-owner. In 2022 he launched a cosmetics and perfume line under his own name. The line started with 10 perfumes, available through the website of Dries van Noten’s company. The bottles look brilliant, like works of art. Simple, but colour-wise a fantastic combination of different styles. Something to decorate one’s house with. I had no chance to smell any of the perfumes yet. The scent notes combinations’ do sound a bit wild, but Dries van Noten is famous for his mastery of textures and contradictory elements.
It is a safe bet to assume that the discontinuation of “Dries van Noten” by Editions de Parfums by Frederic Malle has something to do with the ownership change of their respective companies and the launch of Dries van Noten’s own perfume line.
The discontinuation is a real pity, and I will specially value the perfume. It is different. I do have my favourite scent combinations and “Dries van Noten’s” is far away from it. In complete contradiction to those words, it is at the same time a signature scent, not for every day, but sometimes the perfume fits better than any other. It is a true unisex speaking to the wearer’s attitude more than to its gender.
Hopefully sooner or later it will be relaunched; it would be worth a special edition.