Dear Diane and Shaded Viewers,
Etat Libre d'Orange is the kind of brand that thrives on contradictions and contrasts. Want to spray yourself with a perfume smelling of blood,sweat,sperm and saliva after stepping freshly washed out of the shower? Then the brand's most well-known scent, Secretions Magnifique (Magnificent Secretions), is for you. Are you a successful late twenty-something that has the desire to smell like a fat, middle-aged electrician? The brand has a solution for that too. Even in the Etat Libre d'Orange flagship store located in Paris' trendy Marais district, rubber pillows contrast the elegant dark wooden decor whilst neon signs sit alongside a cattle skull in the window display. But here, as with the scents, nothing is as it first seems.
The brand founded by Etienne de Swardt in 2006 may have gained a considerable amount of attention for its tongue in cheek attitude toward fragrance, but catch a whiff of one of its perfumes like Putain des Palaces (Hotel Slut), and despite what the name might enquire, these are high-quality, well-considered scents
