Garden Of Five Senses

Hermès’s latest addition to the Jardin series of perfumes, Un Jardin sur la Lagune, is an ode to a magical green oasis set on a Venetian lagoon.

- Divrina Dhingra

Picture a scene. You are far from home, in a gloriously beautiful, ancient city, that in its wisdom has replaced all roads with canals, and cars with boats. You are travelling in one of them, slowly navigating the glass-green waters until you arrive at an unprepossessing wooden door set in an ochre-coloured wall. It is oddly familiar, not because you’ve been here before but might have dreamed of it. You walk through the door and straight into a parallel world: A garden unlike any other. Large, awash in gentle light, sea breeze, and the scents of nature.

For perfumer Christine Nagel, the discovery of the garden followed a long search for just such a space, one that could provide her the inspiration for the sixth part to what is arguably Hermès’s finest and most loved collection, its Jardin series, introduced in 2003.