As I mentioned in my last post, I missed meeting Carlos
Huber, the mind behind Arquiste, at the Elements Showcase in January.
Thankfully I had a second chance this week at Aedes de Venustas, which held a
reception for Carlos to celebrate Arquiste’s launch at the store. Upon
introducing myself, I immediately dragged Carlos into a conversation about L’Etrog, which, while far from the most
outspoken of the Arquiste range, is hands-down the most interesting to me, both
as a variation of the geo-historical Arquiste concept and also as a fragrance
unto itself.
For the majority of the Arquiste perfumes, Carlos started
with a very specific point in time and place: a 17th century convent
in Mexico City (Anima Dulcis); the January
morning of Pushkin’s final duel in St. Petersburg, 1837 (Aleksandr); the first meeting of Louis XIV and the Spanish Infanta
in the Basque region, 1660 (Infanta en
Flor and Fleur de Louis). With L’Etrog, however, it began with the
exploration of the prized citrus for which the scent is named (Etrog is the
Hebrew word for the citron fruit, or cedrat in
French). Citron was first brought to Carlos’s attention by two friends who are
landscape architects with vast botanical knowledge. From there his research led
him to the Italian region of Calabria, the site of the earliest Jewish
settlements in Italy, which are credited with introducing citron cultivation to
the region.
Serendipitously, Carlos didn’t have to look far to find
the complementary structure for his citron-focused fragrance. He simply drew from
the fruit’s religious significance as a component of the mitzvah of the “Four
Species,” performed daily during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The ritual
involves holding the etrog together
with the lulav (a closed date palm
frond), the hadass (a bough of myrtle
leaves) and the aravah (a willow
branch) and waving the four species in the air during a blessing.
For Carlos, the four species also amounted to a
sophisticated aromatic profile, and in the skilled hands of Yann Vasnier and
Rodrigo Flores-Roux, L’Etrog
essentially became an olfactory painting of an ancient religious ritual. The
bright, clear citron and minty, herbaceous myrtle notes combine in perhaps the
best citrus opening I’ve experienced in the past year. For the date palm
component, the perfumers used the fruit of the tree, which appears as a mild
and velvety sweetness as the fragrance develops, extended by a touch of jasmine. The date is among the notes
that save L’Etrog from falling into
the increasingly static and formulaic Eau de Cologne genre (in which Chanel
takes the blue ribbon, end-of-story), steering the scent instead towards
something like the “cologne absolue” concept that Atelier Cologne has made
quite successful. In fact, in its contrasting sharp green and soft, mossy-woody
aspects, L’Etrog reminds me a bit of Trefle Pur, without the patchouli.
Impressively, most of the essences selected for L’Etrog are produced in the southern
Mediterranean region that inspired it. The citron essence itself comes from a
Calabrian producer who still cultivates some of his crop according to kosher
standards, for use as etrogs by
rabbis. It’s bolstered by Calabrian bergamot and Sicilian lemon; the date is
Turkish; Mediterranean pistachio tree and Lebanese cedar stand in for the
willow (which does not offer up a natural essence) and also evoke the sukkah, the rudimentary wooden structure
around which the Sukkot holiday revolves. The only exception is vetiver, which
adds a welcome earthiness in the fragrance’s later stages.
While all of the Arquiste scents achieve an enviable
level of quality, refinement and thoughtfulness of composition, something about
L’Etrog sets it apart to my nose. It
certainly lacks the spectacle of Flor y Canto’s
Aztec festival, the regal stature of Fleur
de Louis and Infanta en Flor, and
the utter romance of Aleksandr. But
it makes up for a lack of flair with a simplicity that escapes the others; it’s
the humble beauty that doesn’t know quite how beautiful it is.
Many thanks to Sr. Huber and the good people at Aedes de
Venustas for the opportunity to learn more about this work of art (and for the
prosecco).
L’Etrog is
available at Aedes, $165 for 50 ml.
