In Miss Tranchant, I found my fragrance. At first spray, it smells like a stick of Land O’ Lakes marooned on a beach at low tide. Over 10 minutes it mellows into a mesmerizing cloak of spicy vanilla with just a hint of sex-under-a-pier. I’ve received zero compliments on it and two pieces of forceful negative feedback. Miss Tranchant is perfume as not only a personal aesthetic experience but also apparently an indefensible one. The scent is diaphanous, nasty, transformative. I believe it to be a masterpiece.

— Molly Young on the Hilde Soliani fragrance. Read more in The Mad Perfumer of Parma at The New York Times.