(What I smell like)
Sycomore, eau de toilette – is the work of Jacques Polge and Christopher Shedrake who wanted to recreate a 1930s formula by Ernest Beaux, Chanel’s original in-house perfumer. Polge is a modern perfume legend with over 30 years of experience with Chanel. Sheldrake returned to the luxury fashion house in 2005 after 22 years at Quest and now reports to Polge as the Director of Research & Development. Sycomore is a great collaboration between these two perfumers.
Dear Rodolphe gifted it to me as a birthday present in 2015.
This was a few weeks after coming back from my New-Zealand hiatus in Paris. My friend had the utter generosity to host me in the midst of his frenzic model agent life during Paris fashion weeks, while I had just started a new job at Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store. Despite the highlife and flirting with burnouts, one evening after work he found time to give me a warm B-day welcome with a table full of a Mediterranean finger foods mix that he ornamented with his favorite lilies and white candles. He remembered I was very fond of the fragrance and had placed the tiny yet elegant white-flower-tagged Chanel shopping bag on the couch. Since then I consider Sycomore my signature perfume.
The scent is built around smoky Haitian vetiver (known for its smoky earthiness, subtly dashed with spices), and evokes a soft pepper & vanilla print with cedar notes, displaying a subtle balance of earth and air. Its understated style that sways between strength and flexibility hacked me upon it immediately. Chanel named it after a monumental tree from eastern and central United States, extreme southern Ontario and the mountains of northeastern Mexico : The Sycamore tree.
thetwan.co 