Regular readers know I look forward to anything new from perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena at Hermès. I have called myself a fan girl in the past, but now feel compelled to point out that I just really like his perfumes; I don’t think he’s a rock star and I do not have a poster with his face on my wall. Ok? But in all truth, a rather large portion of my fragrance spending ends up in the (surely already brimming) coffers at Hermès. Many of us like to think that brand doesn’t really matter — it’s the juice that counts — but it’s hard to completely ignore brand influence even if you try. In this case, it helps that I like Hermès despite the fact that nearly nothing on earth interests me less than spendy handbags and silk scarves. I like Hermès because they consistently put out a respectable, well-made product. The fragrances are interesting and wearable, the packaging is generally worthy and sometimes it’s spectacular (Voyage d’Hermès), and their advertising doesn’t make me cringe. They don’t alternate high-end vanity projects with cynical, focus-grouped garbage designed to capture the lucrative ‘tween-to-teen market. To my mind, Hermès is the last great hope in the mainstream prestige fragrance market: let’s just hope Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy stays far, far away.

That is not to say I like everything Jean-Claude Ellena cooks up over there. Of the Hermessences, the exclusive (and expensive) perfume range at Hermès, I own five out of the nine, and thanks to the fact that it’s possible to find them in comparatively affordable 15 ml bottles, I own all of them that I want to own.¹ The latest of the nine, Iris Ukiyoé, is not going to join my collection….

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