La Fille de Berlin

Serge Lutens launched La Fille de Berlin in early 2013 as a 50 ml eau de parfum, alongside a book of his photographs, Berlin à Paris. Christopher Sheldrake, his longtime accomplice, composed the fragrance.

A thorny rose

The house sketches a woman whose beauty is as talked about as her thorny character, strong-willed and explosive, who will not be taken for a ride. It defines the scent as a spicy rose eau de parfum with a hint of pepper.

Lutens sums her up in a few strokes: she has thorns and won’t be pushed around; she soothes when she can, and rocks and shocks when she wants to. “She’s a girl who goes to extremes,” he says.

Berlin after the war

In January 2013, Lutens told Women’s Wear Daily that the fragrance was about beauty found in darkness, that of the women of postwar Germany who had to rise again. Beauty, he said, is the moment you stride through your own ruins; everyone has their own.

La Fille de Berlin today

La Fille de Berlin now belongs to the Collection noire, the line Lutens wants radical, powerful, and intense, in his own image. The house sells it in refillable 50 or 100 ml bottles and files it among its florals, for women and men alike.