Floris Edwardian Bouquet is very old-fashioned smelling. This rich amber juice was first introduced in 1901 to celebrate a new era. It was then relaunched in 1984 (to celebrate my era). I don’t know how close the bottle that I own is to the original 1901 blend, but I can believe this fragrance was launched in 1984. To me, this fragrance smells very early 80’s. It has “pomp”. This fragrance is grand, exalted, and OTT. And it doesn’t feel too far from the Dynasty era with “The Edwardian Bouquet woman has a penchant for the more expensive things in life. Sometimes her uncompromising demeanour is seen as haughty, but she is just holding her head high.” To quote Prince, “You don’t have to watch Dynasty to have attitude“. I guess you can wear Floris Edwardian Bouquet 🙂
I was attracted to this fragrance because I love Edwardian fashions. It’s the closet goth in me. The name “Edwardian Bouquet” seemed perfect. This is what many people would label as that dreadful “old lady fragrance”. I hate that term since I follow my nose and I refuse to take advice from a generation that would wear sweat pants with words on the bum. Floris Edwardian Bouquet smells like the amber colored juice often left in the bottles of perfumes found at thrift stores and antique stores. It’s that grand floral that could be from that broad range of anything from the 30’s-80’s.
At first the fragrance is green and bitter. It has the top notes of a good old-fashioned chypre. Well, the whole fragrance is an old-fashioned chypre. I get the bergamot and a “dry” mandarin with “wet” hyacinth. These citrus green notes set on luxury florals: powdery roses and ylang-ylang. These aren’t those out in the garden or fresh-cut florals. These florals may seem freshly cut but they are very much grounded down by powdery amber and rich musks.The entire fragrance comes across as “dry”. It really starts to stick to my skin. It wears as a bitter, powdery musky floral. I like this because I like scents like YSL Rive Gauche and Clinique Aromatics Elixir. At the dry-down I do get lots of foresty oakmoss, woodsy patchouli, and mellow sandalwood. It’s like a basket of potpourri resting on the forest floor. I love the earthiness that some how keeps this powdery rose scent wearable.
Like I said, I have no idea how close this 80’s relaunch is to the Belle Epoque fragrance. It comes across as a chypre. Coty’s Chypre wasn’t released until 1917. Perhaps more of those “chypre” ingredients were added in the 80’s to give this that old, classic pre-20’s feel. I don’t know. I like this fragrance. I can’t say it is the most exciting because there are many out there like it. I like how it evolves on me. I don’t know if I would call this an Edwardian goth kind of fragrance but with its dryness and deep forest dry-down, I could see it.
This is an EDT and it does wear like one. It’s very strong at first and then mellows out and starts to wear closely. I get about 3 hours wear out of this before I feel the need to re-spritz. It’s a bit tenacious and first spritz then mellows out. If someone just sniffed this on the blotter card right away, they be overwhelmed by it. I find this scent wears much better on my skin than a piece of paper.
Notes listed include bergamot, green hyacinth, mandarin, jasmine, rose, ylang ylang, amber, musk, oakmoss, patchouli, powdery notes, and sandalwood.
Give this a try if you like old-fashioned chypre fragrances or fragrances like Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Estee Lauder Aliage, Sisley Eau du Soir , YSL Rive Gauche , Givenchy Ysatis, Lancome Magie Noire, Il Profumo Macadam EDP, and/or Auguste Esprit de Chypre Extrait de Parfum.
The 3.4 oz bottle retails for $135 at Floris. It can sometimes be found at discounters like FragranceX.
Great review!