It is not the crystalline light of the morning, nor the shrill voice of the seagulls or the roar of the sea waves that bursts into the rooms of her thoughts. It’s a charming and bright fragrance, nostalgic and familiar. Fragments of images in rapid sequence on memories that resurface as treasures sunk many years before. The sea breeze caresses her face ruffling her hair and drying a tear, while the memory brings back the face of the one who, now, is not there beside her to contemplate the beauty of that landscape. “Desperately”, she says in a whisper, thanking him once again for that wonderful life.

Éperdument is the name choosen by the Italian nose and perfumer Antonio Alessandria for his new fragrance, presented in September 2016 at Pitti Fragranze international perfume fair, in Florence. A name that has an harmonious sound and that translates the words madly, desperately, to evoke an intense, deep and poignant feeling.

Éperdument opens a window on a particular period of Italian history and on the dramatic and touching chapter of the Brides Ships.

Between the end of 1800 and the early years of 1900, Italy was involved in a massive migration. Nearly ten million of Italians left the country to embark on a long trip overseas in search of a better fortune. In the following decades, the practice of proxy marriage involved various regions of Italy, especially the Southern areas. Thousands of young women, some of them little more than teenagers, were betrothed to unknown men, often much more mature, who had emigrated years before. With a cardboard suitcase, which often contained only the bridal veil and a faded photograph of the future husband, they embarked on ships of the brides. Torn from their affections, alone, frightened, confused, they faced the long journey to say the fateful “yes” to the blind, on the crowded and chaotic wharf of a port. Some of them were lucky and found true love.

Through Éperdument, Antonio Alessandria gives a happy ending to the troubled story of these courageous women. He imagines one of them who, many years later, lost her life partner and decides to return to her homeland.

She’s there once again, on the deck of the ship, with a heavy heart and tears in his eyes like that day… But it was long time before. As the ship approaches the coast of the Mediterranean, she closes her eyes and breathes the familiar and comforting smell of her land, the smell of her childhood: ozonic and salty notes, green and citrus notes are intertwined with the subtle aroma of wild fennel.  In a moment, a flood of memories overwhelms her, as if to fill all those years away, retracing, in the wake of the ship, a trip back in time: the face of a beloved husband who is no longer there, the embrace of her family, the dreams of a little girl, her home. In that olfactory flashback, the orange flower, romantic and nostalgic, sighs wrapped in candid petals of jasmine, honeysuckle and lily of the valley, evoking the fragile and intimate essence of the most precious feelings. A refined accord of precious woods, musk and amber seals the moment of pure emotion in the soft warmth of a hug and she smiles, thinking of the man she loved and who loved her, madly.

The notes
Top: Green and Citrus accord, wild fennel, ozonic and marine/salty accord
Heart: orange flower, jasmin, honeysuckle, lily of the valley
Base: Precious woods, musk and amber accord

Éperdument will be available from the end of October 2016 in selected niche perfumeries in 100 ml size Eau de Parfum.