The perfumer who's created world class works for the likes of Comme des Garcons, Karl Lagerfeld, Cartier, Givenchy, Burberry and more has launched his own eponymous line, putting his own name on the label and his own reputation directly on the line.
It's a brave move for a man who's accustomed to ceding praise and reward to the more famous names and faces that front the ad campaigns and sit behind the CEO desks at various luxury design houses.
There are actually very few perfumers who have either the desire, nerve or financial resources to leap off the little fluffy cloud of anonymity to play all the different roles involved in producing a line of fragrances for the commercial market. Yes, the Frederic Malle brand features the names of the actual perfumers on the label, but the top billing goes to Mr. Frederic Malle himself, and he's the one responsible for the look of the packaging, the names of the scents, the interviews with newspapers and magazines, the advertising, fundraising, schmoozing, glad-handing, etc.
People like Frederic Malle, Tom Ford, Olivier Durbano, Serge Lutens -- they handle the business and PR matters while the actual perfumer gets to turn in his handiwork and walk away, free from the financing & marketing end of the equation. It's not just anyone who can wear all those hats (plus the Creator of the Juice hat, too) without completely toppling over into bankruptcy, madness or both.
So yes, I should probably admit that I approached the new Mark Buxton fragrance series with a wee bit of respect and admiration already built in.
And maybe putting his own name on the label, making himself the man fully and solely accountable for the rise or fall of the Mark Buxton label, forced him to be more conscious of market forces and consumer trends this time around, because Black Angel (as well as Nameless and Hot Leather, two more fragrances that I tested from his series) is an unmistakably commercial piece of work, and by "commercial" I mean "easily accessible".
There's no attempt to dazzle with subterfuge, confound the expectations or row the fragrance boat against the mighty current of consumer tastes. It's almost as if Buxton tossed out his "Dancing on the High Wire for Dummies" manual and said, "F*** it. I want to create fragrances that a lot of people will like, buy and be more than delighted to wear on a daily basis, period." And amen to that.
Because if there's one thing I genuinely love about Black Angel is how easy it is to approach, to wear, to get to know. I don't have to think about whether it's appropriate for where I'm going or who I might be meeting, whether it's too big or too bold, too racy or too feminine, too high, too strange, too rich, sweet, flowery, bright, whatever. What it is, instead, is just right -- like some bottle of potion that Goldilocks found sitting on Baby Bear's dresser.
Mr. Buxton's website, however, isn't so just right -- there's some bizarre color coded fragrance chart (Personality through the prism of color!") coupled with PR copy so bland it'll take your breath away. For example, this is the text that accompanies Black Angel (which is inexplicably filed under the color blue -- go figure): "This colour is for peace and tranquility lovers, for broadbrow people valuing honesty, tightly attached to other people and aspiring to feel the part of the community. They feel confident in any situation. They are frank interlocutors and thick-and-thin friends."
I guess it's supposed to be like a Myers Briggs for fragrance consumers, but the fizz falls a little flat. I'll give him points for at least trying to do something different, however, as it's difficult to create a fragrance website that doesn't simply make the consumer's eyes glaze over, and like it or not, the color-prism-personality idea gets site visitors to at least do a little exploring, no matter the amount of curses muttered under their collective breaths once they've had enough of the drivel.
Buxton subtitles the Black Angel fragrance An Englishman in New York, and lists the scent notes as: citrus, bergamot, mandarin, orange, rosemary, ginger, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg, jasmine, lily of the valley, orris, styrax, guaiac and patchouli.
The body of the piece is subtle yet spicy deep, with a smoky, polished wood undertone. There's a bit of a ringing camphorous bite at the opening (likely from the orris), though nothing like what you'd get out of a Comme des Garcons or a Serge Lutens. This is Buxton at his most approachable, and I've never thought that kind of high-pitched orris note smelled so calm, collected and casual before.
The development of Black Angel isn't full of tricks and cartwheels, either. Despite the citrus fruit listed as top notes, it doesn't come across as fruity when you spray it on. The same with the floral notes. Black Angel is, instead, a piece of whole cloth woven from separate threads, the way a forest is composed of all those individual trees. You see the cloth and not the threads, you smell the forest and not the trees.
This forest just happens to smell like an exceptionally smooth patchouli swathed in sweet smoke and sprinkled with nutmeg dust.
Longevity is excellent, with it still going strong at 6+ hours -- and last night, when I thought it had all but disappeared from my skin after more than ten hours, I hopped onto the cardio machine in the gym and fifteen minutes in, with my body temperature rising, a fantastic incense scent started to waft from off my body. It reminded me of the beautiful incense accord that radiates from the heart of both Andy Tauer's Une Rose Chypree and the Chanel Les Exclusifs Sycomore.
So there's definitely a swirling,smoky soul to Buxton's Black Angel.
The packaging is clever, though not breathtaking or lust inducing. Tearing the name of the perfumer off the box to reveal the bottle is unexpected, and the enclosed, embossed information card is signed personally by Mark Buxton, which is a nice touch. The bottle itself is a thick, hefty glass with what appears to be a lightweight powder coated cap. It fits very nicely in my hand and is easy for me to hold and spray, though someone with much smaller hands than mine might find its wider spread a bit awkward.
I do have to say that the packaging trends masculine in style. It can easily be considered unisex, but its shape, weight and color scheme sits comfortably among the clutter on my bathroom counter -- unlike, say, a bottle of Marc Jacobs Lola.
Over all, the packaging gives off the impression of a brand that wants to be seen as just slightly left-of-center creative rather than plush luxury or whacked-out modern. It's not at all cutting edge or hyper trendy, and I'm fine with that. After the disappointment of watching the Six Scents series fall rather short of realizing its NYC Fashion Week Cooler Than Thou potential, it's a relief to encounter a brand that doesn't try too hard to be something it's not.
And oh, yeah -- it's great to see a genuinely talented perfumer step out from the shadows of anonymous toil for corporate giants and tackle the fragrance market on his own terms, and under his own name. I'd like to see more perfumers do the same.
***You can see my previous review for Black Angel here: Mark Buxton Black Angel -- and yes, that's the Neil Gaiman Absolute Sandman volume as the backdrop for the Black Angel photos. It seemed appropriate.
UPDATE (08/26/09):
I just noticed (over 24 hours later) that a chunk of the review was hidden due to an html coding error on my part. I apologize for what must have been a very confusing description of the packaging -- the bottle is most certainly not "a thick, hefty glass with what appears to be a lightweight Lola". . . ay yi yi.
There are days when I need a better editor.
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