We are back with the rose scents! Although there are a lot of rose perfumes that do not have the special kick, again and again perfumers try their luck and skill with the queen of flowers, the rose.
Louis Vuitton’s house perfumer since 2016, Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud, is responsible for “Rose Des Vents”. Coming from Grasse, also a rose-city, he is descendant of a family of perfumers and proud of the tradition of Grasse. The city’s central place in perfume creations has various reasons, one of them is surely the mild climate and the tradition of growing flowers, especially roses, in the region.
Since 2007 we can admire a rose called “Parfum de Grasse”, a very beautiful cherry red-yellow flower with a very strong scent. This is not the rose that grows in Grasse, the rosa centifolia, or May rose. She has smaller bushy pinkish flowers, with that typical honeyed sweet smell that inspired so many perfumers. The rosa centifolia blossoms in April / May and is an olfactory sign for spring.
“Rose Des Vents” is full of it. The perfume is a real spring scent, fresh and green and pink-red colourful. The rosa centifolia clearly dominates the perfume. Louis Vuitton shows on its website only the May rose and lilies as ingredients. The brand does not quite do the fragrance justice, it is more complex than that, but the two main notes are very well named.
I do smell some green in the perfume, some wood and water. “Rose Des Vents” means “wind rose”, and whilst it is not a salty rose like “Rose America” drenched in sea water, this rose brings news of spring rainstorms and the crisp air that is not yet warm in the morning.
The creator of the perfume, Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud, is famous for discovering and using a synthetic scent molecule called Calone 1951 that gives perfumes a watery impression. I do not know if it was used in “Rose Des Vents”, but the perfume certainly has that watery quality. The longer the perfume is on the skin, the sweeter it gets. After a few hours there is a sugar icing over the roses.
The colours of the perfume are pink, green and white.
“Rose Des Vents” can be declared a classic perfume in the Grasse tradition. I imagine Francis Kurkdjian turning up his nose and claiming the perfume not sophisticated enough. It is indeed a straightforward scent, fresh and clean and full of May rose.
Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud created over 40 perfumes for Louis Vuitton, counting from 2016 till today, according to the parfumo platform. “Rose Des Vents” was one of the first. The perfumer has a special style that shines through all his fragrances. I do not know all his creations, but the ones I own have the same underlying DNA, which is comforting.
In 2012 the management of Louis Vuitton hired him, after he had a long and distinguished career at Firmenich, the world’s largest privately owned perfume company, according to their website. Firmenich is, with almost 5 billion Swiss Francs turnover purely from scents, worth a deep dive one day – but not today, not here.
After the turn of the millennium Louis Vuitton looked for a possibility to attract less affluent customers to the brand, next to their super-rich ones, without giving up quality. Louis Vuitton, today part of the LVMH group of Bernard Arnault, has an excellent reputation. The LV logo stands for quality, although highly priced. Everyone and his dog tried to copy the bags, suitcases, and cloths of the company. For a very long time Louis Vuitton had only cared for their core clientele, but the purchasing power of younger people became too strong to ignore.
They decided on perfumes as new products, the logical choice. Louis Vuitton’s high-priced perfumes cost less than their cheapest bag and even young people can afford one after doing some serious saving. The perfumes come for around 300€ for the smallest bottle. Louis Vuitton was not the first and not the last brand to go that way. The made a good choice in their “nose” and “house perfumer”. Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud has been in this position for 8 years now – undoubtedly a success story for both sides. They have the same values.
Are Louis Vuitton’s perfumes worth their price tag? The scents are less innovative than Tom Ford’s or Francis Kurkdjian’s, who ask similar prices. Niche perfumes have gone up in pricing all over countries and origins anyway, and not only those of very famous brands or with innovative scent notes.
The quality and durability of “Rose Des Vents” and the other perfumes from Louis Vuitton (that I know) is very good. For the brand it is all about high quality raw materials, fine handicraft, and classical style. Of course, there is a price attached.
With Louis Vuitton and a master perfumer from Grasse you know exactly what you get and are certainly not disappointed!