MEM

Since Aimè Guerlain created Jicky in 1889, no perfumer has done something so radical with lavender.
Antonio Gardoni takes the sunny herb from his garden and guides it through clay, wood, minerals, burnt sugar and wax, creating a new form, like steel forged by the elements.
MEM contains all the characteristic Bogue signatures, but represents a clear advance in complexity even compared to the masterpiece MAAI.

MEM opens with a dark lavender note that smells less of fresh herbs than of clay and porcini mushrooms. Soon, sunshine arrives in the form of hops, toasted malt, and the pale, aldehyde-laden beer, lifting the fragrance from its humus-rich opening. The burnt sugar of the ethyl maltol caramelizes the lavender, creating a phantom fruit note like the dark, almost calcified contents of a forgotten peach jam jar. But as the mind adjusts to that accord, MEM shifts again, this time into a rich floral heart of jasmine, rose, and ylang-ylang, sacrificing beauty to the more interesting facets of wax, gasoline, and rubber. Indian sandalwood, with its wheaty milkiness, and Himalayan cedarwood, with its lingering smokiness, work together to energize the florals and aromatics in the base. The drydown, robust and beautiful, interweaves the sweet dust of unlit incense sticks with the musky, salty, animalic base of a barbershop fougère.

MEM isn't a perfume that's easy to interpret, but it will reward your patience a hundredfold. As for who can wear it, MEM is a chimera: sometimes it seems masculine, sometimes feminine. Beautiful, idiosyncratic, and memorable—we think this is artisanal perfumery at its most daring.
"MEM is by far the most complex and ambitious fragrance Antonio Gardoni has ever composed, and smelling it in one strip is a bit like trying to read a closed book: the sheer density of the scent makes comprehension impossible. On the skin, the breeze turns the pages, and the book becomes legible. MEM is a three-movement work played by a 107-piece orchestra the size of Parsifal: a fresh, camphorous lavender-laurel accord in the top note that says, 'Fear not, you good people: soothing, spicy-fresh, and masculine,' and would live happily on its own; just behind it, a huge, unexpected, regal jasmine-rose accord that breathes natural quality; and in the background, an animalistic drydown in the great bogue- Retro style. In terms of balance, texture, and sheer symphonic opulence, MEM plays in a very rare league. A tremendous achievement for any perfumer, even more so for one who works as an architect by day." (MEM review from "PERFUMES, THE GUIDE" by Luca Turin)