French niche line Memo will launch Kedu, the first fragrance in a new collection called Graines Vagabondes. The last launch from Memo was 2013's Italian Leather.
Memo is continuing its sensory journey with a new aromatic, vegetal, botanical and vibrant collection. Its source of inspiration? Seeds and their power of life. By exploring its passion for this essential womb, eternal ally and little natural gem that has lost none of its symbolic force, the brand is taking its desire for discovery and its appetite for creation up a notch further.
[...] Kedu, nicknamed “the garden of Java” in Indonesia, is a plain bordered by a volcano. Its soil, which has been made fertile by the ash, is sacred. Glossy green palm trees nonchalantly rub shoulders with one-horned rhinoceros, giant flowers in changing colours, prehistoric buffalo and bent-backed pilgrims. Borobudur arises shrouded in mist, a site of prayer constructed on a magical square. Tradition has it that you can purify your soul by throwing sesame seeds – one seed for each passion – into one of its flaming domes. The burnt sesame aromas rise up to the heavens. The husky accents of the seeds, which are symbols of longevity, set the sparkling freshness of grapefruit alight.
[...] Its primary ingredient – sesame, the symbol of longevity in Asia – is a magic incantation in and of itself; we long to murmur “Open sesame” on discovering this fragrance. And as it happens, the perfumer’s fine expertise was required for this ingredient to reveal all of its secrets. It unfolds on contact with grapefruit, neroli, white musk and moss to form an enchanting spell. Sesame and grapefruit come together and merge like the landscape that inspired them, the high plain of Kedu.
Kedu was developed by perfumer Aliénor Massenet. Additional notes include mandarin, maté absolute, freesia, rose-peony accord.
Memo Kedu will be available in 75 ml Eau de Parfum, €160.
(via press release)
So far Memo has been hit or miss. Sesame….. in perfume….I dunno about this. I’ll see if I can lay my mitts on a sample but sesame?
Hey, seeds — they found a new frontier that hasn’t been done yet! I obviously don’t know if it’s any good, but at least it isn’t a quartet of new oud fragrances.
I do wish they would find a U.S. distributor! I still haven’t caught up with their last three releases.
Yeah. And don’t know that they’re even looking…some brands obviously prefer not to.
How mystifying: “No, we don’t want to make any money”…?
Well, you make less money per bottle when you go through a distributor. Some brands can’t afford that (or have to cut corners elsewhere to do it), and doing overseas distribution yourself is a whole other headache. So it’s not always as simple as whether you want to make more money or whether you want your fragrances widely available.