Intoxicating perfumes can ‘haunt, beguile and seduce’

For the Wallpaper* March 2025 style issue, we imagined six intoxicating perfumes through six different looks, photographed by Grace Difford and styled by Jason Hughes.

Dior, Poison: Notes of coriander, tuberose absolute and vanilla (above)

Derived from the French word for ‘wake’, ‘sillage’ is a perfumery term used to describe a lingering scent trail. Although its wearer may have left the room, any powerful fragrance will remain behind, like an olfactory phantom. ‘Long after one has forgotten what a woman wore, the memory of her perfume lingers,’ said Christian Dior of an intoxicating fragrance’s ability to haunt and beguile.

Of the many perfumes in the history of Dior, Poison, created by Edouard Fléchier in 1985, distinctly encapsulates this statement. Containing plum, coriander, anise, tuberose, incense and honey, this bombastic, syrupy scent could diffuse a nuclear aroma of grape flavoured candy with a single spritz. (Such was its intensity, some offices and restaurants outlawed those who dared to wear it.)

Escentric Molecules, Escentric Molecule 001: 100 per cent Iso E Super

Fléchier’s predecessor, master nose Edmond Roudnitska, who created perfumes for Dior between 1948-1976, would surely have admired this polarising elixir, believing that ‘the beautiful perfume is the one that gives us a shock’. Roudnitska was the first perfumer to make commercial use of hedoine, or methyl dihydrojasmonate, a synthetic molecule found to activate human pheromone receptors and areas of the brain associated with emotion.

Iso E Super is another synthetic ingredient said to trigger a similar pheromone response. Geza Schoen founded his fragrance brand Escentric Molecules in 2006, inspired by the moment he smelled this compound in isolation. ‘Iso E Super is highly unusual. You can never get enough of it. One sniff and you want the whole bottle. It’s like a drug,’ he said. ‘It’s brought alive by the warmth of the body. It blossoms on the skin, adding a velvety radiance to your own individual scent signature. You want to nestle into it, it’s sensual, cocooning.’ The first perfume by the brand, Escentric 01, is crafted from Iso E Super alone. One review on Fragrantica describes it as so ‘addictive to my own nose that I keep burying it in my shirt’.

Loewe, 001 Woman: Notes of jasmine, linen and musk

The synesthetic quality of perfume is celebrated by Serge Lutens in his Collection Noire, a capsule of fragrances with ‘strong Proustian accents’. This includes the 1993 scent Ambre Sultan, designed to evoke a ‘fragment of amber resin picked up by Serge Lutens during a wander through the souks of Marrakech, which lay forgotten for years inside a thuja wood box.’ Resinous, smoky and sweet, thanks to a welcome underscore of vanilla, it recalls the feeling of stepping into a sauna and imbibing the terpene smell of hot cedarwood.

In 2016, reflecting on another intimate setting, Jonathan Anderson put forward the initial perfume offering for Loewe under his tenure: 001 Woman and 001 Man. These ‘reinterpret the scent of a skin caress’ and are ‘suggestive of the morning after’, with shared notes allowing them to be worn together, as if lovers entwined in bed. The jasmine and musk in 001 Woman combine with notes of linen for an enveloping effect.

Hermès, Oud Alezan: Notes of rose oxide, rose hydrolat and oud

For Christine Nagel, head perfumer at Hermès, it was a close encounter with a chestnut mare named Scheherazade, in the stables at the annual Saut Hermès competition in Paris, that led to the creation of Oud Alezan. ‘I could feel the hair across her head… her palpitating heart in her neck,’ she said in an interview with us last year. ‘One day, I was given some blotters. The supplier didn’t say what was on them. When I smelled one of them, it was as if I was smelling Scheherazade’s neck again.’ On those blotters was an exceptionally rare oud that would form the foundation of Oud Alezan. Enveloping and supple, the sharpness of rose oxide slices through it in the manner of a craftsman’s blade through leather.

Celine, Reptile: Notes of cedar, pepper, tree moss, leather and musk

Celine’s Reptile and Black Tie also evoke the tactility of fabric, referencing the clothing designs of the then creative director Hedi Slimane. According to the brand, the former is an ‘olfactory twin’ of the stage outfits made for the designer’s rock star muses, while the latter nods to the textures of grain de poudre and satin. Intensely powdery via musk and white orris butter, a Fragrantica user attests to Black Tie’s addictive qualities: ‘What has this done to my nerve endings?’ Another adds that Reptile is ‘like I’ve stuck my nose into a fine leather handbag’.

Slimane’s penchant for designing perfume that elicits a visceral response is, in part, thanks to his one-time mentor Yves Saint Laurent, who, alongside his A/W77 Les Chinoises collection, debuted Opium, a heady blend of myrrh, patchouli and vanilla. ‘I chose Opium for the name because I hope that it will diffuse through its incandescent powers, divine fluids, magnetic waves, and the things that most appeal to the heart,’ explained Saint Laurent. ‘The charms of seduction, which give birth to passionate love, when you fall head over heels, fatal ecstasy…’

Yves Saint Laurent, Opium: Notes of cloves, cinnamon, incense and sandalwood

‘Saint Laurent oversaw the entire creative process, from the choice of scents and the shape of the bottles to the press kit and the advertising campaign featuring Jerry Hall photographed by Helmut Newton,’ notes the Musée Yves Saint Laurent website, adding that the fragrance caused global controversy for its association with the narcotic. Opium’s scandalous legacy continued under Tom Ford, whose 2000 advertising campaign, shot by Steven Meisel and starring a nude Sophie Dahl seemingly in the throes of ecstasy, was banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority after receiving an unprecedented number of complaints. Four years later, Ford left Yves Saint Laurent to set up his own brand. A beauty line soon followed, and with it, the first Tom Ford fragrance: Black Orchid. ‘This is not about an ordinary orchid, it’s about something a little more strange and rare,’ Ford said at its launch in 2006.

Tom Ford, Black Orchid: Notes of truffle, plum, rum, ylang-ylang, black orchid and patchouli

‘For the last decade, I think we’ve launched fragrances that have become so stripped-down, so transparent in terms of colour and scent,’ he continued. ‘For me to put a story back into fragrance and put the fragrance into a beautifully designed bottle and shoot it in a very lush way, this is a reaction to a decade of minimalism that has left people starved for content and substance. I wanted a potent product.’ In a world where audacious fragrances are, at times, more diluted than ever before, we could do well to heed Ford’s words.

Model: Maaike Klaasen at Platform Agency. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Hair: Stelios Chondros at Julian Watson Agency using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Claire Urquhart at Julian Watson Agency using Nars. Manicure: Abena Robinson at Agency 41 using Margaret Dabbs London. Prop maker: Sienna Murdoch. Photography assistants: Adam Roberts, Bradley Polkinghorne. Fashion assistant: Nathan Fox. Hair assistant: Kate Hussey. Make-up assistants: Fernanda Paz, Tasmin Ballingall. Retouching: Art Post

A version of this article appears in the March 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.