the art of giving: part four

Part one: Luxury, Part two: Jewellery, Part three: Culture

Part four: Fragrance 

The Three Wise Men had something right. They travelled far and wide across the Orient and the sandy desert to deliver the gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh to the infant Jesus in a Manger. Gold we’ve covered – studded with black diamonds or winking cheekily from a suede clutch – but the gift of fragrance and perfume is one that keeps on giving.

With a curved glass body and a sleek black lid, Byredo fragrances are a thing of beauty themselves, but it’s their scents – clean, clear and fresh as a daisy – that are the real draw-card. Pop Gypsy Water or Blanche into the stockings of a wild-eyed wanderer or an Acne addict. Balenciaga’s eponymous first perfume clarifies its lush, swollen green with the sweet simplicity of Violets. It’s a forest at dawn, a secret garden at dusk, and ideal for ones who love skinny jeans and Dicker boots and paint their lips red, baby, red.

A candle is the best gift for someone who is hard to buy for – who could resist the little extravagance of burning something from Diptyque or Malin+Goetz or Curio Noir for a few minutes every day? We love Otto, with its pink-hued scent of grapefruit, geranium and rose, and Figuier, white as a northern Christmas, and Vetyver Bouquet, a wood-thatched church the day after a wedding.

Help someone start their very own Top Shelf by gifting a few Aesop products. That refreshing ‘zing’ of the Geranium Leaf products abounds from the Celestial gift kit, and the A.P.C fine fabric care collaboration is a must-have to hand-wash all of those Araks lingerie sets and silk shirts. And a bunch of flowers, peonies or orchids or whatever is fresh at Poho, in brown paper and tied up with a grosgrain ribbon. Hand them over and watch a smile magically appear on the receiver’s face. It’s the little things that make the most impact.

Clockwise from top, Byredo Gypsy Water and Blanche, $145 (US) 100ml from Byredo Parfums, Aesop Special Relativity Kit, $95 from Aesop, Orchids, prices upon request from Poho, Malin+Goetz Otto candle, $78 from Mecca Cosmetica, Curio Noir Vetyver Bouquet candle, $105 from My Chameleon, Diptyque Figuier candle, $99 from Mecca Cosmetica, A.P.C x Aesop Fine Fabric Care, $37 from Aesop, Balenciaga Eau de Parfum, 
$134 from Strawberry Net.

words by Hannah and collage by me