This new opus complements the nine perfumes already launched in 2019, comprising:

Parade Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Cologne à la Française

La Peau Nue

Eau de Californie

Black Tie

Reptile

Nightclubbing

Like the other creations in the collection, Rimbaud revives the traditional savoir-faire of french haute parfumerie.

It comes to join the day collection in the fragrance range: Parade Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Cologne Française, Dans Paris, La Peau Nue and Eau de Californie.

 

THE ESSENCE OF YOUTH AND ITS POETIC GRACE

For this project, the couturier reconnects with his favorite themes: the notion of identity beyond gender, the essence of youth and the fragility of a state suspended somewhere between childhood and adulthood. But also, the french spirit and its cultural roots that weave a classic framework perpetually reinventing elegance.

These thems were already at the heart of the haute parfumerie collection, where the perfumes Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Dans Paris relate parisian youth, together with parade celebrating the immutable ritual of appearances.

The project's concept is also augmented by a cultural element, notably french literature and poetry. A tribute crystallized in a name, Rimbaud, which takes on a doubly symbolic and personal dimension.

 

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CHAPTER IN THE OLFACTORY JOURNAL

Literature and writing are an integral part of the couturier's artistic vision, in both his inspirational and creative approach. For Hedi Slimane, it's about placing words so that he can outline his olfactory project and define the features of a character whose charisma is interpreted in the perfume's trail.

The character in this new perfume is Arthur Rimbaud. The couturier dedicated a ner chapter to him in his olfactoryjournal recollecting an episode from his own adolescence. Like generations of teenagers, he and his friends were fascinated by the young poet's image. An image that already seemed to be one of eternal and universal youth.

Hedi Slimane has always wanted to create a perfume illustrating this portriat of Rimbaud or the photos of the young men and women he has taken over the last thirty years or so.

 

A DELICATE AND NEO"CLASSIC DUALITY

Rimbaud recaptures the stylish codes of the couturier, in particular masculine-feminine and new-classic literature. At the heart of the composition, two notes contrast and revisit together two emblematic accords in perfumery; lavender whose aromatic freshness is traditionally used in men's scents and the roots of the iris, known in perfumery as orris, usually with more feminine powdery accents.

In this perfume, everything plays on paradox and duality. Lavender's unexpected and delicate nuances become soft and melancholic in contact with iris proudly displaying its exuberance, as if intoxicated by the promise of a new olfactory adventure.

Chosen by Hedi Slimane, the duo signs a delicate, almost introverted craftsmanship, a form of olfactory fragility, suspended outside of time, clinging lightly to the skin.

 

LAVENDER

One of Hedi Slimane's favorite ingredients, it already signed his olfactory creation Eau Noire from the maison Dior's collection Priveé in 2004.

With its vivacious and subtle camphor-like scent, lavender is an archetype for masculine fragrances. For Rimbaud, in duo with orris from the rhizomes of the iris, it revisits this tradition in reverse. At the heart of the composition, the notion of the accord's gender very delicately gives way to the multitude of feelings resounding in each one of us.

The essence, as well as the lavender absolute selected by the maison Celine, comes from the Drôme in haute provence where the plant has been cultivated since antiquity. It is thanks to this flower that we owe those vast and endless fields of blue lavender blossoming under the provencal sun. The sprigs of lavender are harvested between the monthe of July and August when the foot of the fields immediately after harvesting.

100kg of flowers are needed to obtain between 500 ang 800ml of essential oil.

IRIS

The Iris is another one of the couturier's much valued materials. Its elegant fragrance was already a predominant olfactory note in Dior Homme created in 2004. Its gentle and muted scent is emblematic of the powdery accord signing all the creations in the Celine Haute Parfumerie Collection.

Orris, one of the most precious ingredients in perfumery, is obtained from the rhizomes ot roots of the Iris. It owes its rarity to its low crop yield: 100kg of dried rhizomes only yield 300 grams of orris butter.

It takes six years to obtain the essential oil known in perfumery as "Orris Butter". It is necessary to wait patiently for three years so that the plant, which concentrates its perfumes in its rhizomes, can be harvested. Then another three years, the time it takes for the rhizomes to unfold their extraordinary olfactory richness.

 

THE POWDERY SIGNATURE

A powdery theme connecting all of the creations in the haute parfumerie collection is also to be found in this composition, guided by the Iris and its elegant roundness. A gentle and imperceptible veil of scent, perhaps the one in the portrait of the young poet, still an adolscent, but burnished by the years and the eyes of generations fascinated by his melancholy grace.

 

THE BOTTLE

The rectangular bottle designed by Hedi Slimane for Celine is in keeping with the great tradition of french glassmaking. The couturier wished to give the bottle greater body, by working on the luxurious weight of glass and the black lacquer.

The bottle for the Celine Haute Parfumerie Collection on two sides with sharp-edged fluting and topped with a faceted black lacquered cap. An aesthetic inherited from late 17th century classicism, whose distinctive minimalism imbues the bottle with the modernity of art deco: spare, taut lines, a touch of black lacquer and transparent glass whose craftsmanship highlights the reflections of the perfume, nuanced with soft and very pale rosy grey tonalities, that underline the delicacy of the composition and the poetic character inspiring it.

The box is adorned in paper with a "Grain de Poudre" feel and embossing that recreates the effect of 17th century moldings. They are inspired by the woodwork paneling in the Hôtel Colbert de Torcy where the Celine ateliers are housed at 16, rue Vivienne in Paris.

The maison's emblem, the "Triomphe" is engraved on the top of the cap. It was chosen by its founder, Céline Vipiana who, one day in 1971, saw her split initial C designed in the links cinching the "Arc de Triomphe". It comes to complete this bottle's sense of belonging to the history of the couture house.