The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Aire Anthesis arrived in 2023 as the opening act of Loewe's Botanical Rainbow, a collection built on the idea that nature's palette has more range than most houses bother to explore. Perfumer Núria Cruelles Borrull had been building toward something specific: a fragrance that could hold both freshness and weight without choosing sides. The brief centered on a new material, Spanish cistus, the wild rockrose that grows across the Iberian peninsula. Its resinous sap has been used in perfumery for centuries, but Cruelles wanted to extract something rawer from it, an accord that read as authentically ambery without the usual heavy-handedness. Rhubarb entered the formula as a counterweight, its tart green edge keeping the composition from tipping into sweetness. The result was positioned as the first in a new generation of Loewe scents, one that used the rockrose as a starting point rather than a finish.
The LOEWE Accord, a proprietary ambery base built around Spanish cistus, is the structural surprise here. In most fragrances, resinous materials like labdanum play a supporting role, arriving late to anchor the drydown. In Aire Anthesis, the rockrose accord arrives early and stays, threading through the composition like a bass note under melody. This shifts the typical aquatic-floral structure: instead of opening bright and fading into warmth, the fragrance opens bright and keeps finding new ways to be warm. The rhubarb note amplifies this effect.
The evolution
The opening arrives cool and aqueous, pear and lily of the valley hitting first, clean as morning dew on a flower. No delay, no preamble. Within ten minutes, the peony emerges, softening the edge without losing the freshness. The rhubarb surfaces around the thirty-minute mark, a tart green note that cuts across the sweetness like a blade of lemon zest. That's the turn. The fragrance stops trying to be purely aquatic and starts reaching for something warmer. The rockrose accord announces itself around the two-hour mark, resinous, slightly honeyed, pulling the composition toward amber without overwhelming it. The sandalwood follows, creamy and quiet, settling underneath the florals like a cushion. By hour four, the drydown has fully arrived: warm, close, intimate. The sillage was never theatrical, but the longevity makes up for it, six to eight hours on most skin, with the amber-rockrose base lingering longest. On fabric, it fades cleaner. On skin, it stays.
Cultural impact
Aire Anthesis arrived in 2023 as part of Loewe's Botanical Rainbow collection, signaling a shift toward nature-inspired luxury perfumery. The fragrance's use of the proprietary LOEWE Accord, an ambery base built around Spanish rockrose, marked a departure from conventional Mediterranean olfactory signatures. Its pear-rhubarb opening, paired with lily of the valley, positioned the scent within a broader industry trend toward watery, dewy florals that evoke freshness and morning light rather than traditional richness. The 2023 launch emphasized Loewe's commitment to Spanish botanicals as a core brand narrative, influencing how niche and luxury houses approach regional identity in fragrance design.
