The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Imperial II arrived in 2022 as part of Gissah's Legend of Valleys Signature Collection. The composition pairs bergamot and pink pepper at the top with a heart and base built around praline, patchouli, white amber, leather, oud, and woody notes. The fragrance reads as a deliberate exercise in contrast, bright citrus and sharp spice laid over resinous depth. Praline introduces a sweetness that the darker materials have to absorb rather than resist, and the leather and woods give the drydown a firm architectural line. Nothing here feels accidental, and nothing feels safe. Imperial II takes the collection's name at face value: this is a composition that wants to feel grand, weighted, and unhurried in the way the materials themselves demand.
What makes the heart of this composition memorable is the praline. It is an unusual choice in an oriental context, a caramelized sweetness threading through patchouli and white amber before the base takes over. The result is a bridge between gourmand comfort and serious resinous depth. The pink pepper at the top is calibrated rather than loud. It bites, then yields, setting up the leather's entrance rather than competing with it. Bergamot does what bergamot does, but here it carries more weight than usual because the base is so much darker than typical citrus pairings.
The evolution
On skin, the first thirty minutes belong to bergamot and pink pepper, bright and a little sharp, the kind of opening that catches your attention when you first reach for your wrist. It reads almost cheerful, which is deceptive. Around the forty-minute mark, the praline arrives. Warm, toasted, faintly nutty, it slides beneath the pepper and changes the temperature. Patchouli grounds it, and the white amber begins to glow. The leather note enters next, structural, worn, present, the kind of leather that feels less like an accessory and more like a piece of furniture you have owned for years. By the third hour, the oud has taken over the composition's spine. It is darker, smoother, almost smoked, with a density that reorganizes everything above it. The woods underneath it, listed simply as woody notes, do their work quietly, giving the oud a frame.
Cultural impact
Imperial II sits within Gissah's Legend of Valleys collection. As the 2022 counterpart to the original Imperial Valley, it shares the signature profile of oud and leather but reshapes the opening around bergamot and pink pepper, giving the composition a brighter, more dimensional entry. The praline in the heart softens what would otherwise be a strictly resinous build, and the result is a fragrance that reads as both accessible and uncompromising. The composition works across seasons because of how its top and base are balanced.
