Yves Saint Laurent Libre

Yves Saint Laurent has a perfume heritage as important as those of Chanel, Christian Dior and Joy Patou. Blockbusters like the Chinese drug den inspired Opium (1977), chauvinist Kouros (1981), supremely chic Paris (1983), and raunchy nude-advertised M7 (2002) garnered cult followings and came to define many a genre – who is not guilty of comparing all and any oriental to Opium? By the mid-2000s though, YSL seemed to have lost its golden touch for fragrances. Forgettable releases such as that of Elle, L’Homme and Mon Paris created a springboard for a deluge of flankers, each seemingly more insipid than the last. Come 2019, Libre, the latest pillar for the house, sees a return to form for YSL.

The message YSL is pushing online, across television and in print ads faced by Brit pop singer, Dua Lipa, is one of unbridled freedom; freedom from convention, constraint, and expectation – a liberated femininity for a new generation. After all, Libre does translate from French to mean “free”.  I very rarely buy into the hyperbole that designers push with new releases, and I do take a lot of the Libre spiel with a pinch of salt, all its talk of liberation and modern femininity. However, beyond its freedom narrated adjectives, I do absolutely agree with YSL’s claim that Libre walks the line between masculinity and femininity – it is entirely androgynous, chic too in a manner Yves might himself have sketched out.

Libre is what I would call an embellished fougère, a masculine structured lavender aromatic with the added sensuousness of orange blossom. Though more floral than aromatic here – as intended by perfumers Anne Flipo and Carlos Benaïm who claim it took 1,570 variations to perfect the composition since Flipo first conceptualised it in 2011 – Libre is not the first fragrance to play on this masculine/feminine duality by combining aromatic lavender with more feminine leaning white florals and vanilla; Caron did it in the ‘80s with Le 3ème Homme, Chanel did it with both Jersey and Boy for the Les Exclusifs collection, and Guerlain went all-out feminine with Mon Guerlain. True to its word though, Libre does more carefully tread the gender line than its rivals, never putting a svelte foot in either masculine or feminine territory.

YSL offers this by way of an official notes list;

mandarin, petitgrain, lavandin, blackcurrant, lavender, jasmin sambac, jasmin graniflorum, orange blossom, vanilla, cedar, ambergris accord, musk

My experience wearing Libre suggests a notes list closer to this:

mandarin, petitgrain, lavender, cassis leaf, orange blossom, jasmine, amyl salicylate, vanilla, cedar, ambergris accord, white musk

Like the opening look of a Saint Laurent runway show, Libre makes a conspicuous first impression with a glitzy citrus accord of mandarin and petitgrain, both tart and sweet, with a spring to its step. Where this citrus accord is an opening look though, lavender is the theme of the show, uniting Libre’s entire composition from beginning to end; too fresh to convey any potpourri notations and never remotely medicinal, the lavender has been deconstructed to its floral core, rendered soft and delicate, then, against this soft purple gauze and in lieu of lavender’s more typical aromatic character, the abstract greenness of cassis (blackcurrant) leaf lends clarity and contrast. As Libre evolves on the skin, the middle, heart and base coming and going like looks on an olfactory catwalk, the lavender remains ever present.

Towards the heart as the glittering citrus opening begins to fade, orange blossom steps forward to claim the limelight, lending as it does an opulence to the composition that Yves himself might have found to his taste; Yves Saint Laurent was once posed the question of his favourite flower, to which his reply was simply “white flowers”, and that’s exactly what Libre delivers in the heart. The orange blossom is fleshy, free though of any indoles, as is the jasmine that supports it, held together by what I suspect is amyl salicylate and its trademark soft, sweetish balsamic floralness. Later, a base of vanilla and cedarwood provide the composition a heft from which the ambergris accord and white musk give lift to that ever-present cassis leaf nuanced floral lavender accord.

Libre is a fougère crafted with all the expertise and precision of an haute couturier’s expert hand; nipped is any hit of lavender’s masculine herbality or medicinal character, tucked behind a voluminous tulle of orange blossom and jasmine embellished with a sparkling ambergris accord, all layered atop a base of silvered cedar and white musk. I can almost pick the accords contributed by each perfumer – Anne Flipo’s fingerprints are all over the lavender which wears much more abstract than that we saw from Carlos Benaïm’s Music For A While (Frédéric Malle), the cedar-fortified white musk base is also very much in keeping with her style; Benaïm though is obviously responsible for the orange blossom, a note he does so well, especially in tandem with jasmine. Still, it is a testament to both perfumers that Libre comes together as a well and as unified as it does.

The embellished fougère isn’t a new concept, neither are androgynous scents, so Libre can’t be called ground-breaking. It is though a very good example of the theme, sitting somewhere on the scale between the masculine leaning Le 3ème Homme de Caron and ultra-feminine Mon Guerlain, with above average performance for a non-Intense designer release. In fact, Libre joins CHANEL’s latest release, Gabrielle Essence, in turning its back on the market trend for transparent floral-musks, feeling much more like a contemporary riff on an ‘80s era release than one increasingly watered down by successive millennial focus groups. To me, this emulation of a retro period of perfumery feels appropriate for a new YSL Pillar; historical pastiche was a significant part of Yves Saint Laurent’s design strategy throughout his career. Fingers crossed the tide might finally be turning against transparent floral-musks!

---

Year of Release: 2019

Perfumers: Anne Flipo with Carlos Benaïm

Alternatives: CHANEL Jersey, Guerlain Mon Guerlain, Caron Pour Un Homme de Caron

Available: Kiana Beauty, MYER, David Jones and www.yslbeauty.com from $99, 30ml.