The Visual, the Sound & the Scent - A VSS© fragrance review of M/MINK EDP by Byredo

URBAN ABSTRACT (2009) is a journey across the urban space. Architectural, abstract, and in some extent minimalist and also human, Urban Abstract shows how Nature also plays its hole in the understanding of the urban concept. Created and directed by multidisciplinary design Finnish - Japanese agency Musuta LTD, the digital art piece was commissioned by TV Nelonen - Channel 4 Finland, and won a Golden Lion in Cannes.

I came across with this video last year browsing VIMEO website. The black & white images somehow stayed in my mind for a long long time.

Last week I went for the 10th time to the book store to flirt with a book that I am weighting if to buy or not (it is rather expensive). It is a book about japanese artist Tokujin Yoshioka, one of my favorite urban designers of all times. His installation, projects and products are mostly mixing industrial materials interacting with Natural sources, such as water.

Today, smelling Byredo's M/Mink EDP for the first time Urban Abstract & Tokujin came back to my mind as fast as the tiny drops of the fragrance fell from the air, down sloping  on my skin. I though of cold materials such as glass, metal, concrete... seas of black ink on white snowy paths... breezy tiny molecules of Adoxal getting lost in gray fumes of incense, in Urban Abstract frames. Aldehydic surreal rains freezing, and turning into the snow flakes of Tokujin's installation for KARTELL. 

Photo credit: Tokujin Yoshioka

Photo credit: Tokujin Yoshioka

Urban Abstract is my definition of M/MINK EDP by BYREDO.

A fragrance with a minimalistic design, with notes of Adoxal, incense, patchouli leafs, cloves, honey and amber. An interaction of Nature inspired elements and urban movement.

The surprisingly interesting smell of ink - for us lawyers with ink pens fetiches, is like dying and being sent to heaven! It is a conceptual fragrance, but a perfectly wearable one. Which is hard to find these days.

One can ask why I din't include in my last article of fabrics - FUR since it is M/Mink. I think it is because it fits more to the urban concept than to the furry one.

The fragrance has a delicacy, a sensual touch of amber -y notes combined with honey.

Cloves are perceived only close to dry down and it is really gentle - so you won't have the scary eugenol dentist trauma experience.

Incense is explored in a very different way that we are used to. It is not mystical nor mysterious, but rather foggy and giving the idea of cold winter day to the fragrance.

M/Mink is not a perfume - it is a story told in liquid form. It is an urban experience. It travels to distant cold snowy lands, it travels to cold midnights in cosmopolitan cities such as Tokyo, NYC, Berlin and São Paulo. It travels to lawyers offices and courthouses and the libraries of Harvard. 

Photo credit: Tokujin Yoshioka

I think of myself, sitting on one of TY chairs...gazing the window...watching the rain falling on the pavement.

It is a perfume worth trying!

You will find BYREDO by clicking on the name at my dearest shop Essenza Nobile.

OBS:
All Visual credits are Musuta's LTD.
All photos and links and copyrights, trademarks and patents of Tokujin Yoshiota's works belong to the artist, and although I didn't have a previous authorization to publish - this is a declaration of love for his work.