Givenchy III was released in 1970 and owes its name to 3 avenue George V, the house's address. Jean-François Latty, Raymond Chaillan and Yolande Jerrold there signed a green chypre led by galbanum. The original formula has been discontinued: what is sold today is the reissue from the Mythiques collection.
A green opening
Aurélien Caillault first describes a hairspray smell, that retro, aldehydic floral atmosphere inherited from N°5 that also reigns over the house's two founding perfumes. The aldehydes open, the green asserts itself.
Galbanum arrives in a rush, softened by lily of the valley and hyacinth. These two flowers give it a springlike moisture instead of the distant coldness the resin often takes on alone. Bergamot and mandarin brighten the opening.
This green resin is the material of the decade. It runs throughout the 1970s, and Givenchy III takes it up just as it becomes the sign of a sharp modernity, opposed to the orientals that would follow.
A rose dusted with talc
According to Aurélien Caillault, the essential happens in the heart: a rose steeped in sap and dusted with talc, its petals leaning toward a pale green close to sepia. Around it, iris, narcissus, carnation, jasmine.
The house, for its part, names only three facets: a hyacinth accord in the top, an iris concrete from Morocco for the heart, a patchouli essence from Indonesia in the base. Three materials named for twenty declared elsewhere.
The base, and oakmoss
Oakmoss, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, myrrh and amber make up the chypre accord. This is where the impression of damp undergrowth that admirers of the old version describe comes from, and the density that the current version has lost.
Oakmoss is precisely what European regulation has restricted. CaFleureBon makes it the cause of the vintage chypre market, where old bottles have sold for five to ten times their original price.