This is the portrait of a lady. She can be seen in the feminine cameo, in the soft, delicate profile, in the dreamy image of an incandescent beauty. What once was shell has been carved in relief by a devoted artisan, to emerge as an idealized woman.

Jewels, too... an emerald, a sapphire, a diamond, what once was a stone is given time and affection by a gemcutter and becomes a brilliant object of beauty. In the raw state, as a stone, as a shell, only the extraordinary eye can see the inherent treasure. With time, affection and devotion, the facets begin to appear, and a gem emerges. She is a jewel, and she dazzles. Like the proverbial woman of virtue, her price is far above rubies or pearls.

Her value is eternal, timeless. Like a precious gem, she transcends ephemeral fashion. Like every rare stone, she is classic, yet original. She is unique, with her own special colour, her own exclusive brilliance. But beyond the glitter, beneath the shimmer and sparkle, there is a secret fire within the gem. Here can be found the richness of spirit, the tender heart. She must have a perfume that reveals herself as a romantic jewel, a fragrance that evokes her worth, her many facets. She requires a scent with notes that come together in unexpected ways, where the fresh bergamot joins the delicate floral ylang ylang, where a sweet tropical coconut can meet the bright earthiness of Clary Sage. Finally, a rich patchouli merges with a creamy benzoin, and she is unforgettable.

Bergamot & Italian lemon, pink berries essence, iris of Tuscany, ylang ylang, clary sage, coconut JE, vetiver from Haiti, benzoin, vanilla, patchouli

We’ve given you decadent, we’ve given you outrageous, and now we give you nice. We pay allegiance to the concept of a modest cologne. Not an ordinary cologne, not a basic cologne. A proper cologne that achieves the perfection of simplicity.

The Cologne of Etat Libre d’Orange is a tender introduction to our sensual collection, a gentle initiation into our subversive world. This is an adaptable cologne that showers your body with a fresh joy. It’s whatever you want it to be, and you make it your own. It’s an easy pleasure, a scent for everyone, to splash on all over and wear everywhere. We offer you a new and different way to experience Etat Libre d’Orange.

Blood orange, orange blossom, bergamot, jasmine, musk, leather

A bleeding rose. A candy rose. A rose that tastes of fresh milk, a talcum powdered baby’s bottom, a wealth of sugared kisses. At Etat Libre d’Orange, the Virgin rarely wanders far from the Whore. Perhaps she is one and the same. Warmed by the fire of this woman, the noses have embraced a fanciful vision. They have created for her a perfume of protection, a refuge on the battlefield of love. Defensive yet transparent, Eau de Protection conceals as it reveals. For her, a caress is demanded, while those around her are struck with awe. The noses have extracted that which is most profound in her, the essence of her. They have distilled her honey and squeezed the juice from her heart.

Black pepper, ginger, Bulgarian rose, bergamot, jasmine, benzoin from Laos, blood accord, patchouli, incense, cocoa

He brings the sun. Here, find an innocent wisdom that points to dreams and liberation. This is the golden eye that reflects beauty and conflict, rapture and pain.

Fils de dieu is an emotional fragrance, a scent that requires a sympathetic connection between the server and the served, the giver and the taker, and the willingness to exchange roles.

With the refreshing zest of lime and ginger, spiced with cardamon and coriander, soothed with shiso and rice, infused with the tropical warmth of the coconut, this is a scent that supports the escape from conformity and eases the way to freedom from convention.

Lime, ginger, coriander leaves, coconut JE, rice, shiso, bergamot, vetiver, castoreum, musk, amber, leather

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Who goes beside you into the forest on the darkest night ? In Victor Hugo’s poem, « À quoi songeaient les deux cavaliers dans la forêt », (What Two Horsemen Were Thinking in the Forest), the narrator says “ by my side, Hermann seemed to me like a shadow. ”

We all have shadows, even at night in the dark forest. You may call yours by another name : your invisible friend. Your conscience, your soul, maybe even your complementary ego. Your shadow could have a name, like Hermann. Or your shadow could be your perfume. This is your companion. You can argue with your companion, you can challenge your companion, you can test the boundaries of your own attitudes. You can debate the finer points of existence. But you cannot lose this companion, not ever. This is your alternative self. As you move through life and contemplate its meaning, you ask unanswerable questions. When you’re overwhelmed with uncertainties, look to your shadow. Maybe you’ll get a response. Maybe not. But at least you’ll have an interesting conversation.

Blackcurrant buds, black pepper, galbanum, calypsone, geosmin, frankincense, pepperwood, petalia, rose absolute, patchouli, ambroxan

Napoleon would spray himself with it before going to combat; Je suis un Homme is a reinterpretation of Cologne accords dear to his heart. Citrus and bergamot top notes to summon up the guard and prepare to storm an attack somewhere in between a Corsican scrub - on a myrtle note - and a retreat from Russia. Birch wood and cognac evoke the smell of saddle leather, boots and belts. The charge will be hasty and imperial... in a rough and ready way! Energetic and clearly manly, Je suis un Homme suits men who assert themselves... and women who assume their masculine side, ready to launch the offensive without being scared of reversing roles.

Bergamot from Calabria, lemon, orange, cognac accord, myrrh, cinnamon, clove, animal notes, leather, patchouli

Remarkable People.
You know who you are.
For every epoch, for every era, there are remarkable people.
In classical mythologies, there were the demigods, the offspring of a god and a human, or a mortal who was raised to divine status. An ancient Greek poet used the word demigod as a synonym for hero. They demonstrated strength and power, a willingness to face challenges and confront danger. In the New World, there were the explorers, who discovered unknown lands. They were heroes too, battling forces of nature to find new territories. And throughout history - scientists, artists, composers, entertainers - all heroes in their own way. New heroes are born every day. There is an element, or an event, or a circumstance, or maybe just a quirk in their personalities that changes them, empowers them, enables them to transcend the ordinary. They believe in something different, something better. They want to change the rules, break the rules, alter the status quo, in whatever grand or small way they find meaningful. They are on a journey, and maybe it’s the effort alone that makes them remarkable. For some, their efforts bring fame and glory. Many others remain unknown. But they cannot - they should not - be ignored. These are our people - the remarkable citizens of Etat Libre d’Orange, the Orange Free State. The “un” people - uncompromising, unexpected, unconventional, unpredictable. We salute them, we honor them, by offering the extraordinary fragrance they deserve.

Grapefruit, champagne accord, cardamom, jasmine, curry JE, black pepper, labdanum, sandalwood, lorenox

When the Putain des Palaces enters into a Dangerous Complicity, a relationship is born. It is a marriage of mystery, an uneasy merger of hearts and minds and flesh.

We have taken the best of two exquisite formulations, combining the explicitly seductive powers of rose, violet, and powder with the implicit perils of rum and patchouli.

What emerges from this satanic union of temptation and danger, jeopardy and passion, is a sweet and shocking folly. She sips her rum through rose-red lips and wonders what beast she must adore tonight, what hearts she must break. She is Rimbaud’s Beauty, and the man who takes her in his arms may find her bitter, but desire conquers fear. She dazzles him with the violet rays of her eyes that hold the memory of her vices, and he cannot escape. Because lust is in the eyes of the beholder.

Rum JE, ginger JE, rose absolute, violet, coconut JE, osmanthus absolute, lily of the valley, jasmine, ylang ylang, tangerine, rice powder, amber, leather, animal notes, sandalwood

"It should be clear that You Or Someone Like You is not some kind of olfactory landscape painting. Anne is a serious gardener — I wrote a trellis of roses into her garden, I wrote in mint and wild grasses though the individual raw materials are in the end irrelevant. What You is is whatever you find it is. A scent you transplant to yourself. Synthetic and natural beauty. Possibility." 

— Chandler Burr

Los Angeles. In this, the city of fallen angels, fantasy rules.

In On the Road, Jack Kerouac wrote, “LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities.” It’s the city described by Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall as the city where “the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.”

But they come, the dreamers, for the sunshine and the possibilities, to this land of opportunity, where hope springs eternal. Whatever they’re searching for — happiness, love, money, fame — the temptations lure them deeper and deeper into this concrete paradise.

Does Los Angeles have a scent? It’s impossible to say. But Chandler Burr knows Los Angeles. And Chandler Burr knows perfume. So we decided to collaborate on a fragrance that an LA woman might wear. And we gave it the name of Chandler’s novel, set in Los Angeles.

And you dreamers, with your dreams — you might flourish, you might wither, but you don’t give up. You keep coming, or you think about coming, and sometimes you stay.

Because someday, someone just might be looking for you, pointing at you, wanting you. Or someone like you.

“A few years ago I wrote a novel called You Or Someone Like You set in Los Angeles. Its central character is a woman, Anne Rosenbaum, who lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband, Howard, a movie studio executive. Like so many of the homes up the fantastical curves and canyons of the Hills they look down on LA’s Downtown skyscrapers and the concrete ribbon of the 101 freeway, across Mid-Wilshire and Robertson, the glass towers of Century City, and, on clear days, over the 405 to Santa Monica and the placid, blue Pacific. And always the palm trees, imported and planted in LA in the early 20^th century, ‘just as I am an import,’ Anne observes, ‘now indigenous.’ Anne is English, born in Hammermith, London.

“As many have observed, Los Angeles is not a city. It is a state of mind. A strange amalgam of places and languages. Los Angeles is rivers of cement highways and infinite strips of asphalt, traffic, and despite or because of it all one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on earth, a natural beauty made by nature and molded by people, cobalt sky and the greens and tans of the desert parks, ocean fog, the white and delicate pale yellow jasmine and honeysuckle flowers that grow up parking signs reading ‘Permit Parking Only Violators Will Be Towed.’

“This scent is very specific. When Etienne de Swardt approached me about creative directing a fragrance whose name would be the title of my novel, I told my perfumer, Caroline Sabas, that we were creating the fragrance Anne would wear. She is also very specific. Coolly crisply English, covered in but untouched by the silver, materialistic movie industry, literary, somewhat removed.

“You Or Someone Like You is not the ‘scent of LA’ or ‘the smell of the Hollywood Hills captured.’ It is not one of those olfactory synecdoches. It is, on the other hand, stylistically and in its technical construction what a Los Angeles woman would wear in my view. Caroline and I discussed this at each step during the creation process. It is contemporary, 21^st century. It is LA, whatever that means, though in part it means the norms a scent would follow in a meeting at one of the agencies near Wilshire, at a studio, at a lunch in Bel Air or dinner off Beverly Drive. (The raw materials are completely irrelevant. The work is the work. If you need to know what it’s made of, don’t wear it; You is not for you.)

“My fictional Anne wears it; so presumably do thousands of other women. It represents her only in the way all such choices represent us. What it will be to you is for you to decide, obviously.”

— Chandler Burr

You or Someone Like You is a welcoming fragrance: neither off-putting nor strange. It is a contemporary creation built around timeless materials.

It embodies the women of LA — someone like Anne Rosenbaum: cool and crisp; once foreign but now indigenous; very exposed to Hollywood’s silver screen dreams yet untouched by its materialistic machinery. Anne finds comfort in literature, and the garden of her home, which nestles in the hills overlooking downtown LA.

The scent represents her only in the way all such choices represent us. It can be concrete, like a beautiful green rose. Yet, it can be abstract, just like an Erik Satie composition for it is a puzzle so mysterious that it is difficult to unravel.

The perfume invigorates the senses with its fresh, inviting appeal. One feels good wearing it.

— the Perfumer 

Fresh