A new addition to Theme 29, ‘Hesperimental’, and the brand’s first floral amber citrusy fragrance.
In Marcel Proust’s universe, “to do Catleyas” becomes a metaphor for love, for those intimate, timeless moments when sensual memory shapes desire. “À l’heure des Catleyas” captures that suspended instant — the scent of sun kissed skin still damp with sea water, blending with tropical flowers and the golden light of a summer afternoon. It is a perfume about tenderness, memory, and discreet eroticism.
This sunny and sensual floral citrus fragrance opens with a burst of Luminous Citrus notes, before melting into an exuberant heart where Catleya, Tiare, and Sugi Wood blossom in a voluptuous embrace. The warm and caressing base notes combine Tonka Bean, Warm Sand, and Musks, leaving a delicate and captivating trail on the skin.
The expression ‘faire catleya’ or ‘arranger les catleyas’ is a way of referring to lovemaking used by Odette and Swann in Marcel Proust’s novel ‘In Search of Lost Time’. Symbolising romantic encounters and olfactory memory, this title, imbued with sensuality and nostalgia, reinvents Proustian romanticism in the light of a contemporary summer. For Pierre Guillaume, it becomes a tribute to skin, flowers and suspended time.
For this campaign, the perfumer becomes the photographer. In a wind-swept dune landscape, Pierre Guillaume captures his model in a suspended moment, filled with silence and light. A man’s body, marked by the floral tattoo of the catleyas, is offered to the breeze. His gaze turned toward the horizon, he keeps on his skin a trace of sand, the discreet witness of an embrace he does not wish to forget.
The image evokes the Proustian expression “to make catleya”, symbol of a closeness both physical and emotional. Through this photograph and this perfume, Pierre Guillaume lets us feel the caress of the wind and the light of summer shaping the scent of sand and salt on the skin. A declaration of love to light and to skin, at the hour of the catleyas.
