Not just a fragrance, L’Eau d’Issey is an icon of the House. A journey through time that has already accumulated three decades and a year of life. It is also the evocation of a set of artistic projects and innovations linked over the years: bottles decorated by the greatest artists of each generation, a fragrance reinterpreted by a series of talented perfumers and even a patented technical innovation: IGO, a tiny bottle inside the stopper that encloses the precious elixir to make it a decidedly nomadic fragrance.
It was the year 1992 when the world of perfumery sighed for oriental and intoxicating fragrances. It was then that Issey Miyake changed everything with a creation that is an ode, in itself, to a living, vibrant nature that invites us to rediscover the essence of life. “Nature is the best perfumer there is. We only have to be inspired by it”, said the designer then.
Everything started from a simple and innovative concept: the olfactory expression of a drop of water on a woman’s skin. For the first time in the history of women’s perfumery, Jacques Cavallier, the artist with whom Miyake shared her dream, imagined a fragrance infused with calone, a molecule that embodies water in all its facets. It was something revolutionary in an industry in which, at that time, warm and oriental fragrances prevailed. It was a daring bet, it was a paradigm shift.
Like a powerful dew, the calone moistens the rose petals, the flower par excellence in the West, and the lotus, its Eastern replica. Tokyo and Paris meet symbolically through two antagonistic but absolutely complementary flowers. Everything is wrapped in a vapor of white flowers outlined with green touches. Thus, each facet of L’Eau d’Issey expresses a natural moment. And rediscover the purity of water: the source of life, the essential element.
No less revolutionary was the design that accompanied the fragrance. Issey Miyake envisioned a bottle that evoked a gushing spring of water. To make it a reality, the designers Alain de Mourgues and Fabien Baron broke with the tradition of bottles ornate with precious effects. Miyake’s wanted to be a simple and humble luxury: essential. A not entirely straight bottle, drawn by hand, in the purest Japanese wabi sabi style, where perfection is born from imperfection. The detail that culminates the bottle, the small ball deposited on the cap of L’Eau d’Issey, evokes the moon suspended at the top of the Eiffel Tower seen from Mr. Miyake’s window in Paris, on a night with a full moon. Another nice anecdote: when the bottle of L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme is turned to the side, it has the same shape as the bottle of L’Eau d’Issey.
And it is that, if the feminine fragrance has conquered many generations of women, L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme Eau de Toilette, born two years later, has also celebrated its masculine success. It will be due to its citrus aroma, combined with the freshness of the water and a powerful woody signature with a fresh and sparkling yuzu as the top note, together with nuances of lemon and mandarin. It will be because of its heart: a water lily note that provides an aquatic facet, subtly warmed by spices. The background nuances are provided by the assertive character of the sandalwood, vetiver and amber chord. The design of its bottle does not leave you indifferent either. A flared glass rectangle at the base contrasts with the conical light gray metal cap, with its iconic monolithic design.
Over the years, L’Eau d’Issey has reinvented itself through the unique gaze of the artists with whom House Miyake collaborates. All of them, from a very personal universe, have been able to transmit the essential values ??of an inalienable source of inspiration that everyone can make their own without their identity ever being altered. It is precisely this position and this confidence that the House places in the artists that allows it to give wings to the myth far from clichés, with audacity and sensitivity.
Issey Miyake was the first firm to open its doors to other creators. L’Eau d’Issey has reinvented itself through its limited editions, as with the florist-scenario artist Alice Auboiron or the graphic artist-typographer Tyrsa, who fueled the myth. Recently, the firm has even given carte blanche to perfumer and artist duos during initiation trips to Japan and India, which have given rise to the editions L’Eau d’Issey Shades of Paradise and L’Eau d’Issey Shades of Kolam. It is these valuable encounters and collaborations that allow L’Eau d’Issey to reinvent itself and surprise more and more. His story is still very much alive.
