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FROM THE EXPERTS

Vivienne Westwood is inspired by the storybook Alice

The heroine of Lewis Caroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ off... Go


 



  
A Day in a Life with…

Roadster by CARTIER

 

From name to bottle

A classy, sporty convertible, speed and the wind in your hair, plus a shiny, "state-of-the-art" vehicle... That’s what comes to mind when you hear the word Roadster. Familiar to Cartier fans, in the house’s vocabulary it already refers to a watch model, from which several of the design elements were borrowed: the “winding knob” cabochon cap, the play of polished or satin-finished chrome decoration. Another house trademark: the item’s weight – and it is a real heavyweight! Thick, sturdy glass, chrome-sheathed cap and precision mechanism, if you’re looking for a blunt object, look no further!
For that is another aspect of luxury, a certain “weightiness”; the reassuringly hushed sound of a cap that’s adjusted to within a fraction of an inch around the buse of the spray mechanism... Brutes need not apply! Handle with care if you don’t want to throw it out of alignment. Indeed, it even says so on the inside cover of the chic, matte-black-lined flannel-gray box. Nothing flashy, mind you, but watch out for those imperceptible status symbols. A series of details that, altogether, make this roadster more like one of those curvaceous cars from the 50s than a demolition derby sedan...



 

From bottle to trail
Pschittttttt !
We were expecting 0 to 60 in next to no time flat, but this is practically a rocket ship taking off under our nose. There are UFOs in the air. Fresh, cool, soft, sharp, effervescent… no two ways about it, Roadster put a tiger in its tank, and a wild one at that. You do notice the announced “fougere” architecture: citrus opening boosted with ozone plays bergamot’s part, chiseled patchouli for the wood, and a well-bred vanilla takes over for the coumarin note. With a duo of unexpected mints guest-starring in lavender’s role, the inventory of fougere style is complete. Yet the effect is no less intriguing. For this mint accord has a rakish charm! Something wild, like a road trip, and mysterious, like a familiar landmark whose olfactory grammar has been redefined. Neither chewing gum, nor herbal tea; neither crème de menthe nor after-dinner mint, this mint has ardent and powerful aromas, but no culinary reference points. With the aromatic freshness of a frosty, almost mineral spice, it revisits a flavor that has been exhausted with overuse, the better to offer us waves of a new, molecular-gastronomy-style scent. Renewing the fougere concept has been pulled off with style, even if you can already hear some parties pooh-poohing the achievement. It’s not the first time mint has been used in fragrance – obviously. Some people will call the smell “segmenting” or experimental, or even say the composition is improbable... But at least it takes a stand and provides a recognizable signature in a season full of déjà vu all over again.
That Cartier, the VIP jeweler-perfumer, would create and flaunt a design like this is quite a thrill. Proof positive that between today’s “masstige” market (cross between prestige and mass-market) and the rich and famous niche, there are still roads less traveled to explore... Hurray!

 

  
 

 



In a nutshell

Name: Roadster
Brand: CARTIER
Size(s), price(s): Eau de Toilette Spray 1.7 oz. (euros50) and 3.4 oz. (euros71.50) + full range.
Concentration: Eau de Toilette
Gender: Masculine but won’t put hair on our chest, it could be appropriated by women, if only for its intriguing freshness and its fairly unusual style. 

“Official” olfactory family: Fougere
Perceived olfactory family: Frosted-mint fougere! 
For whom: Modern-day aesthetes, nouveaux dandies, 21st-century amazons et al.

  
Sex-appeal factor: between 7 and 9 if new thrills are what turn you on… I let my cat smell it and he licked my arm in approval: that hardly ever happens!
Evolution: Fresh and thirst-quenching to begin with, Roadster soon flaunts other assets. A hint of something aromatic, the warmth of vanilla paired with the cool freshness of patchouli, lush woods… the scent evolves smoothly towards a thoroughbred, homogenous signature.
Long-lastingness: The initial vigor could have heralded an equally vertiginous drop in power. But that is not the case. While the trail does undeniably lighten up, it keeps a strong personality and is still noticeable several hours later.


  
 
Innovation potential:
    
 

   
 


 




Fabienne ANTONIEWSKI
Fragrance journalist

From marketing to journalism, the world of cosmetics and fragrance has been the common thread in her career for over twenty years.
A frequent contributor to Elle magazine’s ‘Beauté’ column since 1995, she reconnected through her writing with one of her first loves: perfume.
Helping readers smell and dream, inventing new scenarios, putting feelings into words; she aims to evoke the most intimate and emotional facets of a fragrance, the better to resist reducing it to a banal consumer product.
She still considers that defending the artistic side of perfumery and encouraging creativity and the search for meaning and quality is one of the main points of her profession.