
It’s well known that New York-centric Bond No. 9 is in love with the city’s parks—with fragrances inspired by Central Park, Bryant Park, Union Square, Washington Square, the High Line, and Madison Square Park—so much so that it has New York’s largest and grandest urban oasis of all, Central Park, almost completely surrounded by dedicated fragrances. While its Fifth Avenue scent celebrates the park’s eastern edge, and Central Park West takes care of the western flank, Bond No. 9’s new eau de parfum for spring, Central Park South, surveys the southern end of the world’s most celebrated rectangle of superbly landscaped greenery. After all, for Bond No. 9, the mile-and-a-third long landmarked Central Park is a constant source of inspiration, not only vis-รก-vis the scents of the park itself—but particularly in the way it’s inspired both literal and figurative heights of greatness in its surroundings.
Central Park South, the eau de parfum, starts out with tangy and tonic wakeup top notes that sing of springtime: grapefruit flower, mingled with blackcurrent buds and green ivy leaves—the kind that thrive on trees dotted around Central Park. Their crisp freshness soon segues into more seductive heart notes: a bouquet of classic, mesmerizing jasmine and ylang-ylang, vibrant jonquil and honeyed Lily of the Valley—the latter a familiar early spring bloom in Central Park. The base, designed to extend the heady but volatile scent, contains those classic wood notes, sandalwood and cedar bark—grown on Central Park’s meadows, along with durable animal musk.
The Central Park South bottle echoes both scent and location. Superimposed on a pure white background is a scattering of vivid fuchsia blossoms—not literal flowers, but crisp photos that are palpable reappearances of the very blossom on the detachable bracelet gracing the neck of the bottle. This bottle is a meta-design: an object plus its rendering is a play on the duality of illusion and reality. The luscious swirling blossom (previously rendered in pink on the Central Park West bottle and in green on Madison Square Park) is a stylized fantasy—just like thenew eau de parfum.
Price: 100ml, $260; 50ml, $190; Swarovski, $390; body silk, $130; refillable pocket spray, $95.
Central Park South will arrive on all Saks Fifth Avenue counters March 15.
It really is a one of a kind bottle. It sounds like an interesting perfume!
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