L'Artisan Parfumeur
Passage d’Enfer
Passage d’Enfer appeared in 1999, composed by Olivia Giacobetti to mark the turn of the millennium. L’Artisan Parfumeur works incense there in chiaroscuro and names it after the alleyway in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris where the house had its offices in the 1970s. A translucent lily and white musks soften the balsamic smoke.
- Brand
- L'Artisan Parfumeur
- Launch year
- 1999
- Perfumer
- Olivia Giacobetti
- Gender
- Unisex
- Olfactory family
- Woody
- Concentration
- Eau de Toilette
Where to buy
L’Artisan Parfumeur launched Passage d’Enfer at the end of 1999. The formula is the work of Olivia Giacobetti, whose mystery and delicacy the house praises.
An alleyway in the fourteenth
The passage d’Enfer is a narrow Paris lane, over towards Denfert-Rochereau. The house had its headquarters there in the 1970s and borrowed the name of the perfume from it. The play on words holds for the street as much as for the crossing between two states.
An eau for the year 2000
The house conceived this eau de toilette to celebrate the passage into the new millennium. Olivia Giacobetti drew there an incense flower worked in transparency, with faintly peppery accents, against the dark incense the name leads one to expect.
From twists of paper to a bottle
Osmoz reports a first sale wrapped in twists of paper. Once success came, the house poured the juice into the bottle of its eaux de toilette and attached it to its Jeux d’Ambre world.
Twenty-two years later
Olivia Giacobetti took up the outline again in 2021 for an Extrême eau de parfum, denser, built on an Asian spider lily. The original of 1999 stayed in the catalogue, redressed the same year.
What the house says today
The French page describes a soft and delicate bouquet of lily, white musk and incense smoke, and ranks the creation among its unisex woodies. It sells for one hundred and seventy euros for one hundred millilitres.
Olfactory pyramid
- Top notesThe first minutes
- Heart notesThe heart of the perfume
- Base notesWhat lingers
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The advertising
No campaign, an illustrated case
The house has never run a campaign for Passage d’Enfer: no face, no film, no named photographer. The 2021 revival bore on the packaging alone.
L’Artisan Parfumeur ran no advertising campaign for Passage d’Enfer. No face, no film, no photographer or art director is named, neither at the release of 1999 nor at the revivals of 2021 and 2022.
What the house showed in 2021 belongs to the packaging: an illustration of the narrow lane of the fourteenth arrondissement, taken up by the case and by the launch visuals. CaFleureBon, which reported on the revival in January 2021, credits these images to the house without further attribution.