Senyokô Duo des Fleurs (Euan McCall, 2019)

★ ★ ★ ★ — excellent

Ever since I discovered the house of Senyokô, I have been intrigued by perfumer Euan McCall’s other works, mostly for his own house, Jorum Studio. Even though many of the scents from his own line didn’t prompt the kinds of reaction I had to some of Senyokô’s perfumes, what they did was to get me curious and excited about what perfume could be. I’m truly impressed by the creativity and distinctness of his creations, the most recent of which I tried was Fantosmia.

Senyokô is a great example of the role that creative direction can play in bringing scents to fruition: Joseph and Emilie Berthion have tapped into McCall’s enormous talent to bring to life their own unmistakable vision:

“Senyokô is a unique combination of Japanese elegance and French luxury, fused with avant-garde elements from literature, fine arts, and music rooted in both Eastern and Western cultures, creating rare and exquisite fragrances. At Senyokô, every fragrance tells its own story.”

While I find the use of words like “elegance” and “luxury”, as attributed to whole cultures quite dated and, really, irrelevant, an olfactory thread that runs through all Senyokô perfumes is: minimalist exquisiteness.

I have tried all of Senyokô’s perfumes except for their newly released Une Île Pluvieuse that I hope to try soon. I own Duo des Fleurs and Migration de L'Arbre (which I hope I will write about soon as well!), both of which have become some of my favorite perfumes in my modest collection. In fact, Duo des Fleurs has been my most worn perfume this year!

Notes

Official notes include:

Rose de Mai, Jasmine Sambac absolute, Davana & Datura leaf, Rose otto, Jasmine flexile, Rose petals & Jasmine buds, Mysore Sandalwood, Musk & Mitti Attar

Duo des Fleurs finds its inspiration from the duet by the same name – the “Flower Duet” – from Act 1 of Léo Delibes’ Lakmé, set in British India, a duet between the characters Lakmé, daughter of a Brahmin priest, Nilakantha, and her servant Mallika, as they go to gather flowers by a river.

The duet evokes the idyllic, light-hearted, joyful environment and disposition that Lakmé and Mallika find themselves in:

[...]

L: Thick dome of jasmine
M: Under the dense canopy where the white jasmine,

L: Blends with the rose,
M: That blends with the rose,

L: Bank in bloom, fresh morning,
M: On the flowering bank, laughing in the morning,

L: Call us together.
M: Come, let us drift down together.

L: Ah! Let's glide along
M: Let us gently glide along; For its enchanting flow

L:The fleeing current;
M: Let us follow the fleeing current;

L: On the rippling surface,
M: On the rippling surface,

L: With a nonchalant hand,
M: With a nonchalant hand,

L: Let's go to the shore,
M: Come, let's go to the shore

L: Where the bird sings,
M: Where the spring sleeps.

L: the bird, the bird sings.
M: And the bird, the bird sings.

L: Thick dome, white jasmine,
M: Under the dense canopy, Under the white jasmine,

[...]

While Lakmé and Mallika arrive at the river bank to gather flowers, Lakmé leaves her jewelry at a nearby bench. When they return to the bank, they find British officer Gérald making sketches of her jewelry at the behest of the British girls who accompany Gérald and Frederick (Gérald’s fellow officer) with their governess. Though Initially afraid, Lakmé is intrigued by Gérald, and eventually they fall in love with each other.

There is a kind of intentional austerity to Duo des Fleurs’ construction that let’s the flowers – more jasmine than rose, but both – stand out, but there is also mastery in how it let’s this magic unfurl. Duo des Fleurs doesn’t command your attention as much as it makes you cocoon yourself, ensconced in its dual floral heart. It makes you contemplate: is the essence of a flower contained within itself, or is its context an integral part of its essence? If you’re inclined to the latter, there is an irony in trying to extract the essence of a jasmine but present it in a way that showcases the flower in its context: showcasing the flower outside its essence. Many perfumes do the former, jasmine soliflores in its fleshy fullness, like Serge Lutens’ voluptuous A la nuit which to my nose is primarily a bouquet of Jasminum grandiflorum; or Grandiflora’s Madagascan Jasmine, or Perris Monte Carlo’s Jasmine de Pays, both of which are different, but seem to showcase  jasmine in its fruity, banana fullness. Few perfumes preserve the essence of jasmine yet present it in a way that’s ethereal, almost transparent. Anthologie de Grands Crus’ Jasmine de Cherifa uses jasmine that spans the spectrum from its early fruitiness to middle florals and late-stage animalics, which I think is closer to that latter, and I think Duo des Fleurs, in some sense, manages to be the platonic ideal of the latter: The jasmine used here – Jasmine sambac – is fresher and greener (is there perhaps also some hedione in here?), and the scent manages to reveal jasmine in bloom in a dewy, wet, dream-like setting.

Jasmine and rose aren’t an unusual combination in perfumery. Famously, Joy, created for Jean Patou as a reaction to the Great Depression was composed primarily of jasmines and roses: 10,000 jasmine blossoms and 336 roses. Duo des Fleurs manages to capture not just the blossoms but the composite milieu of these flowers: what would jasmine smell like if it grew next to a rose in temperate England? It’s scent would be sweet, wet, floral, and evanescent.

Nilakantha, Lakmé’s father, does not approve of what he considers an affront to Lakmé’s honor, and wants revenge. He forces her to sing the Bell Song – L'Air des clochettes – in order to lure Gérald closer. Nilakantha stabs Gérald, wounding him. Lakmé takes Gérald to a secret hideout in the forest, where she nurses him back to health.

At some point, Fréderic reminds Gérald of his duty toward his regiment, and Lakmé realizes that she has lost the love they had. She kills herself by eating the poisonous datura leaf.

I don’t know what datura leaves smell like (and maybe there are some datura blossoms here as well?), but the jasmine seems to be smoothed over by the sweetness of datura, reinvigorated by davana, a kind of artemisia that seems to give the scent a mild herbaceousness, almost tea-like. The net effect is one of weightlessness, a pre-dawn that stretches on to eternity, a fitting nod to the tragic end of Lakmé and her love. Duo des Fleurs is the bottling of this ephemerality.

Duo des Fleurs eventually settles into a pleasant base of sandalwood, clean musk and earthy mitti attar from India, which is itself an infusion of flowers, often including jasmine, in sandalwood oil.

Duo des Fleurs’ olfactory homage to Léo Delibes’ duet is remarkably on-point, and even if you don’t find this artistic congruence exceedingly delightful, its beauty transcends necessitating any fitting narrative. One of my greatest pleasures is going back to an unwashed shirt impressed with its scent of fleetingness.

I have to admit I’m torn between giving Duo des Fleurs five stars and four. My rating might change at some point, but right now I will content myself with four stars.

When to wear

I really enjoyed wearing Duo des Fleurs in the warmer summer months, but I find it very versatile and am continuing to wear it on cool fall days and nights.

Projection, Sillage and Longevity

Duo des Fleurs has moderate projection and sillage on my skin, and tremendous longevity, easily upwards of eight hours.

A Note on the Bottle

The aesthetics of Senyokô’s perfume bottles are true to their stated vision. These bottles are sturdy, moderately heavy, and have incredibly beautiful resin caps made to have the texture of torn paper, and the labels are minimally beautiful.

Where to buy

A 50ml bottle of eau de parfum concentration costs $245. In the US, you can purchase Duo des Fleurs from Indigo Perfumery or directly from Senyokô’s website.