The Givenchy L’Interdit Elixir launch took over Mount St. Restaurant in Mayfair for an evening that had the particular quality of a very good party: unhurried, well-dressed, and unexpectedly musical. 10 Magazine hosted the celebration alongside Givenchy Beauty, gathering an eclectic room that stretched, as these things rarely quite manage, across fashion, music, art and television without feeling forced.
The occasion was the arrival of L’Interdit Elixir, a new chapter in a fragrance line that has always operated at the more architecturally interesting end of the white floral category. Where the original L’Interdit Eau de Parfum laid its foundations in white flowers, the Elixir moves somewhere darker and more deliberate.
What the Givenchy L’Interdit Elixir Actually Smells Like
According to BeautyScene, L’Interdit Elixir is a dark gourmand fragrance built around black cherry, oakwood, rum and vanilla. The original white floral structure is still present, but the Elixir folds in bitter almond alongside those warmer, resinous base notes, producing something considerably more nocturnal than its predecessor. It is the kind of scent that makes more sense at ten in the evening than at ten in the morning, and that is entirely the point. The effect is less fresh-from-the-garden and more considered, the olfactory equivalent of a room with good lighting and low ceilings.
Fragrance houses have been reaching toward this darker, denser register for some time now, and the Elixir feels like a confident move within that direction rather than a reactive one. The L’Interdit Elixir does not abandon its heritage so much as take it somewhere more interesting after dark.
The Givenchy L’Interdit Elixir Launch Evening at Mount St.
The guest list at Mount St. had the pleasing randomness of an evening put together by people with genuinely broad taste. Mick Jagger attended, joined by his fiancée, the author Melanie Hamrick. Leomie Anderson was there, as were Julia Mayska and Max M Selwood. The room had that particular Mayfair energy that only works when the booking is good and the music is better.
On that second point: DJs Shimmy Ahmed, Cosha, the Flag Twins and Audio Coming Soon were responsible for the evening’s sound, and by all accounts they held the room well past the point at which these things usually wind down. A launch event that keeps its guests dancing is a launch event that has understood what it is actually celebrating.
Michael Hennegan is credited alongside the Givenchy team with bringing the evening together. Photography across the night was handled by Marco Bahler and the 10 Magazine team, whose images capture the particular texture of a well-appointed room in full swing.
Mount St. Restaurant, for those unfamiliar, sits in the heart of Mayfair and has the kind of bones that make event photography straightforward: good proportions, good surfaces, the right amount of dark wood. It is a venue that does not fight with whatever is being celebrated, which is precisely what a fragrance launch requires. The Givenchy L’Interdit Elixir is available now via Givenchy Beauty.
