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If I could hire Mathilde Laurent to create a perfume for me based on a time of day, I’d choose dawn. My fragrance — I’ll call it la Naissance du Jour¹ in honor of my favorite Colette novel — would evoke happy, and quiet, endings (the last breath of a day that will never return) and the fresh possibilities of the new day that’s just beginning. My fantasy perfume would start off dark (full of Mysore sandalwood, cedar, cypress, agarwood) and turn “bright” like a rising sun (with notes of iris root, sharp, green stems and leaves, galbanum, rain-drenched narcissus blossoms, and vibrant citrus — tangerine, lemon, bergamot). My perfume would be a revelation and its “development in reverse” a miracle — I’d never tire of the fragrance (and not just because it would cost me approximately $80,000).

Cartier’s Les Heures de Parfum collection (created by Laurent) has been petted (heavily) by many in the perfume sphere; the perfumes have been giddily critiqued (no tongues in cheeks, no winks hinting at hyperbole) and deconstructed like complex poems. Cartier must relish the attention, even though the perfumes are currently in limited distribution (less than 30 stores are selling the fragrances worldwide during their first year of release).²

In Women’s Wear Daily, Sabrina Daninos, marketing development director, Cartier fragrances, said the perfumes were “a really ‘haute’ collection of exclusive fragrances for connoisseurs.” Stéphanie Lefoll, market development director, Cartier fragrances, deemed the collection “very exclusive.” Daninos also references the Cartier bespoke fragrance business…

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