OAK TREE | 许拍

Limited Edition Eau de Parfum

"Trees are the silent observers of civilization."

Oak Tree is a collaboration between Aromag and the HYLLA Hotel in Lijiang, which lies at the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Yunnan Province. Founded the same year as Aromag, HYLLA is a design hotel grounded in Eastern philosophy, preserving the wood-and-stone architecture of traditional Naxi buildings while curating vintage furniture, rare books and artworks from across centuries. The hotel has preserved 90% of its native forest landscape.

At the centre of HYLLA's gardens stands a century-old oak tree named Xu Pai, which carries the blessings of the local Naxi culture and serves as the heart of the hotel's relationship with time, place and the natural world. As part of a stay at HYLLA, guests can participate in Dawn Rituals, an early morning observance of writing letters to the future under the benevolence of the oaken branches.

Oak Tree is a study of Xu Pai's place in the landscape and its continuing symbolic resonance, part of Aromag's Long Ballad Collection: a series of collaborative fragrances inspired by Li Bai's poems celebrating friendship across time and distance.

Perfumer Frank Voelkl has built the composition from natural woods and resins sourced from across the world. Smoky guaiac wood from Paraguay and a modern iteration of inky Macedonian oakmoss bring deep, earthy forest atmosphere. Somali frankincense and Indonesian gurjun balsam provide cold resin notes carrying a hint of snow-capped mountain air.

At the heart of the base is Firmenich's exclusive Labdanum Vulcain from Spain, extracted using a heat-melting technique that intensifies the resin into something darker, warmer, smokier, with the depth of aged leather.

Oak Tree feels ephemeral, a ghost wood, but do not get lulled into any dismissive mood. The perfume has been blended with consummate skill to wear and live in like a talisman. While there is a whisper of structure, Oak Tree is more a mood, an instinctual offering of calm contemplation, a momentary oasis of stillness and surrender to our overworked senses.

Oak Tree has an aura of hushed power, a portrait of a man-made landscape surrounding an ancient living thing that has stood for centuries, watching our world go raucously by.

Composition:

• Spanish Cypress*, Somali Olibanum (SFE)
• Macedonian Oakmoss*, Indonesian Gurjun Balsam*, Paraguayan Guaiac Wood*
• Spanish Labdanum (Vulcain)*

The ingredients marked with an asterisk are natural materials. SFE stands for Super Fluid Extraction, indicating that the natural ingredients are extracted using supercritical fluid extraction technology.

Perfumer: Frank Voelkl, 2024