Dossier
Edition · 000Status · Active. Genre-defining.
An aquatic floral with calone and lotus.
- Composed by
- Jacques Cavallier
- Bottle by
- Fabien Baron
- Founder
- Issey Miyake
- Country
- Japan
The pyramid
- Top
- lotusfreesiacyclamencalonerose watermelon
- Heart
- white lilypeonycarnationfern
- Base
- white muskambercedarsandalwoodosmanthus
The brief
Issey Miyake briefed Cavallier to capture 'the scent of water on the skin'. The composition was one of the earliest mainstream uses of the marine molecule calone.
Name'L'Eau d'Issey' — 'The Water of Issey' in French, also a pun on 'odyssey'.
Why it mattered
- Co-defined the 1990s aquatic-floral genre alongside Calvin Klein Escape and Acqua di Giò, popularising calone as a marine signature.
The flacon
Tall conical flacon topped with a small chrome sphere, inspired by the moon rising over Notre-Dame as seen from Miyake's Paris hotel window.
Footnotes
- Maureen Doherty co-developed the brief; the men's flanker L'Eau d'Issey Pour Homme launched in 1994.
The Curator's Note
The fragrance that taught a generation that water has a smell.