Sartorial

After offering the masterfully sensuous Amaranthine last year to the ladies, Penhaligon's, as befits a traditional English house, has turned its attention to gentlemen. As an inspiration for Sartorial, Bertrand Duchaufour launched into an olfactory exploration of the Savile Row bespoke tailor Norton & Son's workshop. The odorant threads he's teased out compose a radically new vision of the most traditional masculine fragrance family, the fougère. Lavender acts as a reference both to the fougère and to a typically English scent. Boosted by aldehydes and ozonic materials, it conjures the steam rising from hot irons on tweeds – fear not, there isn't the least hint of the aquatic in the blend --, the scissors and sewing machines. The dusty leather of club chairs and mounted hunting trophies springs from the combination of black pepper, gurjum wood, oakmoss and a leather accord. Patchouli and cedar rubbed in beeswax and honey soften the hard edges of the leather and metallic effects and smoothly wrap the blend, just as the waxed floors and cupboards bathe the tailor's shop in a warm, fatty-animalic glow. Duchaufour aficionados may recognize a trace of that signature green pepper note he's dropped into many of his compositions.

As the quintessential English dandy and couturier to the Queen Hardy Amies once said: “A man should look as if he bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, then forgot about them.” That's Sartorial: tough and smooth, playful and elegant, impeccably tailored and as easy to wear as a bespoke suit.

Aldehydes, ozonic effect, metallic effect, violet leaf, neroli, cardamom, black pepper, fresh ginger, beeswax, cyclamen, linden blossom, lavender, leather, gurjum wood, patchouli, myrrh, cedar wood, tonka bean, oakmoss, white musk, honey effect, old wood effect, vanilla, amber