The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Novus sits within Riggs' Prestige Collection, a line that signals a shift in direction for the house. The fragrance reads like a recalibration of everything the brand has done before, taking familiar territory and sharpening it into something more angular, more textured. Pink pepper and patchouli do the structural work here, leaning into each other with the easy familiarity of notes that have been placed in conversation before, but here they push harder, sharper, with more heat. There's nothing tentative about the composition. It's the scent of someone setting a new tone for themselves, choosing the version of the week they want to inhabit, and it carries that sense of decision through every phase of the wear.
The structure is what makes Novus worth paying attention to. Benzoin arrives and works with the leather notes to form a drier, smokier bridge between the opening and the heart, a route that keeps the composition from collapsing into sweetness at any point. Violet leaf in the heart adds a green metallic edge that most rose-and-lily combinations avoid entirely. The result is a composition where the warmth comes from texture rather than from any sugar-laden accord. The leather-and-benzoin combination gives the base a hand-stitched quality, something that feels worked over rather than poured.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are the loudest. Pink pepper and mandarin hit fast, the coriander threading between them like herb-crushed citrus. There's a brief window where the opening reads almost cocktail-sharp, bright and a little aggressive, the kind of burst that announces itself across a room. Around the 30-minute mark, the florals take over. Lily of the valley and rose arrive together, but the violet leaf refuses to let them go sweet. It adds something cool, almost metallic, like a window cracked open in a warm room, a counterweight to all that floral warmth. The leather and patchouli settle in gradually underneath, and the benzoin arrives as a smoky and resinous undertone that hums through the rest of the wear. As hours pass, the composition moves closer to the skin, the projection softening into something more intimate and personal.
Cultural impact
Novus sits within Riggs' Prestige Collection, a line that gathers some of the house's more layered compositions in one place. The fragrance has drawn attention for its willingness to push the leather-and-violet combination into territory that doesn't soften itself for an audience. The composition carries a sharpness that keeps it from being mistaken for a conventional floral release, and the way the violet leaf holds the rose and lily in check gives the whole thing a kind of intellectual edge, the scent thinking as it wears.
