Prudence Paris: Collection Impériale

I always admired how harmonious are the fragrances by Prudence Paris. Harmoniously correlated one with another and with their creator's - Prudence Elisabeth Kilgour - image. New collection is not an exclusion: six fragrances embraced by the bottles of imperial dusty gold incarnate the same beauty and modest majesty , that I always find in Prudence herself. by: Evgeniya Chudakova

Prudence Elisabeth told me that inspiration for creating this collection came after her first ever visit to Urals - to Ekaterinburg, Russia. She was fascinated, as it was so different... different landscape, different mood to St. Petersburg, very different mood to Moscow.

Recently Soirées Blanches - the fragrance for St.Petersburg - was created and Mrs. Kilgour decided to create something special for Ekaterinburg as well.  While  talking to journalists she was asking what comes to their minds first when they think about Ekaterinburg and everybody noticed Imperial Romanov family. But she didn't want to use this name and to exploit the tragedy. But, when they got back to France she thought, what if doing it in a different way? Discretely, not emphasising it. That's how Imperial Collection appeared. It was a discrete way of tributing. Without  personalising  it, - just a gentle tribute to the family, in a subtle way, with respect. Because, as Mrs. Kilgour said, when she was there she felt heavy and really sad.

As I recently noticed in one of previous reports from Esxense '15, new collection by Prudence Paris is dedicated to Imperial Family of Russia, killed during great October Revolution of 1917. There is no names on the bottles, just numbers. All the fragrances are of the similar character and style - velvety, dense, deep and slightly dusty, like heavy velvet curtains. They all deserve long reviews, but unfortunately I can just remember my first and only try of each scent during Esxence'15.

Composition No.1 - of royal elegance scent with ground breaking chypre base; severe leather and tobacco in No. 2; talcum, fresh almond and sweet powder in No. 6, slightly light-minded floral roundelay in No. 4; modest-feminine No. 5 and No. 3 scents... they all smell of luxury and desolation at the same time. Though Prudence said that there is no direct reference and compositions are inspired by Ekaterinburg landscapes, my imagination was tamed by the scents' mood and showed absolutely unambiguous images. Magnificent empty Winter Palace, heavy silk of baldachins and tiny porcelain of fine cups on antique chest of drawers, giant ball rooms with high windows and brilliantly polished parquet floors that seems to breath the hot air of noisy balls and to bluntly feel the changes ahead with their blood, and gunpowder, and hungry shining eyes. It's a curdling beauty, air before the revolution. And it really says more than needed for a fragrance. So just some minor accords can turn an idyllic landscape into the scene of fore coming drama.

But it is beautiful.

No.1
plum, bergamot, peach
cinnamon, cloves, immortel, jasmin, rose, ylang-ylang
chypre accord, cumin, grey amber, white musk, oak moss, oud, patchouli, sandal

No. 2
cedar, bergamot
leather, saffron, jasmin, rose, incense
olibanum, tobacco, oud, cistus, juniper wood, cloves

No. 3
orange blossom, saffron, red berries
jasmin Sambac, pear, osmantus
olibanum, oud, vanilla, cedar, patchouli, benzoin

No. 4
bergamot, neroli, tarragon, orange flower
ylang-ylang, carnation, jasmin Sambac, Damascene rose
sandalwood, iris, musk, benzoin, oud, Tonka beans

No. 5
mandarin, ylang-ylang, rose wood, galbanum
tuberose, jasmin Sambac, lily, Damascene rose, narcissus, carnation
amber, olibanum, oud, benzoin, sandal, patchouli, vanilla, oakmoss 

No. 6
wild berries, cherry
carnation, Damascene rose, iris, almond, tea leaf
opopanax, Tonka bean, oud, amber, white musk, vanilla