The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Anne Flipo built Nanette in collaboration with IFF, released in September 2009. The brief was clear: emphasize the amber. But the real story lives in the violet. Lepore dedicated that note to her eleven-year-old daughter, threading something personal into a commercial fragrance without anyone asking her to. It gives the whole composition a quiet anchor, something to return to beneath the showier top notes. The bottle came first, actually. Heavy crystal, shaped like something you'd find in an antiquated shop in Florence. The design team had the silhouette before the scent existed. They wanted a bottle that felt like Italy, like romance, like something with history already built into it. Then Flipo formulated around that shape.
The amber isn't incidental here. It's structural. Amber gives everything else a warm surface to exist on, a glow that makes the florals read richer and the woods read deeper. Without it, you'd have a standard rose-pepper composition. With it, you have something that holds its own weight for hours. The incense and cedar in the base are what people remember most. They arrive late and stay longest, which is smart design: you get the bright opening to hook attention, then the warm drydown to earn loyalty. Violet and lily of the valley provide the powdery middle ground that makes the whole thing feel cohesive rather than segmented. It's a pyramid that actually functions as a pyramid, each layer doing a specific job.
The evolution
The pink pepper hits first, bright and slightly spiced, giving the opening an immediate vibrancy. Neroli adds a clean, citrusy lift that keeps the opening from going too heavy too fast, offering a refreshing counterpoint to the pepper's bite. That crisp-floral phase gradually transitions before the violet and lily of the valley take over, softening everything into something powdery and intimate. The amber starts making itself known, blending the florals into the base rather than letting them disappear. Then the incense and cedarwood arrive. This is the part that earns the fragrance its reputation. The smoke and resin sit close to the skin but project strongly, the kind of drydown that someone across the table will notice without you having to explain it. On fabric, the cedar lasts into the next day.
Cultural impact
Nanette sits in an interesting position: a fashion-house fragrance with real sillage and longevity, built for someone who wants to be noticed. The incense-cedar drydown gives it a distinctive character that sets it apart from typical designer florals, though the rose-violet heart keeps it accessible. It skews toward evening wear and cooler months, where that smoky warmth reads as intentional rather than heavy. Wearers who connect with it tend to be the ones who appreciate fragrance as statement rather than background noise.
