Premiere: 2011 Size: 100 ml Gender: Men Notes: Pink pepper, black pepper, geranium, elemi, nutmeg, patchouli, frankincense, cedarwood, vetiver, tonka bean, musk
Honour Man, the regal, dramatic masculine fragrance with a spicy, woody character, is heir to Amouage's ongoing (soap) operatic narrative that began with Jubilation, and continued on with Lyric, Epic, and Memoir. With an intensely peppery, dark opening, Honour Man creates olfactory storm clouds of disquiet, confusion, and drama befitting its back story, which was written by the perfume house's creative director Christopher Chong and inspired by Puccini's tragic opera Madame Butterfly. In Chong's melodramatic creative brief, Honour is the son of Madame Butterfly, Puccini's tragic heroine who commits suicide when the American soldier who abandoned her years before returns to take their son. Honour has come back, so the narrative goes, to confront his mother's tragedy and to come to terms with his identity. After the blast of pepper, Honour Man allows a fresh, rosy-floral note from geranium to peek through the dark clouds, followed by a succession of warm, woody, and spicy notes, including an intense patchouli that reminds us that Honour is still a fiery young man. Chong suggests that these comforting, beautifully blended base notes represent the reconciliation of our hero's troubled quest with his “filial elegy to honour his mother.” Its dry down does indeed feel like the denouement to a stormy, existential drama. Honour Man is housed in a white crystal bottle with a gold-plated cap affixed with a white opal Svarovski crystal.
