As I received my many new spring rose releases for this year I kept waiting for the ones which applied some of the assumptions about what millennials want in their fragrance. If I was to summarize the perfume brands collected wisdom for what this new generation of perfume lovers desires it would be: transparent, gourmand, and floral. If you had asked me in January what would be hitting my mailbox I would have placed a large bet on transparent candied roses. Thankfully there are no bookmakers accepting bets on such speculation for I would have lost. As I look back over the samples received only one fit my description, Mademoiselle Rochas.
Rochas, as a brand, is sort of the aging dowager of perfumery. The brand which was founded with the great masterpiece Femme in 1944 has irregularly built on that auspicious beginning. My collection of discontinued Rochas fragrances is one of those which is its own museum of greatest perfumers ever. When they hired Jean-Michel Duriez as in-house perfumer I hoped for a renaissance but that never materialized. With his departure in 2014 it seems like Rochas has set its sights on this younger fragrance consumer. Both 2016 releases seemed designed to appeal to that demographic. That made it unsurprising that their spring rose perfume would also go there.
Anne Flipo
Mademoiselle Rochas was composed by perfumer Anne Flipo. The model for the mademoiselle Mme Flipo would use as a brief is a modern-day Parisienne. She is described like this in the press materials, “Frenchic”. Which I guess translates to transparent gourmand rose.
Mme Flipo opens with a cleverly assembled candy apple accord. Combining blackcurrant buds, red currants, and blackberries it all forms a hard-red sugared shell over crisp fruitiness. If there is anything I am enjoying about this presumed preference for sweet gourmands is perfumers are producing some interesting accords. This is one of them. The floral heart is less imaginative as rose de mai, jasmine, and violet form an opaque floral heart. It is serviceable and kept on the light side. The base is a mixture of clean white musks some sweet sandalwood and a modest ambergris.
Mademoiselle Rochas has 12-14 hour longevity and moderate sillage.
I am interested to see how well Mademoiselle Rochas connects with their target audience. I would be happy to have next spring’s rose fragrances have a gourmand twist. It does make it seem less trite. If you’re looking for a millennial spring rose for 2017 that is what Mademoiselle Rochas delivers.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample provided by Rochas.
–Mark Behnke
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