Aedes de Venustas Signature

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History

Aedes de Venustas Signature is the first fragrance from the Aedes de Venustas brand, released in 2012. Bertrand Duchaufour composed it in close collaboration with the house founders Robert Gerstner and Karl Bradl, whose Greenwich Village perfume boutique gave the scent its name and its brief. Duchaufour describes their world as one of luxury and quality, opulent and baroque yet refined, and set out to bottle exactly that atmosphere.

The references he cited were the interiors of the original store: burgundy and aubergine jewel tones, shimmering and iridescent finishes like the colors of peacock feathers, and textures of velvet, angel-skin silk, taffeta and brocade. From these he constructed a scent meant to read as both modern and decadent. Duchaufour sources many of his raw materials himself, traveling to work with farmers on sustainable and fair-trade practices; for Signature, the vetiver was sourced by him in Madagascar.

For the brand relaunch, the perfume was transferred into a new vessel: a fluted glass bottle with peacock-blue accents, a matte black insignia-stamped cap and a weighty, sleek design that marks the next chapter of the house. The juice itself is unchanged, a deliberate signal that Signature remains the olfactory emblem of Aedes de Venustas.

The olfactory experience

The house is explicit that Signature carries no trace of the traditional fragrance pyramid. Instead of a fixed progression from top to base, Duchaufour built what he calls a game of supports: an improbable architecture in which an ephemeral green rhubarb increases over time while a dark, resinous incense and chypre accord recedes and turns more abstract. This interplay between freshness and depth is the axis the whole composition revolves around.

Around rhubarb and incense, the official note list adds tomato leaf, red currant, honeysuckle, vetiver and hazelnut. The tomato leaf and red currant sharpen the green, tart opening; honeysuckle softens it with a nectarous floral facet; vetiver and hazelnut anchor the resinous, slightly bitter drydown. The result is round, voluptuous and a little uncanny, a chypre read through a contemporary, almost sculptural lens.

The AEDES DE VENUSTAS world is a world of luxury, of quality, simultaneously opulent and baroque yet decadent in a way that is refined.Bertrand Duchaufour

Olfactory profile

Signature reads as a floral chypre with a resinous incense heart, which places it in dialogue with the great green chypres while refusing their classical structure. The closest reference points in spirit are the cerebral, materials-driven compositions Duchaufour signed for L'Artisan Parfumeur and Penhaligon's, where the architecture matters as much as the notes themselves.

The distinctive trait is the moving balance between the bright rhubarb and the dark incense-chypre accord, which keeps the scent from settling into either a fruity-floral or a somber resinous register. It stays in motion, which is why it works as the house emblem rather than as a single, fixed mood.

Key characteristics

When and where to wear

Signature opens on a tart rhubarb before an incense-laced chypre takes hold, the 2012 debut of the New York house by Bertrand Duchaufour. Its green freshness makes it wearable across much of the year, yet the resinous vetiver base speaks most clearly as the day winds down into cooler air.

Wear references

Seasonal fit

Context fit

Similar perfumes

The incense thread that Duchaufour opened with Signature runs through much of the Aedes catalogue, and connects to the wider contemporary incense register in niche.

Frequently asked questions

See also