Chypré Extraordinaire

Chypré Extraordinaire is Roja Dove's unabashed love letter to the grand chypres of mid-century France—those impossibly ornate compositions that piled white florals, animalics, and oakmoss into structures so complex they verged on baroque. The aldehydes crack open with that champagne-fizz sparkle that immediately recalls *Chanel No. 19*, but here they're less austere, softened by a luscious peach-tuberose accord that shouldn't work yet somehow does. This is tuberose stripped of its creamy indoles and threaded through with blackcurrant bud's sharp, cat-pissy greenness, whilst the peach adds an old-lipstick texture that reads more vintage boudoir than farmer's market. The heart is a proper floral pile-up: Grasse jasmine's hay-like richness collides with May rose and ylang ylang, but it's the heliotrope and violet that give this its distinctive powdery haze, like face powder settling on damp skin. Then the base reveals Dove's true intentions—oakmoss and civet form the classic chypre skeleton, but he's bolstered it with cumin's sweat, leather's rasp, and enough patchouli to anchor the whole edifice. The iris adds a rooty, earthy coolness that cuts through the amber and benzoin sweetness. This is for those who find modern "chypres" insipid, who want their florals dirty and their elegance earned through complexity rather than minimalism. Extraordinary feels less like hyperbole and more like simple fact.