Corday
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Chili heat hits first—not culinary, but sharp and almost numbing—immediately seized by myrrh's dusty bitterness and that mysterious grunge element that smells faintly like wet concrete and decaying leaves. Within seconds, clove pierces through like a dental anaesthetic wearing off.
The spice mellows slightly as clove and cinnamon settle into the tobacco's warm, slightly stale leather quality, whilst the tonka bean emerges with faint caramel sweetness that's immediately undercut by hints of fermented, almost putrid depth. Sandalwood acts as a woody spine, keeping everything from dissolving into mere sweetness.
What remains is whisper-thin—mostly sandalwood's creamy dryness and tobacco's ghostly smoke, tonka's final burnt-sugar fade, all rendered increasingly abstract. Within hours, it becomes a barely-there skin scent, ultimately vanishing almost completely.
Fame Corday arrives as a deliberately provocative fragrance that refuses the expected pleasantries of its 1998 vintage. Philippe Romano has constructed something genuinely unsettling here—a spicy choral arrangement where clove and cinnamon don't sweeten but instead corrode, pushed forward by myrrh's medicinal bitterness and that bewildering "grunge" note (likely a synthetic petrichor or damp earth accord) that grounds everything in something decidedly unclean.
This is not comfort. The woody-resinous base—sandalwood meeting tobacco smoke meeting tonka's caramel undertow—creates an almost creeping sensuality, the kind you feel on your neck rather than enjoy in passing. That 52% smoky accord infiltrates everything, transforming what could be a conventional oriental into something closer to sitting in a dimly lit room where someone's been smoking clove cigarettes over burnt sugar and old leather. The heart notes of putrescence (a note that suggests fermented fruits, slight decay, animalic depth) push this further into uncomfortable territory, though not unpleasantly so.
Add fragrances to your collection and unlock your personalised scent DNA, note map, and shareable identity card.
4.0/5 (177)