Jean-Claude Ellen took over at the head of the Hermès perfume line in the early 2000s and launched the first five fragrances from the Un Jardin Hermès series until his departure from the post of chief perfumer in 2016. A big fan of the work of Edmond Roudnitsky, who in the 50s released the first signature unisex fragrance Eau d'Hermès, Ellen was known as a minimalist. He loves to work with one main ingredient around which the composition is built. Un Jardin En Méditerranée from 2003 conjures up a picture of a Mediterranean garden, where the aromas of figs, figs, invigorating notes of lemon, mandarin and juniper unfold under the scorching sun, where you can feel the gentle breeze over the leaves of oleander and bergamot.
The fragrance Un Jardin en Méditerranée © press office
Un Jardin Sur Le Nil was released in 2005. Jean-Claude Ellen turned to the image of the Egyptian garden on the banks of the Nile. The composition is drier and stricter than the previous one. It opens with a grapefruit, green mango, carrot and tomato accord. Sweet and slightly sour notes of orange, hyacinth, peony, reeds and lotus are heard in the heart. The finale contains iris, cinnamon, amber, musk and incense.
Fragrance Un Jardin Sur Le Nil © press service
In 2008, the spicy Un Jardin Après La Mousson appeared. It conveys the sensations after a thunderstorm (which once caught the perfumer in the Indian state of Kerala). The aromatic memory consists of fresh grated ginger, sour drops of lime and sweet lily. Among the spices, Ellen preferred “cold” cardamom, as well as woody vetiver.
Un Jardin Apres la Mousson © press service
The mysterious Un Jardin Sur Le Toit was released in 2011 and was dedicated to all the brand's masters who are creative and open to new things. For inspiration, Ellen looked into his favorite garden, located on the roof of the Hermès office at 24 rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré. According to the perfumer, this is how Paris smells: notes of pear mixed with aromas of apple, magnolia, rose, as well as rosemary, thyme and other wild herbs. The bottle was designed by Philippe Dumas, the grandson of one of the owners of the company, Emile Hermes.
Fragrance Un Jardin Sur Le Toit © press service
The fifth fragrance Le Jardin de Monsieur Li was released in 2015 and became an ode to Chinese gardens. “I remembered the smell of ponds, jasmine, the smell of wet stones, plum trees, kumquat, giant bamboos,” says Jean-Claude Ellen. - Everything was here, and even the carps in the pond were in no hurry and lived up to a hundred years. The Sichuan peppercorns were prickly like roses, their leaves smelled of lemon. All that remained was to create this new garden that would have absorbed all the others."
Le Jardin de Monsieur Li © press service
The perfumer is attracted by oriental wisdom, which says that the garden cannot be considered complete until everything in it - both the pond and the gazebo - has received its own name. This idea is shared by the Chinese artist Li Xin, who at the request of Hermès created a series of paintings, one of which was used in the design of the novelty.
The sixth fragrance Un Jardin Sur La Lagune, released in 2019, was created by Christine Nagel, who replaced Ellena. One day she read about the Giardino Eden, a garden on the Giudecca island in Venice. At the end of the 19th century, the Englishman Frederick Eden, who smashed it, grew unusual and rare plants here, which, it seemed, could not take root on the poor Venetian soil. But soon a real English garden appeared in the lagoon, in which fruit trees, vegetables, oleanders, cypresses, magnolias, lilies of the Madonna, roses, as well as violets and verbena were combined.
Fragrance Un Jardin sur la Lagune © press office
Giardino Eden has always remained private and therefore inaccessible, but Christine Nagel fired up the idea of seeing Eden's creation. The perfumer observed the life of the garden for a year, watched how the air changed, in which the aromas of trees, flowers and salty sea drops were mixed. Thus was born Un Jardin Sur La Lagune, in which woody notes of cedar, sandalwood and moss are gently combined with accords of pittosporum, white lily, magnolia and sea salt.>