And I had told them about one particular scent from my childhood…I remember there was a tree, and at night, when that tree was in bloom, you could smell it for blocks and blocks and blocks. And I said, ‘I don’t know what the real name of the tree is, but as children we used to call it ylang-ylang.’ And the perfumers laughed and said that is, in fact, the actual name! [...] So when I had all these bottles in front of me, I started to smell each one…until I got to the ylang-ylang, and I knew it immediately. And just because of that smell I started to remember things about my childhood that I had completely forgotten.

— Oscar de la Renta, talking about the development of his first fragrance, 1977's Oscar. Read more at Oscar de la Renta On Fragrance and Memory at Style.com.