Saskia Havekes, who owns and runs Grandiflora, apparently a posh Sydney florist, is clearly a born perfumery art director. She employs perfumers of the first rank, like Christophe Laudamiel, Bertrand Duchaufour, and Michel Roudnitska, and gives them both the goal and the means to achieve it. The results (see below) are sometimes hyperrealist, sometimes more abstract, but always impressive. It is not entirely clear to me how the loveliness she has conjured up works when worn on a person, but I’d love to see it in action.
A florist with a good nose is likely to be a good judge of the uncanny valley that lies between the smell of a flower and a perfume that represents it. Soliflores are a weird, pseudo-natural art form, predicated on the fact that plant extracts never smell the same as the live plant. I recently posted a review of Saskia, Grandiflora’s gardenia, which was jaw-droppingly good. I find it both wonderful and humbling that such a marvel composed in 2021 by a perfumer I know well should have escaped my notice so long. It is good to think that unlike classical music, where one’s search for an unknown masterpiece usually turns up second-rate stuff, perfumery is still full of hidden marvels while new ones are created all the time.
For paid subscribers, reviews of Magnolia Sandrine, Magnolia Michel, Madagascan Jasmine, Boronia, Queen of the Night and Sakura.
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