The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Champs Délaissée means abandoned fields. In the south of France, once-productive land that nature reclaimed. DL Jenkins wanted to capture that, not the ruins, but what still grows there. Wild jasmine pushing through cracked earth. Immortelle holding on, stubborn and golden. The bees still came, drunk on what remained. This is the starting point: a field that remembers itself.
Something was growing there once. Wild jasmine pushed through cracked earth. Immortelle held on, stubborn and golden. The bees still came, drunk on what remained. DL Jenkins didn't want to simulate this, wanted to preserve it, beeswax and all. The hay. The costus. The civet that makes your nose twitch before you understand why. Champs Délaissée is a field that remembers itself. DL Jenkins built it from ethically sourced oud, jasmine absolute, and hay absolute, materials that carry their own weight, their own history. The crystalline tremolite cap isn't decoration. It's a signal: every detail here was chosen.
The evolution
The opening arrives fast. Beeswax opens sweet and thick, blood orange cutting through with a bitter edge. Yuzu keeps it from becoming pastry, Japanese citrus brightness. For thirty minutes, it's almost sweet. Almost soft. Then the citrus recedes and something greener emerges. White tea appears first, delicate, slightly bitter, the smell of water and air. Around the one-hour mark, the florals arrive, jasmine and osmanthus bringing sweetness, neroli bringing the bitter-floral that grounds everything. Rose and immortelle follow. Fenugreek's maple appears somewhere in the middle, a quiet sweetness that holds the heart together for three to four hours. The drydown is where this fragrance becomes itself. Civet emerges in the final hour, warm, animalic, the smell of something that lived. Oud settles close to the skin, smoky and resinous. Leather and costus form the base, frankincense adding smoke. Hay persists. The drydown lasts six to eight hours with moderate sillage, intimate, close, the kind of projection that requires someone to lean in.
Cultural impact
Champs Délaissée arrived in 2024 as an Extrait de Parfum, the most concentrated category available. The fragrance performs well in cooler months and transitional seasons, with exceptional longevity that outlasts a full workday on most skin types. The animalic character, particularly the civet, creates a polarizing effect that some wearers find nostalgic and others find challenging, which is precisely what makes it interesting for those seeking something outside mainstream perfumery. The opening note combination of beeswax with blood orange and yuzu presents a distinctive entry point that sets it apart from conventional fragrance openings.
