Perfume Review: Robert Piguet Baghari

Getting to know Baghari was like falling in love with someone who looked a little like a person you adored years ago, like recognizing familiar, beloved features on an entirely new face. The moment I smelled the sparkly powder of Baghari's aldehydes, I felt at ease and at home. I knew this scent even if I have never encountered it before. It wasn't the familiarity of a derivative fragrance, no, the scent had the recognizable feel of a classic. Baghari, with its sugared violets and roses, adds a touch of gourmand-craving modernity to the elegant lines of a time-honored floral-aldehydic, but does so judiciously and tastefully, adopting the new scent for the slightly sweeter tastes of a great-granddaughter of the woman who used to wear Chanel No 22 (which was the beloved I recognized in Baghari), Liu and the original Baghari. Concerning the latter, I own and treasure a sample, which is quite old. Time practically erased the supposedly bright top notes of aldehydes and citruses, and started its inexorable process on the creamy heart, so what I am left with is the dark, dirty base. But it seems to me that to know that base alone is to know one of the main differences between the old and the new Baghari. The reissued composition lacks the earthiness and the animalic muskiness of its more sensual predecessor. Still, unlike some of the recent re-releases, the new Baghari is recognizable if not as an exact replica (let's face it, with different materials and different - or more! - guidelines, that is practically impossible) then at least as a direct descendant of the 1950 creation. With its sumptuous bouquet of sunny neroli, ripe, nectarous rose and jasmine and sweet, powdery violet and iris, and a languid, expansive feel of the composition, Baghari stays true to the grand and insolent spirit of the rest of the Piguet collection. I imagine the glamorous Fracas and the daring, impossibly sophisticated Bandit surprising themselves by feeling unexpectedly fond and strangely protective of this youthful reincarnation of their long-gone sister. I will review the latest additions to the Piguet line, the newly reissued Visa and Cravache, on Friday. Baghari is available on Amazon, among other places, $65.00 for 1.7oz, $95.00 for 3.4oz. Image sources, imgmodels.com (the picture of the beautiful Sasha Pivovarova), amazon.com.