La Baguette.

Fendi's first fragrance collection arrived in 2024, ahead of the Maison's 2025 centennial. Seven scents, each one a chapter in the family's story. La Baguette takes its name from the iconic silhouette, the baguette bag that put the Maison on the arm of every stylish woman in Rome, Paris, and everywhere in between. This is the fragrance version of that bag. Refined. Self-assured. Built to be carried, not shown off. Anne Flipo worked with the Maison to translate the bag's identity into something you wear: not the logo, not the leather, the feeling of holding something perfectly made.

French iris is the opening. Cold, powdery, almost medicinal in its cleanliness, the kind of iris that feels like it belongs in a high-end compact, not a florist's cooler. Behind it, Madagascar vanilla: warm, creamy, a little indulgent, like vanilla stirred into something you're not supposed to have yet. The white leather doesn't announce itself. It smooths everything out, keeps the iris and vanilla from clashing, gives the composition the feeling of a perfectly finished edge on a handbag seam. Three notes, each doing a specific job. No filler, no decoration. That's what makes it interesting, the restraint.

The iris opens cold and powdery. There's a buttery quality underneath, something that reads as almost edible but stops short of sweetness. It doesn't warm up immediately. The first ten minutes are all cool air and clean florals, powder, not petals. Then the vanilla arrives. Slowly, like something warming in the sun. It doesn't ambush the iris, it softens it, slides underneath, adds body to what was all architecture and no flesh. The white leather shows up around the second hour. Not as a loud leather note, more like the scent memory of a well-worn bag, smooth and close to the skin. By the fourth hour, you're in the drydown: vanilla softened to powder, leather faded to skin-warmth, iris still faintly there like a reference you almost caught. Six to eight hours, depending on your skin. The last hour is barely there, the kind of scent someone standing very close will notice and not be able to name.

Fendi's entry into fragrance in 2024 marked the most significant launch for the Maison in years, coinciding with its approach to a century of operations. La Baguette sits among the collection as the powdery, elegant option, for those who want the Maison's refinement without the assertion. Compared to other iris-vanilla compositions released in the same period, it holds its own through restraint rather than complexity.