Forêt de Bellême

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 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

I have always loved the scent of hyacinth. Its intense floral aroma has always captivated me, the deep green of its foliage, the galbanum, the spicy balsamic, honeyed, sometimes powdery.

I took the time to formulate this perfume. A long time. Because I wanted a formula as close to nature as possible. I no longer know how many attempts, reformulations, even when I was close to the goal and could have said to myself: "Okay, we've got it" but I wanted to push it even further, refine it, add facets, reach for perfection.

And then one evening, the idea came. A combination of raw materials from an initial formula and the final formula, to be assembled surgically. When I smelled this last attempt, I immediately understood. It was the one. The final formula.

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

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

There are creatures that know the secret of the depths.

The great marine mammals, the whales, plunge vertically into the abyss of the oceans, where daylight no longer penetrates. They descend far, very far, into that dark and silent world that few dare to explore. Then they rise back up.

But what they rise toward is not simply the surface. It is a clarity of another nature, that of the soul, the spirit, the inner elevation.

Eaux Sombres is the perfume of this perpetual movement, between the depths and the light, between the visible world and the invisible, between what we know and what we sense. This endless quest for transcendence and elevation of the self.

We all have a path of life. Each road leads us to another, sometimes toward the light, sometimes toward the darkness. It is these choices, these symbols and messages written like signs along our road, that make us who we are.

Learning to make our emotions intelligent. The power of positive thinking. Living between the visible and the invisible and perceiving what others cannot see.

Extrait de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

Montmartre. The morning funicular.

A friend of Louison's has just ended her first love after fifteen years together. She is sad, lost, not ready. She boards the funicular each morning as one mounts a scaffold, mechanically, her gaze elsewhere.

But every morning, he is there. A tall, elegant, athletic young man, a Latin from the South of France. He watches her. Sometimes with insistence, sometimes with a gentleness that tells her he has sensed her sadness. She feels his gaze upon her and pretends not to notice.

One morning, she calls Louison to say she will be late for lunch. Her voice is different. "Is everything alright?" asks Louison. "Oh yes," she replies. "I had an erotic dream about the funicular boy!" Louison bursts out laughing: "My dear, your libido is waking up!"

Days pass. Their eyes meet, slowly growing familiar. Her dreams become more and more intense — but she must keep them secret. Her burning secret.

One morning, he moves a little closer. She doesn't dare look at him. They step off the funicular. He has worn so much perfume that she can follow his trail through the streets of Montmartre. She finds him seated at a café terrace.

She approaches. "Good morning... you smell wonderful, but did you spill your bottle on yourself?" He looks up and smiles. "Good morning. Yes, I spilled it on purpose so that you could follow me and we could meet."

They laugh. He invites her to lunch. She accepts. He invites her to dinner. She accepts.

They have been living a great love story ever since. And have two beautiful little girls.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

Built at the edge of the forest, in the heart of the marshes. Adorned with its magnificent, thousand-year-old irises. A green city, with its stone cathedral and its lace town hall. A little Flemish, a little Walloon, always embodying unity, despite everything, despite the others.

Many are the countries that have coveted her, without ever possessing her. For Brussels does not belong to itself, it belongs to the world. One can travel the world in the blink of an eye here. It gathers all nations, welcomes them, absorbs them, and remains itself.

Its borders are so blurred they make the world laugh. Let those who mistake them beware.

Despite your age, you are still as beautiful, my dear.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

Winter 1959. Somewhere in a Parisian hotel.

Just before the screening of Les Chemins de la Haute Ville, Simone Signoret settles into a small, hushed salon, filled with flowers arranged for her. A butler brings her a glass of champagne and marrons glacés, of which she is particularly fond.

A chocolatey, balsamic and oriental confection, glazed, concealing at its heart a vanilla-coconut cream. Those barely perceptible hints of mint leaf, of fig with an addictive sweetness. And the scent of flowers gently perfuming the room.

A suspended moment, intimate and precious, before the lights go down and the film begins.

On the 4th of April 1960, Simone Signoret received the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, becoming the first French actress ever to receive the honour.

Extrait de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

Paris will always be Paris.

Louison spent years cycling through its streets, willingly losing himself in its meanders, discovering at every turn a forgotten facade, a secret courtyard, a café unchanged since the last century. Paris has this unique way of revealing itself to those who take the time to look.

But it is another Paris that inspired Paname Paname, the Paris of the 1920s and 30s, flamboyant and liberating. The Paris of Colette, Camille Claudel, Gabrielle Chanel, Arletty, Joséphine Baker, Kiki de Montparnasse, Édith Piaf. Women of fierce character who claimed their femininity with a capital F, their thirst for independence and equality in a world that denied them both.

Imagine one of them walking into a room. Red lips. Face powdered white. Hair cut short. She knows every eye in the room has turned toward her, and acts as though she hasn't noticed.

She needs no one to exist.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

There are figures in history who seem to have crossed the centuries without ageing.

Hildegard of Bingen is one of them. Born in the 12th century, visionary, poet, musician and herbalist, she is considered today as the first true naturopath and modern phytotherapist. Her astonishing predictions, her avant-garde medicine, her music and her spirituality have left an indelible mark on history. Nine centuries after her death, her teachings remain strikingly relevant.

How could such an extraordinary and richly gifted figure have taken so long to capture the attention of our contemporaries?

Louison discovers her during his perfumery studies, while simultaneously attending evening classes in herbalism and aromatherapy. He has always felt deeply this connection with nature, with plants, and that ancestral instinct that drives us to believe nature offers the remedies humanity needs to heal itself. In Hildegard, he recognises a kindred spirit, a woman who had understood, nine centuries before him, what few then dared to affirm.

Eau de Parfum — 50 ml / 1.69 oz

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