I felt something give in me when I smelled Bruno Fazzolari Au Dela for the first time. Something about it bypasses the thinking part of my brain and goes straight to the heart. I know that sounds very Barbara Cartland, and I do apologize, but when you smell as many perfumes as I do, you learn not to ignore those rare times that you are moved by a perfume. And Au Delà moves me.
It is partly to do with memory. Loaded with moss, coriander, and neroli, the opening recalls the ‘summer tennis’ fourgeres favored by my father – I am thinking of Eau Sauvage in particular. There is a dry, herbal touch of hay, I imagine, and a whole lifetime of summers unfolds in my mind’s eye. The neroli smells bright and smoky, like singed lemon peel. But the fresh, aromatic start turns out to be a diversion, and while your imagination is busy batting tennis balls, the real cast of notes is moving quietly onto the stage.
Because what Au Delà really is is a white floral. Normally, I can’t stand white florals. To me, they are like a massive slab of Triple Crème Brie left in the heat of the afternoon sun to ooze across the cheese plate – a little bit is nice, but the thought of more leaves me nauseous. Worse than the unchecked richness, for me, is the lack of bone structure. White florals just….collapse… all over your personal space, like a blowsy blonde barfly ten years past her prime.
But what Bruno Fazzolari has achieved with Au Delà is to create a white floral with a backbone and a clear sense of purpose. Although the jasmine and orange blossoms are as honeyed and indolic as you might imagine, they manage to float above the base in a green, crisp haze that satisfies without making you feel sick. The dark, saline amber and moss in the base give it a chypre feel, and bring it within touching distance of the 1950’s revivalist style of 31 Rue Cambon (Chanel), Promesse de L’Aube and Enlevement au Serail (Parfums MDCI). It is every bit as ravishingly beautiful as these perfumes.
However, Au Delà differs from these great ‘new’ chypres by virtue of being more botanical in its focus, and far less abstract – in other words, the jasmine in Au Delà is recognizable as jasmine, the neroli as neroli, and so on. Au Delà also has a warmer, more ‘human’ feel to it than any of the aforementioned perfumes, in large part due to the skin-salt finish of the ambery base. It is an uncluttered perfume with a direct message.
And in its simplicity lies the key to its snappy elegance. One of my favorite quotes from Paul Coehlo is as follows: “Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.” This might as well have been written about Au Delà and the perfumer’s intent as anything else in life. A modern floral masterpiece, in my opinion, and joins Une Fleur de Cassie as one of my favorite floral perfumes ever.
