Marc-Antoine Barrois GANYMEDE eau de parfum EUROPERFUMES

Ganymede is a 2019 release from menswear turned perfume house Marc-Antoine Barrois, composed by perfumer Quentin Bisch. Of the brand’s turn to perfumery, Barrois says “One is a couturier, the other a perfumer. Their childhood memories brought them together. Remembering captivating smells of the leather from an elegant attaché case or an immaculate desk blotter, of the distinct smells of wood during the regular gatherring, of fuel to warm the family home. The artistic skills of the former and the olfactory talent of the latter together sparked the magic of these beautiful fragrances.” Ganymede, a Woody Spicy fragrance, has a scent profile of mineral, warm spicy, leather, oud, ozonic, woody, citrus, fruity, aquatic, and herbal. 

From Marc-Antoine Barrois:

“The perfume of an oneiric reality For this new opus, the duo has not changed, nor the creative osmosis between Marc-Antoine Barrois and Quentin Bisch, but the destination is elsewhere. Creating an elegant and unexpected harmony around a quartet of mandarin, violet, immortelle and suede, the two fellow artists have dreamt of this new planet: Ganymede, the rocky satellite of Jupiter discovered in 1610 by Galileo, is both luminous and covered with salt-water oceans. It acquired its name from Greek mythology: a young man, Ganymede, was kidnapped by gods who had been so enthralled by his beauty that he was offered immortality.

Composed by perfumer Quentin Bisch, Ganymede once again makes use of the suede-leathery notes that had made B683 a beautiful classic. This time though, the artists emancipated from traditional codes to take us somewhere else, towards aluminous and fluid elegance. Those leather notes become softer, gaining lightness and gentleness in contact with the fragrance of violet. The mandarin smell brings its full vivacity and its acidic essence. The latter gives the tone and verticality of the fragrance from the very start. Yet opposing it, the immortelle is its counterpoint and raises the scented harmony with its double-sided fragrance, at times mineral, at other times salty. The entire composition plays with contrasts and oppositions.

The notes answer one another in a permanent conversation drawing a new olfactory map on the skin, on the revers of a cashmere jacket, or even right there, next to the buttons of the sleeves, on the wrist. If it could be summed up into one single image, it would be a compass : north for the zested liveliness  of the mandarin to which the south would answer with the everlasting flower and to highlight this olfactory frame, the density of suede notes on the west would balance the subtle and delicate florality of the violet on the east. Those are four directions for a perfumed journey to a new imaginary world and new codes of elegance.”

Fragrance Vault is an official stockist of Marc-Antoine Barrois.