Jour d’Hermès by Jean-Claude Ellena for Hermès

Hello everyone!

For today's post I got inspired by an interesting interview with Jean-Claude Ellena I was reading online. My previous blog post was about YSL In Love Again and the nose behind that perfume was the same person. Interesting thing is that I have been getting different perfumes at different times without a clue that behind the creation of both is the same perfumer. One of my previous posts was on Oriens by Van Cleef & Arpels and the designer of this perfume is Bernard Ellena - Jean-Claude's brother. :) I think now that I've read enough about Jean-Claude I can definitely say I love the way he thinks during the process of creating his scents.

Jour d'Hermès was launched this spring (2013) and I laid my hands on it in May. Very much interestingly the note pyramid of this perfume was nowhere to be found at the time I purchased it. It was the original idea of the creator to leave the people guessing what the scent was like and what kind of sensations his 'illusion' would create. This is a floral scent and as the creator himself puts it, it is the Universal Flower.

This composition is made of light, transparency and the most symbolic thing of femininity - flowers. So while looking at the ideas just before the creation of the scent Jean-Claude definitely kept the 'light' in his mind. The next thing that would come to mind after light would probably be the awakening and by saying awakening one can only mean the spring. Jean-Claude was inspired by Botticeli's Spring, by Bonnard's Marthe as well as by Chassériau's paintings.

After all the designer came to a conclusion that this should be a daytime wear. The light that he was having in mind as a stepping stone finally made him figure out this would be all about elegance and refinement.

So when creating the perfume the designer did not want people to smell it and say that smelled like rose, or mimosa, or some other flower. The concept behind the perfume is that anybody can recognize the flower they want. And so he worked on an abstract yet natural scent. The naturality in this sense is expressed through the simplicity of the composition and the designer tells how he creates an illusion through one molecule to make the brain think of flowers, of spring and of light.

I like the opening of the perfume, it's very floral and sour, almost like there are citrusy notes. Then I think I kind of smell my favourite freesias. The dry down is again flowery and quite subtle. All I can think of while wearing this is a sunny field full of flowers on a late spring day accompanied by light breeze of freshness. A similar association I am having with the Daisy Eau So Fresh by Marc Jacobs. The only difference is Daisy does not have the sourness, it is crispier and I totally smell the daisies.

The design of the bottle is worth the attention too. On top of the cover there's the 'H' emblem for Hermes. The design of simple yet heavy glass matches the contents - full of light, gentle and natural.

Jean-Claude was mentioning in his interview that normally when a perfumer would want to represent just one thing - say a scent of rose - it would already consist of more than a dozen elements, and so traditionally complex things were made up. In the process of creating the Jour d’Hermès he got rid of all that piling up. With just 10 products he can create anything from the scratch and at some point there is a balance achieved which counts the most.

I think the perfumer has totally achieved that balance for his vision. I cannot say that I am in love with Jour d’Hermès, however I like it much to be wearing it on days when I want something less screaming and more natural, when I want to embrace that feeling of being free in a huge field of wild flowers.

I just had to pay a tribute to this creation and also to the summer especially now that there is almost nothing left till December, snow and the most wonderful time of the year!  

xxx

If anyone is interested in that interview of Jean-Claude Ellena, please click HERE to read through all of it!