Un Jardin en Méditerranée

In 2003, the nose offered the market the magnificent Un Jardin en Méditerranée, built around the olfactory sketches of a marvelous Tunisian garden. Between shadow and light, between sea and land, Un Jardin en Méditerranée dazzles us...

Half-shadow, half-sun: Un Jardin en Méditerranée by Hermès

Jean-Claude Ellena had to work from the few words given by Hermès, the house theme in 2003, to guide the inspiration for his new fragrance: the Mediterranean. While he was not yet the official perfumer of the famous house, Jean-Claude Ellena created Un Jardin en Méditerranée in just three days. Three days visiting the secret garden in Tunisia belonging to Hermès's artistic director, and the emotion of a stolen moment... Enough to make aspiring perfumers dream!

During our whole stay, I was looking for an olfactory sign that would evoke the Mediterranean: many scents could express it, orange blossom, sea lily... But none fully satisfied me. It was on the day of our departure, over drinks, that I found it. A young woman, a glass of champagne in hand, picked up a fig leaf from the tray and smelled it with a smile. The fig tree struck me as the obvious answer.1
From this encounter with the fig tree, Jean-Claude Ellena would create an olfactory walk that would become known under the name Un Jardin en Méditerranée. No video advertising for this fine novelty, but visuals in the form of sketches, an imaginary garden where the painter of perfumes depicts his scents to the watercolor artist Aurore de la Morinerie.

Un Jardin en Méditerranée quickly became the best-seller of 2003 and led the Hermès house to want to hire this scent “illusionist” as its official perfumer. The fruitful collaboration between the venerable leather house and Ellena would be highlighted notably by the Les Jardins collection, of which the sublime Jardin en Méditerranée is the first opus.

Un Jardin en Méditerranée, or the garden of wonders with woody, aromatic and fruity notes

The precious and sober bottle of Un Jardin en Méditerranée aims to be “a bottle of water and sun, the mythical couple of the Mediterranean” according to Hermès. The glass is thus tinted azure blue to better blend with the sandy color at the top of the bottle. Even the bottle's glass displays the fine contrasts of Jean-Claude Ellena's fragrance!

One enters with delight into this Jardin en Méditerranée with sparkling, very green notes of bergamot mixed with sweet and sugary orange blossom. We are carried away by a fresh eucalyptus heart that highlights the green facets of fig, the heroine of the fragrance, and of aromatic laurel. As for rose, it brings its precious delicacy to the milky facets of fig. Cedar supports the freshness of shade with the soft, enveloping depths of white musks.

The very first collaboration between Hermès and Jean-Claude Ellena, Un Jardin en Méditerranée presents itself as a painting of scents. According to the nose behind the creation, Un Jardin en Méditerranée expresses a scented expression of a Mediterranean memory, a mosaic of olfactory, visual, and tactile sensations. Bon voyage!