I first smelled Nina Ricci Fille d’Eve on a business trip to Seattle about 10 years ago. Before we left town, a colleague and I stopped by Parfumerie Nasreen and sampled perfumes, none of which I remember at all now. The owner of the shop stopped us as we left. She pulled a small, apple-shaped bottle from a high shelf behind the cash register and asked if I’d like to try it. “This is very special. Fille d’Eve,” she said and held the bottle as if she were presenting it at a game show.
Eve’s daughter. How could I resist trying a fragrance with a name like that? She dabbed a bit on my wrist, and I asked the price. It was something exorbitant, so I left without giving it more than a cursory sniff. Half an hour out of town I sniffed my wrist again. It smelled not quite clean. Not dirty as in body odor, but like an accumulation of skin oil. Not pretty, really, but intriguing.
Over the years I’d thought about Fille d’Eve and wished I could smell it again…
