An air of renewal: Greeting spring with Le Sillage Blanc

Welcome to the Parfums Dusita Blog!

We imagined this as a place where we can share insightful content about our fragrances and perfumery in general, with the valuable contributions of our founder and perfumer, Pissara Umavijani.

In this space, you will have the chance to read about Pissara’s creative process, the technical—or other—challenges of composing each fragrance, her favorite raw materials, as well as find exclusive interviews and Q&A sessions (that will include some of your own questions). We will also be adding some fun surprises as we go along!

In our first post, we focus on a 2017 creation which, we feel, is perfect for this period of transition to sunnier, warmer days. Parfums Dusita Le Sillage Blanc feels like a ray of light and a breeze of renewal—an ideal scent to signify new beginnings.

The fragrance was born out of Pissara’s love for the iconic, vintage green/leather chypres which she used to collect and wear, and especially the 1944-released Bandit, composed by Germaine Cellier for Robert Piguet. Le Sillage Blanc is inspired by the daring style and spirit of this pioneering perfumer, whose entire œuvre Pissara deeply admires.

Apart from Bandit, Cellier created two more leather chypre marvels, Balmain’s Jolie Madame and Miss Balmain, as well as other masterpieces like Robert Piguet’s Fracas, Balmain’s Vent Vert and Balenciaga’s La Fuite des Heures.

Even though most of the classic leather chypres were marketed as “women’s” fragrances, modern wearers find them astonishingly unisex. Strikingly bold creations (particularly Bandit), they continued the tradition of some great fragrances from the late 1910s-1920s that were created to hail the new, emancipated woman (think of vintage Caron’s Tabac Blond, Molinard’s Habanita or Chanel’s Cuir de Russie).

Pissara envisioned Le Sillage Blanc as an elegant and dynamic green/leather chypre of decidedly gender-fluid character. Her main creative challenge was to allude to some classic examples of this (rather neglected nowadays) perfume genre, while retaining her own artistic signature.

She started out by composing a leather accord built upon isobutyl quinoline, a characteristic component of many vintage leather notes, known for its intensity and animalic undertones. She paired the leather with the genre’s other indispensable pillar, galbanum, whose leafy, balsamic and slightly bitter smell provides the desired richly green bite.

Wanting Le Sillage Blanc to evoke its name (French for “The White Trail”) and the image of the first sun rays of the day kissing the dewy grass, Pissara used some natural raw materials of supreme luminosity: the green leather is mellowed by a blast of radiant, invigorating citrusness and floralcy owed to the combination of nectarous neroli, fruity ylang-ylang and a bit of sun-kissed jasmine. A dose of sweet tobacco leaf leads to a full-fledged chypre base of oakmoss and patchouli that wisely balances between dry and moist, while the ethereal ambrette seed becomes the olfactive light that penetrates the chiaroscuro of the earthy elements.

Overall, Le Sillage Blanc delivers a charming interplay between light and shadow, creating an emotional impact of both optimism and mystery—the mark of a true chypre. Assertive, sophisticated and yet profoundly natural in feeling, it is no wonder that Le Sillage Blanc has found so many devoted fans among perfume connoisseurs.

Despina Veneti, Parfums Dusita Blog Editor

Editor’s note: Our wish is that the Parfums Dusita Blog adds value to your experience of our fragrance universe. Don’t hesitate to share with us suggestions about topics you want us to cover (feel free to email us at contact@parfumsdusita.com, with the subject “Parfums Dusita Blog”).