BALENCIAGA @ FLORABOTANICA New Fragrance

Balenciaga new fragrance FLORABOTANICA is a fragrance as astonishing as its design, a total sensory experience that its creator, the designer Nicolas Ghesquière. The inspiration involved exposing the floral world to the vocabulary of perfumery, to almost scientific experiments, to create an unprecedented object in terms of smell and sight. Combining the fantastical and ultra-contemporary aspects of the Balenciaga brand. “ There is a real duality in Balenciaga, between classicism and experimentation. For this new fragrance, I wanted to explore this paradox between the pure and the enigmatic further. A few years ago, I designed this ‘floral collection’. The dresses were covered with flowers, but these flowers were neither charming nor romantic. They structured the whole silhouette. I wanted the flowers in this perfume to express the same idea.” Said Nicolas Ghesquière.

It is a secret garden where you find surprising flowers that surpass the imagination. They are beautiful. Flowers can be cruel, carnivorous or venomous, contain poisons. What would a perfume that contained the charm and mystery of flowers be like? This is the story that we wanted to tell with FLORABOTANICA. The Vetiver, Amber and Caladium Leaf accord to create a resonance of mossy and mysterious dark wood. And the Rose, Carnation and Mint accord like an exhilarating note with juvenile freshness. It should be specified that we are not talking about those extremely well-known roses from the Vulgaris Rosacea family. It is a hybrid rose born of the olfactory imagination of our two orchestrators. We cannot reveal all the secrets of these two floral alchemists, but the Experimental Rose finds its origin in opulent Turkey. To give it a fairytale air, the two perfumers have added a formula of psychosensory plants making it particularly enchanting. This Experimental Rose has the power to endlessly charm. At first glance, it is a very floral, almost romantic composition. But on closer inspection, a stronger and more obscure character can be discerned. It is a perfume that I like to think of as tender and dangerous. An enchanting and provocative scent.”