Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Обновлено: 27 сент.
Chilini Private
She climbed to the fourth floor with a bag of peaches and stopped on every landing: her sandal strap had rubbed her heel raw, and the paper bottom of the bag was soaked with juice and sagging in her palm. The stairwell smelled of warm stone and someone else's lunch. It was three o'clock, and Barcelona had closed its shutters.
She had rented the flat until the end of August. Her ticket home lay under the fruit bowl, and every evening she wrote her fiancé a postcard, always three lines: the weather, a museum, I miss you. Her handwriting was even, and the lines came out the same length.
That morning at the market a man had stopped beside her at the lychee stall. A stripe of blue paint had dried on his wrist, and there was white under his nails. He took a long time choosing the fruit and leaned closer to her than talk about fruit required. He breathed in and said, without looking at her: "Mint. Lemon. And something warm underneath." Since morning she had been wearing Vicky Cristina Barcelona, on the neck and the wrists, and in this heat she could hardly smell it herself any more.
He invited her to see his studio. She said no and smiled, and he, as if he had not heard, took the bag from her and wrote an address across its side in green felt-tip, in big letters, the whole width of it. Then he handed the bag back and walked away first, without looking round.
At home the air was stifling. The fan pushed hot air around the room, a radio muttered through the neighbours' wall, her hair stuck to her neck. She washed her face in cold water twice, and a minute later it was burning again. The bag lay on the table. The juice had come through the paper, and the green letters were crawling downwards, blurring at the edges.
At seven the wind came in from the sea. The shutters knocked against the wall all at once, a salty draught crossed the room, and the street sent up the smell of cooling stone. She turned her neck to the wind and noticed that the scent on her skin had changed over the day: the mint lingered only at her collar, and from her wrist came something sweet and warm, with dark earth beneath it.
She sat down to write the postcard. The weather. A museum. The third line would not come.
All that was left of the address was a green stain and the name of the street, which could still be read. She smoothed the paper flat with her palm and laid the bag beside the postcard.
Who was the hunter, who the prey..?
How it wears
Minty cold comes first, and lemon sprays inside it, as if the peel had just been cracked with a thumbnail. Blackcurrant leaf adds a green bitterness, and lychee softens the sourness with its moist sweetness.
Then the cold lets go. Peony opens fresh and watery, caramel runs beneath it in a thin warm thread, and the sweetness thickens like juice on your fingers when you eat fruit standing at the sink.
Towards evening everything settles lower. Patchouli gives a warm dark earth, leather lies over it with the even warmth of a tanned shoulder, and by this hour the mint lingers only at the collar.
What sets it apart
The fragrance is dedicated to Woody Allen and his film about two friends' summer in Barcelona, and its second name is a question: "Who was the hunter, who the prey..?". The brand describes it as a game, in which the fresh top belongs to level-headed Vicky, the floral heart to daring Cristina, and the warm base of patchouli, wood and leather to the Spanish painter. The menthol in the opening lasts about an hour and offsets the sweetness of the fruit, and then the scent grows thicker and warmer. Reviewers say it lasts more than twelve hours and can still be smelled on the elbow the next morning. The brand considers it versatile: it is lovely in the cool of summer evenings and warms you in autumn and winter. It is worn when you want to keep your right to the game and decide for yourself who leads it.
Notes
Top: menthol, lemon, lime, green apple, red apple, blackcurrant leaf, passion fruit, pepper, orange, lychee.
Heart: peony, datura, caramel, jasmine, ylang-ylang, raspberry, peach, magnolia, rose.
Base: patchouli, vanilla, cedar, pine, sandalwood, vetiver, leather, ambergris, musk.
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