O&E

O/E is all about paradoxes and oxymorons. It's halfway between acoustic and electric, digital and analog, natural and synthetic, artisanal and industrial, outdoors and indoors, the past and the future. All kinds of green, from citrus to leaves, from oxidized copper to fruit. It's a forest in spring, a motel room with a green carpet, an astronaut wearing cologne, trees, wooden furniture, taxidermy, a botanical garden, cigarette smoke, and a crystal-clear sky. It's there to cheer you up, but it's also always ready to unleash the beast within, hidden within its massive animalistic, chypre-like bone structure.

O/E is an artfully structured, highly intricate array of bright, vibrant citrus fruits, naturally green spices and flowers, warm natural and clean synthetic wood notes, and an undertone of smoky animalic notes—all of which somehow combine to create something bright, surprisingly light, and joyfully uncategorizable.

The combinations are exquisite—an ultra-fresh bergamot opening sits above a spicy, fresh herb garden of rosemary and thyme. Balsamic camphor cools a sprig of juniper, pine, and cypress. A hint of lush florals offsets a resinous benzoin note, and a translucent layer of Iso-E Super envelops everything, making the composition unmistakably 21st-century. Each bold stroke is effortlessly complemented with the kind of artistic and architectural virtuosity that balances but never overlaps, so that the finished product is as impressive in its scope as it is wonderfully entertaining. Halfway between acoustic and electric, digital and analog, artisanal and industrial, indoors and out—O/E is another triumph from a truly contemporary talent.

"Over time, Antonio Gardoni confirms the general impression that he is the irritating kind of man, possessing diverse talents, a wealth of ideas, and bottomless erudition, and his perfumes now move away from the retro style of his very first creations. O/E is a very unusual interpretation of the classic woody citrus fragrance for men, with a rarely used, cooling camphor note in the top note and a pine-clove accord in the heart note, which I find very appealing." (O/E review from "PERFUMES, THE GUIDE" by Luca Turin)