Of the Big 3 Japanese design houses with perfume lines — Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake — it’s Miyake’s fragrances that have interested me the least (with one big exception, Feu d’Issey, and a smaller exception, a scent by issey miyake). Miyake’s most famous perfumes, L’Eau d’Issey and L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme, spawned almost-countless imitators, and the two “origin” perfumes today smell like caricatures of “fresh” fragrances (plenty of cleaning products smell like them, cleaning products you can buy at Target). Still, I approached the new Nuit d’Issey1 with an open mind (and nostrils).
Nuit d’Issey starts with greenish citrus (I smell mostly grapefruit) with a sweet-spice accord…
