What we have come to expect from anything branded ‘Tom Ford’ is style, sophistication and an unfailing attention to detail. His latest collection of fragrances lives up to all that precedes it.
i-D Online put olfaction to the test and sampled every blend of the new Tom Ford fragrance collections at a preview held in the luxurious Connaught Hotel. Divided into several categories including Tom Ford Tuscan Leather, Black Orchid and Private Blend, each collection has a distinct personality and history of references, colour and mood associations. The Tuscan Leather range, with its leathery scent and suave accessories sends the wearer into A Single Man reverie. Offering not just the spray, but a scented candle, an atomiser and funnel, a 50 ml flacon, a decanter and a Makassar tray to house all of the above. Tuscan Leather is for men, not boys; men who decant their aftershave into slick small containers that look like 40s hip flasks; men like Tom Ford, and James Bond.
Not to be outdone, The Black Orchid collection is a woman’s prerogative, containing a pressed perfume, a lipstick and a nail varnish in a seductive deep red. Housed in a fluted compact with gold lining, the Black Orchid is infused with soja seed extract, murumuru butter and chamomilla flower oil – which in layman’s terms translates to a very alluring scent. And then we reach the pièce de résistance, the Private Blend collection. This sixteen-scent army is, as Tom explains, “designed with the true fragrance connoisseur in mind”. The Private Blend collection is androgynous, powerful and vast enough to satisfy any whim; Monday might feel particularly Arabian Wood-ey, Tuesday much more Noir de Noir, and Wednesday irrefutably an occasion for Italian Cypress. The scented realm of possibility unfolds.
A Tom Ford fragrance is a piece of Tom Ford living, and it’s as rich and splendid on the inside as it looks on the outside.
