Enlévement au Sérail / FK3 (2006)
by MDCI

An updated classical floral boasting wonderful depth and a sensuality that borders on the coquettish. This is vintage Francis Kurkdjian. If Carnal Flower weaves its magic as a voluptuous temptress, then Enlévement au Sérail is the seductive song of a sultry siren.

15th April, 2011.

This perfume is really outstanding! It does remind me of vintage Guerlain, without the excessive powdery notes.

It opens with a big blast of very nice citrus. Then the beautiful, high quality florals begin to shine through. While this perfume looks like a rich floral at the surface, just underneath is a thread of something not at all tame or lady-like. There is a hint, just a swift moving tease, of a much more sexy scent. It really is a breathtaking and seductive perfume.

The contrast between carnal and romantic are balanced nicely with the earthiness of the very light touch of patchouli.

Unfortunately, I tame this one down too quickly and it starts to smell like a very nice, expensive floral on me. It was such a disappointment after the sensual chase of the first hour of wear.

I rarely give positive reviews to perfumes I wouldn't wear myself, but this one is really that good. It is exciting, Intriguing, beautifully constructed, and stylish. I just couldn't bear to make this femme fatale into a housefrau.

29th July, 2010.

I find it curious that Parfums MDCI includes not one, but two peach and iris-inflected Francis Kurkdjian chypres among its relatively limited collection. While easily distinguishable from one another, Enlévement au Sérail and Promesse de l’Aube are clearly stylistic twins, or perhaps more accurately, variations on a single theme. The two scents appear to share a good deal of content and structure, but they express different moods. Where Promesse de l’Aube is powdery-bright, chaste, and as frilly as a lace doily, Enlévement au Sérail is slinky and seductive - perhaps even outright lewd.

In fact, the last time I smelled such audaciously animalic floral and civet top notes was Mona d’Orio’s patently over-the-top Nuit Noire. Now, as then, it’s an opening hook I can’t resist. Enlévement au Sérail lives up to the promise of those seductive top notes with a delicately balanced floral chypre accord that’s sweetened by lactonic fruit notes, enriched by a creamy iris root, and warmed by the persistent echo of the animalic opening. Conspicuous patchouli and light vanilla-amber base notes drape the drydown with an oriental overlay. The iris, the vanilla, the lactonic fruit, and the ambiguity between chypre and oriental style recall Mitsouko, but Enlévement au Sérail is much less imitation than reinterpretation. It is more brazenly sexual and more lithe in contours than Guerlain’s classic, and hence feels both more youthful in its bearing and more contemporary in its outlook.

Besides the stylistic cues, Enlévement au Sérail shares with its great predecessor a conspicuous aura of depth and quality, attributable, I suspect, to outstanding ingredients. This is no shrinking violet of a scent, with ample sillage and several hours’ worth of endurance. It’s also the first scent I’ve tried from Parfums MDCI that strikes me as anywhere near worth its exorbitant price – though I still advocate saving yourself the extra $375 US they charge for the little bust on the cap by purchasing only a refill bottle.

28th June, 2010.

This was one of my first perfumes to sample so I wasn't that descriptive back then, but i did love it and hope to return to it again this summer. With my second wearing i found it came 'alive' and was much more complex. I thought fans of Guerlains would really like this one.

27th April, 2010.

Enlévement au Sérail (FK3) is one of the most stunning, elegant, drop-dead gorgeous scents to come down the pike in years. Huge shout-outs to Claude Marchal and Francis Kurkdjian for this beautiful creation. It is like a rich Baroque tapestry with opulent colors and textures. The opening reminds me of the original Rochas Femme, only cleaned up a bit. This is the indolic jasmine part, but this indolic jasmine doesn't have the diaper note that it does in some fragrances. Far from it. The other notes I smell are mandarin, some rose, very subtle and well done peach, and finally, a beautifully matched patchouli-sandalwood combination in the base notes. There's not a lot of gymnastic development to the fragrance, in my experience. After the opening, it's fairly linear. In addition, I find the lasting power to be quite good. Technicallly, Enlévement is classified as an oriental. It is, but it also dips its toes into the chypre area, so it makes the wearer smell as if she's maybe been more places and done more things than she really has. Regardless, it's one of those timeless scents that never smells dated but always smells feminine and totally unlike the scents the "whatev" generation seems to wear endlessly.

If Kay Francis, that wonderful but under-known and under-appreciated actress who hit her stride in the early '30s, were alive today, I hope she'd wear this fragrance. Her warm, sultry, brunette beauty would be a perfect match for Enlévement au Sérail.

2nd February, 2010.

A beautiful and simultaneously ugly (ie. jolie-laide) fruity chypre in the mold of Mitsouko, but more complex. Very reminiscent of the vintage Guerlains and a worthy homage to Mitsouko.

I haven't given this a proper wearing yet, but will edit my review once I have done so.

9/10

18th November, 2009.