Délivre Moi

Brussels. A December weekend.

It is bitterly cold. Louison is pushed through the door of Saint Catherine's Church by a gust of wind that leaves him no choice. An exhibition of orthodox icons from around the world has been installed there for a few days.

He is not of the Christian faith. But he has always been fascinated by liturgical art and symbolism — by those subtle and profound links that unite Christian symbolism with the Kabbalah of Judaism. Invisible bridges between beliefs, that few people take the time to contemplate.

Inside, time stands still. Visitors are in rapture before the beauty of the icons, illuminated by candlelight — blue, red, green, gold. Louison begins to smell. The dusty scent of stone walls. The dry cold of the blue stone floor. The freshly polished wood of the pews. He takes out his small notebook — the one that goes everywhere with him — and notes everything down.

A priest approaches. He watches, intrigued. "Why are you smelling everything?" Louison looks up: "Oh, don't worry... I create perfumes." The priest looks at him as though he were a heretic escaped from an asylum.

But Louison's mind is elsewhere. He looks at the icons, these women holding children in their arms. And he thinks: every woman holding her child in her arms is a saint. Like our mothers who held us. These silent, absolute saints of everyday life.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

The ship is called l'Incognito. It is coming home.

Its hull is moored at the quay of the port of Antwerp. But the Incognito has come from far away. It has crossed the world, and carries its scents.

From India, it brings patchouli and spices. From the islands of the Indian Ocean, heady ylang-ylang. From the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal, incense, myrrh, Egyptian jasmine. From the Mediterranean Sea, honey from Haifa. From Istanbul, the rose, bewitching and deep. From Spain and Gibraltar, labdanum. From the Atlantic Ocean, the sharp, briny air. From Portugal, tobacco in infusion, falling on the blue stones of the wet quay, piercing the invisible sun prowling beneath the waters.

Antwerp. The damp quayside. The smell of fuel oil mingled with that of the Scheldt. And all these scents of the world settling gently on the cobblestones of the city.

Scented Candle — Weight: 220g / 7.76oz — 100% soy wax — Burn time: 55 to 60 hours — Made in France in our atelier.

The ship is called l'Incognito. It is coming home.

Its hull is moored at the quay of the port of Antwerp. But the Incognito has come from far away. It has crossed the world, and carries its scents.

From India, it brings patchouli and spices. From the islands of the Indian Ocean, heady ylang-ylang. From the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal, incense, myrrh, Egyptian jasmine. From the Mediterranean Sea, honey from Haifa. From Istanbul, the rose, bewitching and deep. From Spain and Gibraltar, labdanum. From the Atlantic Ocean, the sharp, briny air. From Portugal, tobacco in infusion, falling on the blue stones of the wet quay, piercing the invisible sun prowling beneath the waters.

Antwerp. The damp quayside. The smell of fuel oil mingled with that of the Scheldt. And all these scents of the world settling gently on the cobblestones of the city.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

Give time to time.

A misty dawn. A stream. A majestic heron. The symphony of the living, frog, bird, peacock in full display, a ballet of dragonflies. The fox cub, the fawn, the pheasants. Those flashes of life that run between things.

Bare feet in the morning dew. An atom of life.

The smile of the elementals, they come and go, taking all the time in the world. Fantastic reality.

At the heart of Jewish tradition lies a fundamental rule, perhaps the most important of all: to glorify life. The living. Always.

For resilience is part of the DNA of this ancient people. With it comes respect, the thirst for knowledge, education, instruction, this deep conviction that one must go as far as possible in all things, reach for excellence, never stop learning, growing, rising.

Lehaïm is not simply a toast. It is a philosophy. A cry from the heart. A way of being in the world, fully, intensely, with gratitude.

Have faith in life. Cry it out, again and again.

Extrait de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

A late summer night. An unlit French country road. Louison is alone at the wheel of his vintage black Saab 900, eyes fixed on the tarmac, alert — a deer, a wild boar, a fox could leap from the darkness at any moment.

On the radio, a podcast. The BBC pays tribute to Barbara Cartland, that eccentric of the English aristocracy who dressed exclusively in pink, whose homes were decorated in every shade from rose to lilac, mauve to violet, with occasional touches of unabashed kitsch. A woman who wrote romantic novels, who had built an entire empire from her stories, who adored violet perfumes, and who carried it all off with sovereign nonchalance.

Then the journalist asks a question. An uncomfortable one. Almost indiscreet.

"Do you have any fantasies? If so, what are they?"

A long silence settles. Louison thinks she must be offended. But no.

Her answer comes, in a voice unexpectedly sensual, like that of a woman whose desires are only just awakening, yet who is already of a very considerable age.

"I like young boys... and leather."

A burst of laughter in the dark. The forest rushing past on either side. Focus on the road.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

A fragrance of royalty.

Imagine a queen of the 21st century. Monarch of her country, yet without decision-making power. She must remain discreet while uniting her subjects. Always elegant, always calm, an elegance that is not a luxury, but an armour.

She knows every secret of her government. She sees everything, hears everything, understands everything. Yet she cannot intervene. She fights in silence against the perfidy of her ministers, solely preoccupied with their financial interests and their thirst for power. She must remain the queen of hearts of her people, and ensure that corruption never seeps into the open.

To wear a crown is also to live beneath a sword of Damocles. The head can fall at any moment.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

Paris, the 1960s.

A woman crosses the Boulevard Saint-Germain. A well-cut coat, precise heels, gaze straight ahead. She is one of those Parisian women who need no effort — elegance is second nature to them, never a performance.

She is Séverine.

The heroine of Belle de Jour, Luis Buñuel's film with Catherine Deneuve. On the surface, a perfect, irreproachable wife, with an enigmatic smile. In reality, a woman who lives entirely by her own rules, discreetly, absolutely.

Plaisir d'Amour draws its inspiration from this era and this woman. That particular Parisian chic, neither too classic, nor too restrained, that always conceals something beneath its obvious perfection. An elegance that needs no justification.

Plaisir d'Amour is a couture fragrance, cut with precision, worn with grace, like a signed dress one recognises without seeing the label.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

The scent of someone you love.

Not their perfume, their scent. The smell of their skin upon waking, after they have gone. That olfactive imprint left on the sheets, in the hollow of the pillow, in the atmosphere of the room. A presence without a body. A memory that still breathes.

Omnipresence.

That of the energy that surrounds us, invisible, yet always there. In us and all around us, between us. That divine breath that some call God, others the universe, others still the living world. The name matters little. The presence, itself, does not lie, there where the visible and the invisible meet.

The omnipresence of the architect of the universe, that indescribable yet so perfect mechanism. Our beliefs that carry us. Our doubts that make us grow. That tension between what we know and what we sense, between what we see and what we hope for.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

A manor house, lost in the middle of nowhere.

Louison spends a few days there with friends. The garden overflows with flowers, the vegetation growing freely, at its own pace. The house seems outside of time, welcoming, filled with a magnificent energy. One senses that it is happy to receive visitors.

At night, the woodwork creaks softly. Louison is not frightened. He always leaves a small lamp on in his room.

The walls are covered in wallpaper with immense flowers, flowers one would not find in the garden. Flowers from another world. At night, by the light of the lamp, he can admire their dance in the shadows. They have sensed his presence.

One of them draws closer. Its shadow brushes his ear. It whispers:

"We are on the wall. We have a fragrance. Lighter than nature. In the countries of the future or the ancient lands. Here is our ornament. And we repeat it from floor to ceiling. A fear of being misunderstood, for we have neither freshness nor seasons, nor sky, nor bees, nor breezes."

He falls asleep. And all of them came to him. They wrapped around him to protect him from the spirits of the night.

Extrait de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

London, Restoration England.

Amber St. Clare is sixteen. She is alone, pregnant, penniless, in the teeming streets of London. Abandoned.

And yet.

Through her intelligence, her beauty and her courage, this young woman will climb every rung of a society that gave her nothing, from dark alleyways to gilded apartments, from highwaymen to courtiers, all the way to the bed of King Charles II himself. Favourite of the Merry King. The highest position a woman could hope for in the England of her time.

She lives through the Great Plague. The Great Fire of London. Betrayals, passions, conquests. She accumulates lovers with sovereign nonchalance: "Adultery is not a crime, it is an entertainment," she murmurs.

But deep in her heart, through all her adventures and all her ordeals, Amber remains faithful to one man. The one she truly loves. The one she can never have.

Extrait de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

A love story like almost none other.

An Italian friend, a redhead from Tuscany, meets an Indian prince in New York, a man of rare beauty and elegance, yet of a disarming simplicity. The spark is immediate, absolute. Except that his family had arranged his marriage to a princess since childhood. An Italian wife was out of the question.

But love resists. It grows stronger under pressure, as only true love knows how. The family eventually relents. Three receptions are organised — New York, Paris, India. Louison is invited to the Parisian wedding.

A fairy tale evening. Bollywood performances, sumptuous evening gowns, colours spilling out everywhere. And unforgettable scents — saffron above all, permeating every dish at dinner. Rice with vanilla and saffron. That warm, spiced, enveloping fragrance, mingling with jasmine flowers, the sound of sitars and the laughter of guests.

It is this scent that Louison carries home with him. The scent of an evening where love won.

The prince and princess live today between New York and India, surrounded by their children. To the great joy of parents who finally understood that love knows no borders.

Scented Candle — Weight: 220g / 7.76oz — 100% soy wax — Burn time: 55 to 60 hours — Made in France in our atelier.