When Worlds Collide

Louis Vuitton’s latest olfactory adventure is an unlikely fusion of ancient Middle Eastern perfume tradition and the West’s current focus on gender equality. It’s a sign of the times in a bottle, writes Jamie Huckbody

QUESTION: what happens if you take the two big trends currently dominating luxury fragrance — unisex perfumes and oud-dominated scents — and mix them? Answer: Ombre Nomade, the latest perfume launch in Louis Vuitton’s already substantial collection.

“Oud is worn by men, women and children in the Middle East and each Middle Eastern family has its own oud signature,” says Jacques Cavallier Belletrud, Louis Vuitton’s master perfumer since 2012. “It’s used not just to smell good, but also as a gesture with which to honour guests’ presence.”

For Cavallier Belletrud, the man behind such hits as L’Eau d’Issey, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Classique and Stella by Stella McCartney (not forgetting the seven fragrances he created two years ago to mark Louis Vuitton’s first foray into perfume since 1946), there was one clear mission: to create an authentic oud scent. “There are lots of fragrances out there made by Western perfumers and labelled as oud that don’t even have any of the real stuff in them,” Cavallier Belletrud says, adamant that most oud fragrances don’t do the ingredient any justice. “OmbreNomade is an oud I would be pleased to share with the most discerning Middle Eastern customer. The oud assam we use is sourced from a business run by a family in Bangladesh who have been cultivating the agarwood [from which it comes] for generations and generations.”