PURPUREUM

FRAGMENTS by NVC

Extrait de Parfum

Clothed in purple is the definition of Purpureum and it's very apt. Signed off by the eccentric and often unexpected Italian perfumer, Cristiano Canali who composed the narcotic narcissus Romanza for Masque perfumes, the honeyed wonder of Bee for Zoologist, the Venetian line, Artimique, and the wondrously atmospheric perfumes for Rubini. Cristiano composes perfumes that knock us off kilter, surprising us with strange combinations and cinematic accords.

Purpureum is an exhilarating perfume, dense and chewy with an atramental swelter layered throughout the midnight hour of swirling coffee, bodycon allure of liquorice and shrubby immortelle. Hints of beeswax, smoked maple and myrrh recall the twisted purple tones in the art of Francis Bacon. The more it flares on skin, becoming incrementally boozier and more insistent, the more epicurean it becomes.

There is a delicate but tactile mood imparted by a confiture of figs, woody rum and bitter cocoa, that ramp up Purpureum from bold disturbance to provocative night. Not limos and paparazzi, but more a bewitching journey in swathes of plum and violet, walking through candle-lit woods to ask questions of an oracle, the inside of the cave studded with glittering amethyst crystals.

An image that the perfume raises over and over is Prince in his dynamic early days with The Revolution. The dirty grind of spicy guitars and throbbing moan of When Doves Cry, a track that has never lost any of its erotic power. The gauzy, mauve-lit bathroom, scattered with purple blooms and the slow-motion flocking of distorted doves scattering across skin and the magnificent abstraction of flesh, heat and shades of Calluna heather. Perfect for Purpureum.

Cristiano Canali and Neela Vermeire have created an electrifying scent that is truly kaleidoscopic, shades of mystic, mysterious purple reflected in an unexpected blend of ravishing materials that work a kind of intense hypnosis.

Composition:

• Black Pepper, Coffee, Fig, Rum
• Immortelle, Magnolia, Liquorice, Cocoa
• Leather, Tobacco, Tonka Bean, Labdanum, Myrrh

Perfumer: Cristiano Canali, 2022

inci list: alcohol denat., parfum (fragrance), aqua (water), benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate, benzyl cinnamate, cinnamal, cinnamyl alcohol, citral, citronellol, coumarin, eugenol, farnesol, geraniol, isoeugenol, limonene, linalool