Song for a Queen

Song for a Queen is the house's tribute to Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin and Maria Callas, and it goes about that with the kind of warm theatricality the reference deserves. Jasmine and orange blossom open it, bright and full, with bergamot lending a brief citrus sparkle before the white flowers take over. The heart is what makes it distinctive. Heliotrope brings a soft, almond and marzipan creaminess that sits somewhere between powder and pastry, and osmanthus adds an apricot leatheriness with a faintly animalic edge, so the sweetness never turns innocent. The house describes that white floral heart as falsely innocent, which is a fair reading of how it wears. The base is rich and enveloping: black Madagascan vanilla is the anchor, deep and slightly smoky rather than sugary, with cashmere wood providing a soft powdery woodiness, benzoin adding balsamic warmth, and white musks smoothing the whole thing into skin. Performance is very good, with eight hours or more typical and a warm trail that stays noticeable well into a night out. It belongs to autumn and winter, and it wants an occasion: dinner, a concert, an event, anything formal. The lane is classic French floral oriental, closer to the vanilla and white flower territory of houses like Guerlain than to anything minimal. Note that the 100ml is frequently out of stock on the brand's own site.