How much does a fragrance’s “back story” matter to you? I occasionally try to ignore the promotional copy and just smell a new perfume, just experience it on its own terms, but over and over again I fail in that resolution. I love storytelling. I love visuals. I want to know why people create the things they create. Sometimes a description or advertisement for a particular fragrance resonates with me; more often, it causes me to roll my eyes. I had both reactions to the promotional messaging for Mutiny, the new women’s fragrance from Maison Margiela.

Mutiny was developed by perfumer Dominique Ropion and its tagline is “Assert your self-expression. Banish conformity. Break the rules.” In a short promotional video for Mutiny, Ropion mentions being impressed by Galliano’s “audacity to subvert, deconstruct and rebuild” traditional clothing forms and wanting to do the same thing with tuberose…

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