Etat Libre d'Orange Let's Pretend Eau de Parfum

$210⁰⁰ NZD

Size

50ml 100ml 1ml Sample

Let’s Pretend is a multi-faceted fragrance that doesn’t hide, it reveals. Like the perfect costume chosen before stepping into the spotlight in the Theater of Life, it allows you to embody the character you wish to become, if only for a moment. Here, life itself turns into a stage, and every gesture becomes part of the performance. Created by perfumer Nisrine Grillie, Let’s Pretend is a fruity-spicy fragrance that evolves with the wearer, inviting you to step into a role or reveal your true self.

The opening is radiant and electric. Mandarin sparkles with luminous freshness, while pink pepper adds a lively, spicy energy. A whisper of saffron intrigues and warms, as the curtain rises. At the heart, peach takes center stage: juicy, velvety, and irresistibly sensual. Osmanthus absolute deepens its fruity richness with apricot-like and subtly leathery nuances, while jasmine sambac adds a delicate floral glow. A shimmering and lively yet refined heart that melts into the skin, it is intimate and transformative. As the final act unfolds, cedar, styrax, and benzoin bring warmth, delicacy, and conviction. The stage, the world, life belongs to you. Showtime.

Life Becomes a Stage.

Description

Fragrance Family:
Floral Amber

Notes:
Saffron, Pink Pepper, Mandarin, Peach, Osmanthus Flower Absolute, Jasmine Sambac Absolute, Cedar, Akigalawood, Georgywood, Styrax, Benzoin

Concentration:
Eau de Parfum

Occasion:
Let’s Pretend sits firmly within the current zeitgeist: a combination of modern high-impact woody materials - textured, pure, and transformative - contrasted with a generous fruit-floral build. Smiling, radiant, and substantial, Let’s Pretend is a welcome surprise, and highly wearable.

Made in France

Editor's Notes

Looking back, looking forwards, looking inwards. Etat Libre d’Orange continues with this acute sense of time in Let’s Pretend. Here, it is the great multitude of the present; perched at the top with a view from above, Let’s Pretend feels like a restatement of contemporary perfumery and all of its tropes. But even Etat Libre d’Orange know that what’s old is new (again).

This is a fruitchouli with new materials and a new taste in mind. Just as the classic chypre moved its emphasis from oakmoss to patchouli, we find its inversion in a woody accord made from Akigalawood, Georgywood, and Iso E Super. Light-filled and translucent, radiant yet substantial - it changes the whole experience while retaining a familiar feeling. Change the fruit inflection - Mitsouko’s peach (Guerlain, 1919), Femme’s plum (Rochas, 1933), Angel’s red fruit (Mugler, 1992), Chance’s pineapple (Chanel, 2002) - bring back the juicy peach and augment it with blossomy, jasmine-adjacent osmanthus and the unique warmth of saffron - between honey and metal - and you have Let’s Pretend’s restatement.

Following a traditional hierarchical construction, fresh citrus and fruit move into florals and spices, finishing on modern woods and ancient resins. Its progression is coherent - immediate but also unfurling - shifting between old and new; it grows increasingly abstract, less determinate - it is a good-smelling sensation. Captivating, wearable commentary. Let’s Pretend understands exactly how a modern perfume should be.