For those who may doubt that perfumery qualifies as a credible form of art, Hermès’ latest fragrance Un Jardin Après la Mousson will probably have them singing to a different tune. The luxury fashion house has had the good fortune of having the talented Jean-Claude Ellena on staff as its in-house perfumer since 2004. While most fragrances these days aim to simply evoke a mood or to smell just plain sellable, Ellena’s perfumes for Hermès are single memories, captured perfectly in time.

Each fragrance in the Jardin trilogy is a sensory journey to an exotic, far away place. Back in 2003, the inaugural destination was a visit to a hidden Mediterranean garden. In 2005, it was a quiet walk along the banks of the River Nile. This year, with India as the focus of Hermès’ collections, Un Jardin Après la Mousson captures the renewal and re-birth of the Indian countryside after the monsoon period.

In each green and blue bottle, Ellena has created an unexpected vision of India, opting to use the beautiful, untouched region of Kerala as his main inspiration. 'It is a very specific part of India, a “green” India where nature is plentiful and the atmosphere is quite peaceful. It’s also the very first place where the monsoon starts every year, after months of drought and heat,' he explained.

Like the other two Jardin fragrances, water is the core component of Un Jardin Après la Mousson, this time translated as both rain and sap. 'I was able to see the changes in nature – from a dark and wet ambiance to a green, dry, sunny one after the monsoon,' he recounted. 'This is the moment when nature is still fragile, when colours and aromas are clearer and purer. I thought the notion of fragility was a lovely theme for a perfume.'

Setting aside hot, potent spices like chilli, cinnamon or cloves, Ellena gravitated towards the more subtle cardamom, coriander and pepper, also commonly traded in Kerala. The result is a fresh, vegetable orchestration of white florals, green vetiver and cool spices – a delicate translation of India’s exoticism after the monsoon. Housed in a box illustrated by Karen Petrossian, who has also designed some of Hermès’ iconic scarves, it’s just our kind of art.