Frederic Malle’s ‘Superstitious’ cites inspiration from the scent of a dress, due to a collaboration with fashion designer Alber Elbaz:

 

“A classic floral aldehydic architecture illustrates Elbaz’s free-flowing vision of an elaborate fabric in which everyone can find their own beauty: Turkish rose and Egyptian jasmine, enhanced by a touch of peach, rest on a bed of amber imbued with Indonesian patchouli and Haitian vetiver. A final touch of aldehydes sharpens the perfume’s opulence with an urban edge.”

 

 

I made a special pilgrimage to smell the latest Frederic Malle fragrance ‘Superstitious’ by the sorcerer of perfume wizardry himself: Dominique Ripion (all hail). The black bottle shrouded it in mystery. Off came the nicely weighty cap and out sprayed the spirit of Ripion from his almighty past. Remember that Ripion created some of the biggest game-changing, legendary fragrances from the last 4 decades. This newest offering embraces a throwback to his earliest works. There’s a retro vibe to ‘Superstitious’ which reminds me of B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful’s ‘Two Hearts’ which has the same lipstick-rose, powdery, softy smoky vintage aromatics. 

The scent is like a ghost of an iconic movie star, now long dead and sorely missed. It’s like those large black and white coffee table books of screen star photography - you turn the pages in awe of the timeless, starlet beauty and wonder what they would have smelt like... It’s probably ‘Superstitious’ and I’m sure that’s what Ripion was aiming for.

It’s an immediate classic. It’s nice, but my tastes have moved away from what we now consider “vintage” and I’m aimlessly in search of something that I know not what, but this, it is not.

 

TOP: Turkish Rose Oil, Egyptian Jasmine

MIDDLE: Peach, Frankincense, Aldehydes

BASE: Amber, Indonesian Patchouli, Haitian Vetiver