Bond No 9: Union Square

The Silver Factory perfume was one of my favorites of last year (too bad my neighbor said it smelled like b.o. on me!) and I’m happy to announce that just in time for spring, a new Andy Warhol scent is coming out. Here’s a few interesting tidbits for you:

“My favorite smell is the first smell of spring in New York,” Warhol once said.

It’s a big, fresh, seductive green floral with equally major inspiration: Warhol’s Flowers silk-screens and Union Square itself, the second location of Warhol’s Factory (and the place where he created his Flowers).

The scent, a seductive green floral that’s simultaneously cool and warm, is housed in the slim Bond No. 9 superstar flacon, this time displaying Warhol’s flowers as its surface design. Outsize, otherworldly flowers such as these are of course a major fashion statement for spring 2008—with multitudes of designers taking their cue from the Warhol Flowers series. Likewise, Bond No. 9’s Andy Warhol Union Square is in tune with the times (as perfumes should be). But let us go one further and propose that this latest scent of ours, enveloped in Warhol’s iconic flower motif, raises the art of perfumery to—dare we say it?—a new level of sophistication.

The Fragrance

Let’s start with the scent itself. While most floral fragrances just hint at cool, and vice versa, this one is an ambi-sexual, daringly balanced mix of sweet and cool. Sometimes the gentle scent of lily of the valley seems about to prevail, looped together with blue freesia, golden amber, and animal musk to enhance its sensuality. At other times, crunchy green-stem notes and white birch wood are poised to turn this scent into one of pure, clean energy. But then the sweetness and the coolness merge, and stay merged.