Le Jardin de Monsieur Li

Hermès launched Le Jardin de Monsieur Li in March 2015. Jean-Claude Ellena, the house perfumer, signed the fifth fragrance in the Jardins series, presented at the time as the last, after Un Jardin en Méditerranée in 2003, Un Jardin sur le Nil, Un Jardin après la Mousson and Un Jardin sur le Toit.

The house describes it as a Chinese garden between reality and imagination, a place of meditation where strolling goes hand in hand with thought. Ellena says he remembered ponds, jasmine, wet stones, plum trees, kumquats, giant bamboo and even hundred-year-old carp.

An imaginary garden

Monsieur Li does not exist: Persolaise points out that the garden’s owner is a fiction, and that the title, the only one in the series with the definite article, names the garden rather than a garden. At the Paris launch, Ellena considered it more abstract than Un Jardin en Méditerranée.

The eau de toilette came out in 50 and 100 milliliters. The house now also offers it in 30 milliliters, with a 200 milliliter refill, and describes it as a fresh and delicate emotion.