Coty has a lot to answer for. They managed to cancel the greatest legacy in the history of fragrance: Chypre, Emeraude, La Rose Jacqueminot, Ambre Antique, L’Origan, etc., all inherited from their genius founder, François Spoturno, a.k.a. Coty. Then they spent the last few decades giving us the pleasant but inconsequential Vanilla Musk and an ocean of celebrity fragrances. Last year I encountered some of their Infiniment line in Liberty’s excellent perfume basement but could not form an impression because my nose was already tired, and there was too much perfume in the air. Now that Luckyscent has sent me eight of their fourteen releases, I have smelled them properly at last.
It took me a while to figure out what they are trying to do, to understand that it was clever, and to conclude that they had achieved it. Suppose you are a major firm trying to reach a youth market that actively dislikes the big, loud, complex perfumes that now smell old and, by inference, cringe. Yet suppose also that the audience has become disenchanted with the widely available £200 “niche” perfumes recommended by TikTok influencers, which just reiterate minimalist clichés that were never all that interesting to start with and are no longer original. This audience is looking for something that actually smells good.
How to achieve new beauty without dated bombast? One way is simplified classicism: perfume structures that worked beautifully in the past, stripped down to their essentials. Now comes the hard part. Bean counters love a short formula, because they assume the bottom line will be cheap. This is where Infiniment Coty has pulled off an unusual trick. When I smelled the top notes of this collection, I was certain the money would run out an hour or so later. I was wrong. These guys smell good the next day, something that can rarely be said of late, at any price.
Art, like engineering, always involves compromise. What is it, then, that you need to give up to make this work? Originality. Most of these compositions do not break new ground in structure, but they make up for that in texture. If I may draw an analogy from recorded sound, these are vinyl perfumes, where you don’t need to constantly fiddle with the volume button. The dynamic range is smaller, but the timbre is more present and satisfying than in digital recordings. Coty has finally done something that deserves to succeed.
For paid subscribers: reviews of Aristochypre, J’ai Trois Amours, Entre Genres, Encore une Fois, Santal a la Vida, Noir Encens, Les Mots Doux and Soleil d’Ikosim.
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