Yellow mandarin, ginger, pumpkin accord, immortelle, Moroccan neroli, rose de Grasse, vetiver, heliotrope, and musk. These are the notes of Like This, the latest fragrance from Etat Libre d’Orange. Sounds like a train wreck, doesn’t it? It’s not. Like a vintage Harris tweed woven with threads of pea green, turquoise, putty, and aubergine, it sounds scary but makes a gorgeous blend: untraditional, yet natural — even inevitable — once you experience it.

Inspired by Tilda Swinton and a poem from Rumi, perfumer Mathilde Bijaoui created Like This. Both Swinton and Rumi set a mighty high bar. The Rumi poem talks about the Resurrection and the fragrance of God, as well as relatively minor things like the sky and love. He is such a popular poet and philosopher that quotes from his work probably show up more often than anyone else’s as part of the automatic signature line on emails. Swinton has blazed a singular artistic path of intelligence, sensitivity, and almost extraterrestrial beauty. (April is National Poetry Month. Do yourself a favor and click over to the Etat Libre d’Orange website to hear Swinton read the Rumi poem.)

I imagine Bijaoui looking at the Etat Libre brief, trying to come up with some common theme between the redheaded Swinton and Rumi and hitting on Orange. Orange hair, the orange of the sun, saffron monastic robes, fading day. Then, with this visual inspiration she found a way to connect orange scents: pumpkin, neroli, mandarin, immortelle, and ginger. The crazy thing is, it works…

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