Mal-Aimé: The new fragrance from Parfum d’Empire. Usually, perfumes pay tribute to the noblest raw materials on the planet. Perfumers work to combine rare woods, precious flower essences or spices from all four corners of the globe.
In 2021, the creator Marc-Antoine Corticchiato decided to enrich his Héritage Corse collection with a new, quite surprising fragrance. Like all the compositions in this collection, the Mal-Aimé fragrance draws inspiration from the odorous plants of Corsica. Here, it evokes nature and one of the plants very present in the maquis: inula. Considered a weed, its small yellow flowers regain here all their nobility, giving rise to a sun-kissed, musky and woody fragrance. As for the bottle, however, Parfum d’Empire favors restraint. Its bottle is shared across the entire Héritage Corse collection.
A cylindrical and understated bottle
Like all fragrances from the house Parfum d’Empire, Mal-Aimé comes in a bottle stripped of anything superfluous. With it, restraint dominates. No unnecessary flourish is present, and its visual keeps to the essential. Thus, Mal-Aimé is aimed at everyone, men and women alike, across all generations. It is designed to stand the test of time without ever going out of style, forever inscribing itself in the history of perfumery. The cylindrical shape offers a perfect grip. This is omnipresent, both at its base and at its cap. Its glass is as smooth as it is sturdy, a mark of its overall quality.
Mal-Aimé, a herbaceous perfume in a lovely green color
As a reminder, Mal-Aimé is a perfume that primarily contains inula, a weed. As a result, it gives off a very herbaceous breath, and this is felt as soon as its visual appears. To evoke this very natural aspect, Marc-Antoine Corticchiato chose to cover the entire bottle in a green color. This appears not only in its juice but also on its cap and on its label. Several shades of green are combined here. Its cap is lighter than the label bearing its name, giving rise to an appealing tonal gradient.
The evocation of a Genoese tower from the Renaissance
Unlike other bottles in the Parfum d’Empire collection, the glass of Mal-Aimé is covered with a few motifs, forming a design made of a single continuous line. Behind an abstract appearance, this line traces a stylized Genoese tower, like the many towers present in Corsica since the Renaissance. This is also drawn on the label of the perfume Mal-Aimé. Furthermore, the box containing this bottle takes up the same idea, drawing inspiration from stone walls, depicted on embossed paper.
The laurels, signature of the house Parfum d’Empire
Finally, as on all bottles from the house Parfum d’Empire, laurels are present. These are engraved directly at the top of this bottle. Of course, this shape was not chosen by chance. A true symbol of the house, laurels are evocative of the Empire. With Parfum d’Empire, I wanted to reconnect with the primary meaning of perfume, explains Marc-Antoine Corticchiato, the one found in every culture: eroticism and the sacred. The result is noble and commanding perfumes, containing raw materials that are often very bold. Embodying conquests and conviction, the fragrances of Parfum d’Empire are synonymous with glory. And in the time of the Empire, laurels also evoked victory… A whole symbol!