The last time I attended the entire New York Fashion Week there was a designer who left an impression, Tadashi Shoji. What had so impressed me was he had lived up to the concept so many fashion designers aspire to. When you hear anyone in fashion talk they will enthuse about the “flow” within their collection. What made me laugh at that is so few of them achieve that. It is so infrequent, that it captures my full attention when it happens. When I was sitting in the audience for the Tadashi Shoji Fall 2012 show I saw “flow”. The designs formed a coherent whole while building upon each design that came before. Fabric and detail moved sinuously around the models. Ever since Mr. Shoji has been all about this ability to create that effect year after year. When I was contacted by the team behind the new Tadashi Shoji Eau de Rose I wondered if “flow” could be translated to fragrance.
Tadashi Shoji Fall 2017
Mr. Shoji assembled an experienced team for his first fragrance. Help with creative direction came from Ruth Sutcliffe and John Bonifacio who worked with two perfumers; Jacques Chabert and Nathalie Koobus.
Tadashi Shoji
I must say I was a bit underwhelmed while waiting for my sample to arrive because here was another rose perfume headed my way. What made me enjoy Eau de Rose was that this creative team somehow lost the memo that spring rose perfumes must be dewy debutante-like rose. Eau de Rose is a different take finding that debutante grown up with some more experience. Another thing about the mediocre spring rose fragrances is they leave out all the other scents of spring. Eau de Rose begins with rhubarb one of the earliest harvests in a spring garden before opening with that debutante rose but maturing it with rose absolute to create something different than the other spring roses.
Ruth Sutcliffe
Eau de Rose is all about the rhubarb in the early moments. The perfumers make a choice to accentuate the raw earthy quality of the rhubarb by allowing the sulphurous nature of grapefruit and blackcurrant bud to provide the turned earth component. This is the early harvest of the raised bed garden next to the rose bush. The heart is that innocent debutante rose playing with her usual sisters of jasmine and muguet. If it had stayed like this I would have yawned but this is where the flow comes in. The perfumers use osmanthus to begin the transition from fresh dewy rose into a mature experienced version. The rose absolute used in the base accord is rich with a spicy heart to it. This allows for swirls of incense along with earthy patchouli to bring Eau de Rose full circle back to the early moments.
Eau de Rose has 10-12 hour longevity and moderate sillage.
Eau de Rose succeeds where so many others fall apart because the creative team could establish the same kind of flow in the perfume that is evident in Mr. Shoji’s fashion designs.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Tadashi Shoji.
–Mark Behnke
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