Care for a hint of tobacco? How about a whiff of black suede? If a taste for exotic aromas suits your style, then Tom Ford’s Private Blend collection—will hypnotize your senses.
“Private blend is my own scent laboratory; it’s where I have the ability to create very special, original fragrances that are unconstrained by the conventions of mainstream scent-making. Private blend is designed with the true fragrance connoisseur in mind.” —Tom Ford
Private Blend is designed with the true fragrance connoisseur in mind’, is how the designer/perfume-lover himself describes it. Each fragrance begins with the precious extract from a single note: amber, tobacco, black violet, leather, gardenia, sandalwood…
Whichever collection he’s creating for, though, it’s always in an entirely wearable (and shareable) way: following the historic tradition in perfumery, when gender was ‘blurred’, Tom Ford believes that men and women can wear any of the fragrances from his range. ‘Fragrances are so interesting,’ he’s observed. ‘You attach your own associations to them based on your past experiences.
As the tastemaker revealed to an interviewer from ShortList, ‘I think fragrance might be more important than clothes. I’m actually not a very materialistic person. I’m so aware that everything we experience is transient. We have possessions and get to enjoy them, and sometimes they’re very exquisite possessions, but I could be just as happy in New Mexico with no clothes and a one-room adobe house. It would be pretty, of course — I’d have my one Indian pot in the right place and a little pallet bed in the perfect spot on the floor. but I wouldn’t miss all the other stuff except fragrance. I’d have a harder time living without it than fancy clothes and fancy furniture.’
‘Because,’ Tom Ford continues, ‘like music or food, scent is a very direct sensory stimulant. It provokes the senses, it brings up emotion and memory and feeling. It doesn’t mean I have to buy an expensive perfume; it just means I would have to smell flowers, smell the landscape. So fragrance is more than an accessory, absolutely, to me. In many ways, it is the main event—certainly one of my biggest passions as a creative person…
And a secret, from the man himself: ‘Layer one or two perfumes to create a sense of depth and richness – it’s perfect, in particular, for the party season. I usually end up wearing four or five different scents by the end of the day, as I don’t change my fragrance for the evening – I simply add to my existing one.’
