Vol de Nuit: Mystery envelops the sensualities of Jacques Guerlain's perfume. Coming out of the First World War, France set out to conquer still-remote lands thanks to flying adventurers, men and women alike.
Since the founding of the house of Guerlain in the 19th century, Guerlain perfumers have never ceased to offer fragrant marvels that shake up the classics to deliver the unprecedented. Jacques Guerlain, the house's perfumer in the 20th century and grandson of its founder, was certainly one of the most prolific and innovative creators. The man loved the arts and exotic travel, and each of his perfumes would be imbued with them. Vol de Nuit, composed in 1933, would be an ode to this new adventure that was aviation, but also certainly one of his most accomplished perfumes...
Vol de Nuit, Jacques Guerlain's masterwork paying tribute to Saint-Exupéry's steel wings
The distinctiveness of the Guerlain house, beyond its exceptional longevity and global success, lies in its ability to pass down a love of perfume creation from generation to generation over many decades. Thus Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain opened the first Guerlain boutique in 1828, then Aimé Guerlain and finally Jacques Guerlain each took up this torch while continuing to innovate ever further, carrying Guerlain's values ever higher.
While each Guerlain descendant brought his own personal touch to the prestigious house, Jacques Guerlain was particularly devoted to offering innovative and highly exotic perfumes, most of them inspired by his love of elsewhere, whether elsewhere in literature or an art found through travel. Vol de Nuit, composed by him in 1933, so perfectly represents Jacques Guerlain's taste for elsewhere.
Vol de Nuit was designed to pay tribute to the earliest airplane flights as well as to the perfumer's friend, the famous aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In the end, Vol de Nuit would be one of the perfumer's darkest and most complex perfumes, dedicated to rendering in fragrance form (just as L'Heure Bleue had done before it, announcing the first signs of war) all the trials that aviation pioneers should expect.
Its very assertive personality is not easy to access. To understand it, one must possess a certain olfactory background. I like to say that to discover Vol de Nuit, one must sleep with it! Sylviane Delacourte on Vol de Nuit, Guerlain.
Chiaroscuro accords for a complex and magnificent Vol de Nuit
Jacques Guerlain's fragrances are much more than magnificent perfumes, they whisper stories to us. For Vol de Nuit, it is the dangerous and risky adventures of man against machine; for L'Heure Bleue, the first signs of a world going to war; and finally for Mitsouko, the surges of passion of a doomed woman. Powerful stories that make these three perfumes often considered “sister fragrances.”
Vol de Nuit opens on intense citrus freshness, as if taking flight with the steel giant of the adventurers of the sky. Then at heart, the femininity of Vol de Nuit takes hold with beautiful floral notes of jonquil, jasmine and orange blossom. But galbanum heralds much darker green storms, better transporting us into the intense and sensual woody depths of this extraordinary Vol de Nuit.
Courageous, the perfume VOL DE NUIT is also that; it is the perfume of risk, of dangerous play, full of daring, the perfume of charismatic women. Sylvaine Delacourte on Vol de Nuit by Guerlain.