Ode To Joy

For its newest creation, Guerlain collaborated with Maison Matisse for a fragrance that captures bliss in a bottle.

- Caitlin Black

HOW does one distil the essence of an artwork into a perfume? Delphine Jelk, Director of Perfume Creation at Guerlain, may have achieved it with the luxury perfumer's latest creation. Launched as part of its L'Art & La Matière collection, the new fragrance celebrates jasmine, one of the six ingredients that make up the Maison's secret olfactory signature known as the Guerlinade, a unique blend of notes (or accord in perfume parlance) which undergirds Guerlain fragrances.

The new perfume, Jasmin Bonheur, features two varieties of the delicate white blossom: jasmine Grandiflorum and jasmine Sambac. Inspired by the jasmine that originates from Calabria, Italy, Jelk had visions of warm Mediterranean light and happiness that she wanted to express when she was creating the new fruity-chypre fragrance. "I also have my own memories of jasmine in the south of France because I studied in Grasse. And of course, the light and colours of Henri Matisse who found happiness in the south of France," says Jelk.