Get ready to take your sense of smell on a global adventure. This week, Louis Vuitton released its seventh men’s fragrance, Imagination, which features a list of ingredients sourced from the kinds of destinations so many dream of traveling to, including black tea from China, Tunisian neroli, Sicilian cedar, Calabrian bergamot and Nigerian ginger. The cologne is priced at RM1,150 for a 100ml bottle and RM1,700 for a 200ml size with a range of personalised engraving options, free of charge. And once you’re done with the bottle, you can have it refilled at any Louis Vuitton boutique that has one of the house’s innovative perfume fountains.
Imagination was composed by Louis Vuitton’s master perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud, who conceived of the international array of notes as a way to pay homage to ambrox, a humane alternative to the alluring ingredient ambergris.
“For five years, I’d been dreaming of revealing the beauty of ambergris and expressing the quintessence of its amber note in a way that’s of the moment and devoid of nostalgia,” Belletrud explained in a statement.
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Though the fragrance has a slightly feminine scent when you uncap the bottle and sniff the nozzle, its masculine notes take over as it settles on the skin and the spices begin to make it sizzle. The base notes, including guaiac wood and the black tea, help the amber give off a masculine elegance. The ginger doesn’t stand out much, but there’s cinnamon to give the fragrance a little warmth. The top notes are all citrus, which helps the scent feel right for warm weather.
But that’s not all that makes the scent feel like it was made for the moment. The smoky notes that the black gives off makes you think of travelling to far-off locations—something Belletrud says was intentional. “The tea evokes the magic of the East, an imaginary scene of caravans,” he added in his statement. “It carries within it the spirit of travel, like an olfactory transcription of Louis Vuitton’s universe.”
Pick up the energising Imagination cologne and dream of the worlds you’ll soon see. You’ll find it on Louis Vuitton’s website and in select boutiques.
Previously published on Robb Report.
