The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
By Kilian's 2018 collection, My Kind Of Love, was built around a single idea: desire as game, love as declaration, freedom as the prize. The name says it all, a statement made in the heat of something, then quietly walked back. Perfumer Pascal Gaurin had three notes to work with: raspberry, tobacco, and leather. Not a brief for subtlety. The challenge was making each one tell a different part of the story without drowning the others out.
What makes this composition interesting is what By Kilian calls a 'multi-layered' result from barely any layers. The raspberry doesn't arrive sweet, it comes in tart, almost confrontational, like fruit bitten into before thinking. The blond tobacco isn't the dried-leaf sweetness of pipe tobacco; it's raw, slightly animalic, the kind that hints at skin-warmth without ever quite getting there. And the black leather, well. That's the handshake at the end. Firm. Lasting. Something to remember you by.
The evolution
The opening hits bright and direct. Raspberry, unapologetic, with a sour edge that keeps it from being pretty. It doesn't fade so much as it accepts the next act. The tobacco slides in warm and unhurried, settling the sweetness into something smoke-soft. Then the leather arrives, not the harsh kind, but worn. Familiar. It wraps close to the skin for the long haul, eight to ten hours of quiet presence rather than room-filling announcement. On fabric, it hangs around even longer, becoming a scent that others notice the next day and want to track to its source.
Cultural impact
This one's for people who want leather but find most interpretations too harsh or too soft. The fruity opening makes it immediately accessible; the drydown makes it memorable. Three notes doing the work of something much larger, that's the By Kilian signature, and Pascal Gaurin executes it here with real precision.
