Woman in Gold

The Austrian Mona Lisa glows not with an ambiguous smile, but in gorgeous golden patterns, motifs, and flushed rosy cheeks. Gustav Klimt’s 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is one of the most famous of his erotic gold-leaf paintings. By Kilian’s Woman In Gold conjures a similar sensuality and play between light and shadow through a delicate rose as seen through unctuous vanilla and exquisite woods.

Woman in Gold glows from the onset, with a tart bergamot and ripe mandarin, blended into soft-focus by a warm vanillic tonka bean. A sweet silken rose slowly blooms, petals lifting, whipped to a velvety froth, but with a darkness within, hinted at by gentle layers of oud and patchouli, seamlessly adjoined. The result is a perfume as complex and dazzling as the woman who wears it.