Fils de joie

Serge Lutens shines through his inventiveness and his demanding standards. For him, a perfume does not reside in the assembly of a list of ingredients, but in an experience, a sensibility. It is precisely into his own story that the fragrance Fils de Joie immerses us. Between doubt, fragility and joy, it represents a moment of his own life and takes us to the north of France, the region where he spent most of his childhood.

Fils de Joie, or the childhood of Serge Lutens

Fils de Joie is a perfume from the Collection Noire, which takes us back into the creator's own history. Gems, life, mourning, character traits, vices or flaws, which facets of ourselves shall we make shine? This is the question that Serge Lutens answers in each of his perfumes from the Collection Noire. Here, it is rather the early years of his life that are in question. As a reminder, Serge Lutens was born in Lille during the Second World War. Forever tormented by his mother's abandonment, he recalls his early years spent in the antechamber of a bar in the North. Fils de Joie is described as a sensual creation that immerses us in the surreal atmosphere of a bar in the North experienced through a child's eyes. The result is a nocturnal juice that nonetheless radiates light, between joy and torment. Of course, staying true to tradition, and like all of the creator's perfumes, Fils de Joie by Serge Lutens comes with an enigmatic quotation: Laughter waits, a sentence, a word, a situation, in order to declare itself. It can burst out or be smothered by the hand that hides it, but if it is genuine, it cannot be held back. On skin, its note is a daughter of shadow but, paradoxically, it illuminates! […] The laughter of the disenchanted is the laughter that bursts out for no reason from the fils de joie. As a child, in the shadows, he learned its intoxication, its tears and its illusions. Today, he gives us back its light in a splendid scent of mesk-ellil.

Fils de Joie by Serge Lutens, a jasmine-driven and luminous perfume

Like all the perfumes in the Collection Noire, Fils de Joie by Serge Lutens comes in a case of clear glass, stretching skyward with elegance and refinement. Here, it is wrapped in a black and red label, while being topped by a small black ball-shaped cap. On the scent side, it is characterized by a luminous floral breath. The jasmine is rich with many facets. It is at once animalic, spicy and sun-kissed. In contact with the ylang-ylang, it becomes more green and narcotic. The musk, for its part, gives it a more animalic and seductive dimension. Finally, a powdery linden blossom is added to the whole to develop the more carnal side of this composition.