The Sunday Read
Burberry Bottles the Check
For its 170th year, Burberry released eight perfumes at once, and built every one of them to be worn with a partner.
Most fashion houses launch a perfume. Burberry, at 170 years old, decided to launch a wardrobe.
At the end of October the British house introduced the Burberry Prorsum Collection: eight new eau de parfums, released together, sitting above the familiar Her, Goddess and Hero bottles you see at every department-store counter. Burberry says the collection is the first time its famous check has been turned into scent. That is a marketing line, of course. But the way the eight were built makes it more than one.
The idea is not eight perfumes. It is eight halves of something.
Why “Prorsum”
Prorsum is Latin for “forward.” It is the word on the flag carried by the mounted knight in Burberry’s emblem, and the house once used it as the name of its runway line. Putting it on a perfume line is a statement of rank. These are meant to be the house’s best bottles, not its most commercial ones.
Burberry was founded in 1856 by Thomas Burberry, the outfitter who invented gabardine, the tightly woven, weatherproof cloth that made the trench coat possible. The collection is soaked in that history. One scent is called Gabardine. Another is called Est. 1856. A third is named for Kensington and the trench itself.
Eight halves
Here is the clever part. Every one of the eight was designed to be layered with a specific partner, and Burberry lists the pairings on its own site. London goes with Knight. Gabardine goes with Est. 1856. Garden Rain goes with Cashmere Embrace, which also goes with Open Skies, which also goes with Kensington Trench. Follow the links and four of the scents form a chain, from rain to cashmere to open air to cotton.
The idea is not eight perfumes. It is eight halves of something.
Layering is nothing new. Jo Malone built a business on telling you to combine its colognes, and plenty of people spray a vanilla over a citrus without asking anyone’s permission. What Burberry has done is design the pairs in advance, so the second scent fills in what the first one leaves out. A fresh, rainy perfume borrows warmth from a woody one. A dark, sticky one borrows air from a lighter partner.
The eight, briefly
All notes below come from Burberry’s own listings.
- Garden Rain: spearmint extract, violet, driftwood and a petrichor accord, the smell of rain on dry ground.
- Cashmere Embrace: a cashmere accord with ginger oil, sandalwood oil and vetiver.
- Open Skies: a salty mineral accord, ivy, fir balsam absolute and a green vegetal accord.
- Kensington Trench: clean cotton, cashmere wood, vanilla absolute and a “morning rain” accord.
- London: liquorice root absolute, patchouli extract, blonde woods and an orange marmalade accord.
- Knight: an English berries accord, rose extract, white oudwood and saffron.
- Gabardine: a headspace of gabardine cloth, jasmine sambac absolute, chalky musks and white cedarwood.
- Est. 1856: incense oil, cedarwood oil, leather and a Longjing green tea accord.
Gabardine is the one to watch. A headspace is a technique in which chemists capture the air around a real object, analyze what’s floating in it and rebuild it as a formula. Burberry pointed that machine at its own fabric. The house is, quite literally, trying to bottle the smell of its coat.
Who made them
The collection reads like a roll call of working perfumers. According to Now Smell This, Nisrine Grillié and Yann Vasnier composed Cashmere Embrace and Gabardine. Florian Gallo did Est. 1856, Caroline Sabas did Garden Rain, Meabh McCurtin did Kensington Trench, Tanguy Guesnet did Knight, Mathieu Nardin did London and Violaine Collas did Open Skies. Eight scents, eight perfumers. That is a choice. A single nose would have given the line one voice. Burberry chose a choir.
The bottle and the bill
The bottles are faceted glass with the house check carved into them and the knight emblem worked in as a signature detail. In Britain, each scent runs £175 for 50 ml and £255 for 100 ml, per Burberry’s UK listings as reported by Now Smell This. When we checked Burberry’s US Prorsum page on the morning of November 8, it showed the scents and their notes but no US prices.
Do the math on the pairing idea and you see the catch. A layering system works best when you own both halves. Two 50 ml bottles in Britain come to £350. That is the real price of the concept, and it is worth knowing before you fall for one half at the counter.
Should you care?
Yes, for one reason. Designer houses rarely take risks this visible. Eight scents at once is a bet that customers want a fragrance wardrobe from a fashion brand, not just one signature bottle. If Prorsum sells, expect other houses to copy the move: a family of perfumes, each built to finish another’s sentence.
If you want to try the idea before paying for it, start with a pair that shares a mood. Garden Rain and Cashmere Embrace are the obvious first date: cool rain, then something warm to come in to. Wear one on each wrist for a day, then both together on the third. Your nose will tell you whether the whole is greater than its halves.