OSCAR FLOR
by Oscar de la Renta
ingredients: lychee, jasmine, musk
The purpose of artists is to entice new forms down from Platonic heaven into this world, and in 1996, perfumer Calice Becker surprised everyone by walking in hand-in-hand with a towering creature of light. That was Tommy Girl, the fragrance that made her famous. She followed that with a Turner-like series depicting the same refulgence in different seasons, from the warm afternoon glow of J’Adore [1999] to the winter morning of Beyond Paradise [2003]. My fondness for this style has often been attributed to the fact that Calice and I are friends, which underestimates both of us.
To be fair, there have always been two problems with this type of fragrance, to which I perhaps gave too little thought in times past. The first is that they are sculptural artworks, arguably better smelled on a strip than actually worn. On a person, their brightness can suggest obsessive cleanliness rather than archangelic purity. The second is a purely technical problem: for some reason —possibly to do with disagreements between aldehydes and alcohols— they seem to age fast in the bottle. My 2007 sample of Beyond Paradise now smells harsh, and I’ve had similar experiences with vintage Tommy Girl.
Somewhere in the early 2000s it was felt that this form had outlasted its welcome. Then, a decade later, blinding florals came back, notably with Florabotanica [2012], Tommy Girl’s bony, stylish sister. Now it appears that Calice Becker has been given the opportunity to restate her great discovery in the latest idiom. Oscar Flor is the best of the lot: a sleek, flawless technical marvel from beginning to end. Something tells me that this is her last great work in this manner, not because of artistic exhaustion but because she is a perfectionist and cannot do better. As for me, I don’t care whether one actually wears this. I’ll just put it on my dresser next to a scale model of Concorde.
blinding floral
