A Garden on the Nile: Hermès’ perfumed walk in Egypt
A true ode to the scented nature of the land and water of Egypt where warmth and freshness merge, Un Jardin sur le Nil illuminates our nostrils with its sparkling and light scents. A summer walk full of scents “painted” by a talented perfumer …
The second installment of Les Jardins d’Hermès illuminates Ellena’s dream Egypt
In the world of perfumery, Ellena is a sort of impressionist perfumer, “I am a watercolor artist” he tells us, as if to bewitch us better with his olfactory paintings. A painter who finds inspiration only in a certain freedom. A freedom which begins first of all with a freedom of creation, which the Hermès house offers him in exchange for his talents since 2004.
“I have never been comfortable with marketing and its concepts, which began to poison the profession in the mid-1970s. I need relational, irrational, spontaneity to create. »He confided about his now exclusive partnership for Hermès. And Hermès has taken advantage of this poet of scents by entrusting him with only an annual theme, without briefing, without commercial overload.
The magnificent collection of the Jardins d’Hermès will be born from this freedom and this mutual trust thanks to a Garden in the Mediterranean and then now thanks to A Garden on the Nile. Un Jardin sur le Nil will offer fresh, aquatic and vegetal scents that will be enhanced by the work of watercolor artist Véronique de Mareuil. The elegantly drawn lotus flies over to conquer our screens, then the visuals of Un Jardin sur le Nil, then the perfume packaging. In short, what could be more logical for a painting perfume than to be represented by a watercolor?
A green and aquatic citrus for a walk in Un Jardin sur le Nil
“A new idea of freshness, rather unusual; green and vegetal odors; odors of water and sand. »Hermès for Un Jardin sur le Nil. Thus, for Un Jardin sur le Nil, the elegant bottle of a Jardin en Méditerranée will now be seen to reflect the vegetal lights of green and the sandy beige shades of the banks of the Nile. The impressionist painting even lives in the bottle!
Un Jardin sur le Nil first of all offers us a fresh and powerful grapefruit around a unique green mango, as if to immerse us in a very refreshing green scent halfway between tomato leaf and carrot. At the heart, the aquatic and vegetal scents carry us away in their exotic whirlwind between lotus flower and calamus, this tender reed of the Egyptian shores. Hyacinth and peony are the sweetness of the banks to better understand their delicacies. Finally the incense, made with balsamic olibanum, warms us to better allow us to penetrate the wooded depths of sycamores and vetivers.
“A Garden on the Nile is an impressionist stroll through the garden islands of the Nile in Aswan, the starting point for a new olfactory journey. According to Hermès for Un Jardin sur le Nil.
Since his arrival in the venerable Hermès house, Jean-Claude Ellena has never ceased to offer us magnificent scented paintings. A Mediterranean Garden, released in 2003, would be the very first point of departure for an initiatory quest through the gardens of the world. Our second trip, now in the Parfums-Jardins collection, will take us away from Europe to discover the banks of the Nile and its plant paradises in a magnificent Garden on the Nile.
Jean-Claude Ellena and his wonderful perfumed journeys for Un Jardin sur Le Nil.
By welcoming Jean-Claude Ellena as appointed perfumer in 2004, the house of Hermès chose an extraordinary designer and out of any commercial constraint, because the Ellena style is free, imaginative and could not exist without daring.
Jean-Claude Ellena composes his perfumes as he would paint pictures or write books: he travels, fascinates, moves and brings back all his memories to make them appear in perfumes. It is exactly by this type of path that he created in 2003 Un Jardin en Méditerranée then in 2005 Un Jardin sur le Nile and its many other brilliant successors.
“On the way back from Egypt , I reread my notes and scribbled a short recipe made up of bits of scent that juxtapose, the perfume took shape in my head. It will remain for me to give it a form where everything is revealed: at the same time light and present, lively and generous, like an echo to these gardens which border the Nile. »Jean-Claude Ellena on the creation of a Garden on the Nile.
With his travel diaries and his decked out memories, he returns to his laboratories and composes a sparkling and fruity green woody note that will carry the evocative and exotic name of Un Jardin sur le Nil.
Un Jardin sur le Nil Hermès and the unique scents of calamus, green mango and tomato leaves
Au departure of the scented composition created by Jean-Claude Ellena for Un Jardin sur le Nil, there is love at first sight! An instantaneous passion for a raw material, the secrets of which he shared with us in his Diary of a Perfumer: his olfactory encounter with mango: “I bring it to my nose. The smell appeals to me. Profusion of fragrant images, resin, orange peel, grapefruit, carrot, opoponax, juniper, fresh and sweet scent, energetic and tender. “Jean-Claude Ellena, Journal d’un parfumeur.
So the sweet and fresh green mango would meet a powerful and dynamic grapefruit. Then in the heart of Jardin sur le Nile, we dive into its gentle waters thanks to the notes of lotus flower, and the vegetal and delicately spicy calamus, typical of Mesopotamia. However, the hyacinths and peonies will bring us back with their flowery scents to the shores. Finally, the depths of this extraordinary garden will guide us through mysterious forests shrouded in incense and bordered by vetivers.
Jean-Claude Ellena’s magical journeys in his Parfums-Jardins have certainly not stopped surprising us!
Woody Fruity Green