Casamorati 1888 EDP Tester

1888 EDP Casamorati Tester 

A date is not merely a number it is a world. 1888 is the year Casamorati was founded in Bologna, when the Italian perfumery tradition was at its most vital and its most beautiful, when fragrance was still an art of extraordinary manual craft, of materials chosen with singular care and blended with singular patience. The fragrance that bears this date is both a tribute and a declaration: that the values of that founding year beauty, richness, originality, and the refusal of compromise remain entirely, permanently intact. Launched in 2013 as the house’s signature creation, 1888 is an Oriental Floral Eau de Parfum for women and men of magnificent, unhurried, deeply Italian complexity: spiced and golden at the opening, luminously floral at the heart, and warm, smoky, and enduringly beautiful at the close.

The opening is vivid, golden-spiced, and of an immediately rich, Eastern character: Carnation the warm, clove-spiced, slightly peppery floral of the Dianthus caryophyllus, one of the oldest and most distinguished materials in classical perfumery, beloved since the Renaissance for its warm, spiced, richly floral depth opens with an immediate, compelling spiced-floral richness of great historical character. Pepper adds its crackling, aromatic, slightly woody heat; Coriander the warm, slightly woody, citrus-adjacent spice that bridges opening freshness and oriental depth with more elegance than almost any other aromatic adds its refined, warm complexity; and Saffron the dried stigmas of the Crocus sativus, the most expensive spice in the world by weight, with its distinctive warm, slightly metallic, honeyed, and subtly leathery aromatic richness treasured in Arabian, Persian, and Italian luxury for millennia gives the opening its defining golden intensity: an accord of four materials that is simultaneously spiced, floral, and of the deepest, most beautifully considered Eastern-Mediterranean luxury.

The heart is luminous, opulent, and of a magnificently considered floral complexity: Ylang Ylang the intensely heady, tropical, banana-honeyed flower of the Cananga odorata, a defining material of the great Oriental floral tradition opens the heart with full, voluptuous tropical presence. Rose the most classical and universally beloved of all floral materials, here with its warm, honeyed, deeply velvety richness forms the warm, golden floral centre with sovereign authority. And Neroli the luminous, slightly bitter-orange, honeyed-floral distillation of the Citrus aurantium blossom, one of the great classical materials of Italian and French perfumery with a distinctive clean, slightly green-floral freshness that lifts the ylang and rose into greater brightness adds a beautiful, transparent luminosity to the heart that prevents the opulent florals from ever feeling heavy, giving 1888 its particular, Italian balance of richness and light.

The dry-down is warm, smoky, and of a deeply enduring beauty: Amber glows with golden, enveloping resinous warmth; Sandalwood settles with creamy, meditative depth; Patchouli adds its characteristic dark, earthy, slightly fermented richness that grounds the entire composition in a beautifully complex, naturalistic warmth; and Birch the distinctive smoky, slightly tarry, almost leather-adjacent material of the Betula tree, used in perfumery for its evocative, cool, northern-forest smokiness adds an unexpected, quietly magnificent smoky darkness to the base that is 1888’s most original and most memorable final statement: the Italian sun of the florals above, meeting the cool, smoky forests of the north below, in a dry-down of complete, beautiful, enduring harmony.

• Fragrance Family: Oriental Floral
• For: Women & Men (Unisex)
• Launched: 2013
• Top Notes: Carnation, Pepper, Coriander, Saffron
• Middle Notes: Ylang Ylang, Rose, Neroli
• Base Notes: Amber, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Birch
• Concentration: Eau de Parfum
• House: Casamorati

1888 is the founding year made wearable golden, floral, and endlessly, magnificently Italian.