Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld
305 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The peach and pineapple burst forth with genuine fruited brightness, a moment of promising simplicity before the rose and freesia introduce something far more perfumery-formal. Within five minutes, you're aware this isn't going anywhere summery—the floral infrastructure is already asserting dominance over the fruit.
A dense, almost cloying floral bouquet establishes itself, dominated by carnation's spiced-clove undertones and the collective sweetness of multiple white florals converging at once. The orris root and heliotrope transform this into something powdery and slightly musty, like walking through a department store's fragrance hall where everything blurs together.
The sandalwood and cedar finally emerge with genuine presence, offering a creamy, slightly woody conclusion that's considerably more pleasant than what preceded it. By hour five, you're left with a soft, amber-musk haze that suggests the fragrance should have committed to this warmer profile from the start.
Sun Moon Stars arrives as a peculiar artefact from the height of '90s maximalism—a fragrance that seems to want everything at once, and in doing so, achieves a rather unsettling discord. Sophia Grojsman's composition is a study in competing densities: the opening volley of peach and pineapple should feel tropical and airy, yet they immediately collide with an almost suffocating floral architecture. Rose and freesia attempt to suggest freshness, but they're smothered beneath the heart's relentless parade of carnation, jasmine, and lily of the valley—a powdery, almost funeral-parlour concentration of florals that lacks any breathing room.
What's most striking is the fragrance's inability to reconcile its tropical fruit ambitions with its stubbornly traditional floral-amber identity. The heliotrope and orris root push it towards talcum-soft territory (that 52% powdery accord is unmistakable), whilst the sandalwood and cedar base attempt to anchor something increasingly abstract. There's no elegance in the transition; instead, you get the sense of a design committee refusing to make decisions, each note fighting for prominence without a guiding philosophy.
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3.9/5 (101)