Hermès is a prestige house with a distinctive perfumery. It offers numerous unisex fragrances very often revolving around the world of horseback riding, a domain of predilection for the Hermès family.
While Jean-Claude Ellena has been the official perfumer of the great house of Hermès since 2004, he chose Christine Nagel as his heir to this coveted position. After a very fruitful collaboration, Christine Nagel took her place at Hermès and presented her very first perfume in 2016: Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate. A true declaration of freedom and conviction, the beautiful scarlet red water marks a new era for the house of Hermès.
Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate, or the symbol of Christine Nagel's arrival at Hermès
Few perfumers work as a house's official perfumer. There is of course Jacques Polge then Olivier Polge for Chanel, François Demachy for Dior, but also Jean-Claude Ellena for Hermès. Until 2016, that is, there was Jean-Claude Ellena for Hermès… For the great “watercolorist” of perfumery wished to leave, and had even chosen his successor as early as 2014: Catherine Nagel. Finally, a woman as official perfumer! In 2016, after having worked alongside Jean-Claude Ellena for two years, the fine lady of perfumery thus became the house perfumer of Hermès.
Clearly, Catherine Nagel would impose her style, steeped in boldness and freedom, on the venerable house that has always favored creative freedom over marketing realities. And that suits well, for Jean-Claude Ellena and Catherine Nagel, though very different, both create only in absolute freedom!
And so Catherine Nagel would go on to present her very first house perfume in the lovely bottle of Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate. The perfume is surprising, and the entirely new style is a complete break from the master Ellena, and yet Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate charms and captivates, so much do its scents burst with gourmand character.
Catherine Nagel, for Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate, stated to L'Express that she wanted to bring something new to freshness, without resorting to citrus and the typical citrus notes of Cologne. Fairly quickly, she thought of rhubarb, which she adores.
Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate, or Hermès's gourmand eau de Cologne
With Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate, Catherine Nagel embodies a genuine shift in the house of Hermès's approach to perfume creation. For the perfumer does not merely work rhubarb's gourmand facets, she has made it come alive as though it could be tasted as much with the nose as with the lips.
The perfumer also confided that she was particularly influenced by the art of cooking in her compositional work: these two worlds feed each other. A chef and a nose share a certain vision of aesthetics, and each works with their own ingredients, said Catherine Nagel for Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate, to L'Express.
Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate will therefore not be merely a fruity, sweet perfume of blackcurrant or raspberry and of course rhubarb. It is also meant to be very green, thanks to its citrus notes and rhubarb's green facets, but also rather musky in its depths of white musks and solar notes.
As for the Hermès spirit, deeply attached to fine raw materials, it comes through primarily in the composition of Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate with the choice, for instance, of a lantana, a rare little tropical flower that brings its tart scent to the heart of the perfume.