The collection includes four fragrances in 7.5ml perfume vials: Straight to Heaven (rich dark rum and addictive vanilla with dried fruit), the iconic Black Phantom (danger and darkness through a beautiful coffee creation filled with cyanide and rum), Intoxicated (rich Turkish coffee laced with green cardamom as well as spicy cinnamon and hallucinogenic nutmeg), and the meditative Gold Knight (bergamot and a warm golden shimmer of vanilla and anise). Obsessed.

The travel set comes in a jet-black lacquered travel spray which we photographed during a recent NEO 10Y shoot and documentary (see above and below). Can’t show much more of the editorial at this stage, but the photo is by Nilik Khimani and the pants are by designer Zhan Kai.

You can see the detail of the engraved Achilles shield motif (I love the geometry, I find it really hypnotising) along the sides – as said by the brand themselves “a veritable cult object of design”. Love love love.

Additional images provided by Kilian.

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I’d highly recommend the candle, it’s slow burning, super intense and transportive and I’m frankly quite obsessed with it!

You can purchase Kilian’s epic candle collection via the official website bykilian.co.uk.

Also, if you haven’t had the chance to check out Reality Check yet, you can stream it on Spotify and Apple Music, as well as all other platforms!

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That said, I wanted to share a post about Kilian and their manifesto of “Luxury Should Last Forever“. This is rooted in their expansion of refillable perfumes and shower gels. In the words of Kilian Hennessy himself, “luxury should always be lasting, and that is a voluptuous challenge, to capture what is ephemeral the better to savour it. To slow down time and enhance the sensations. To go back to the origins of perfume, when bottle and box were its coat of arms; the embodiment of a spirit.”

As you know, I am always experimenting with different scents and sensory experiences, and currently I am addicted to Kilian’s incredible Gold Knight which contrasts the addictive dark sensuousness of patchouli with the effervescent brightness of bergamot, and warm golden shimmer of vanilla and anise. It holds a regal scent with an almost Eastern meditative element and comes in a gold armoured outer case (a truly timeless piece) which is also inspired by Gustav Klimt’s famous ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’. The case contains refillable micro bottles – as pictured and although they can run out pretty fast (especially around me), the whole experience gives fragrance the sense of importance that it deserves and is long run more environmentally friendly and iconic than your average perfume experience.

Another highlight from Kilian recently is the shower gel holder and set for Black Phantom – also pictured. I personally LOVE Black Phantom, it is sweet, rich and intoxicating and using it as a shower gel really makes your skin vibrate on a whole new level of sensualness. Super impressed!

Image by Nik Thakkar, faux fur rug for reference!

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The dinner was in a private room, drenched in red, with a dirty mirror, referencing the campaign for Dark Lord which features Mr. Kilian Hennessy himself and a nod to Dorian Gray which was Kilian’s primary inspiration for the vision of Dark Lord.

As for the fragrance, I had a sneak peek a few days earlier when I spent 90 minutes with Marie O’Brien, the eduction manager for By Kilian at the Burlington Arcade store where we went through the narrative and ingredients of a fair few fragrances. Dark Lord is designed for the unapologetic man and takes on a similar direction to Black Phantom, you could almost call them siblings or lovers or twin souls, but Dark Lord hosts ingredients including long-lasting accords of leather and strong vetiver, its jasmine drenched in rum, and a dandyish entrance of bergamot and pepper – a variation from its sweeter counterpart. It still comes sealed in a skull lock box with key, just like Dorian’s painting and the sensory experience is truly exquisite. Looking forward to working more with the brand for sure!

Make sure to visit www.bykilian.com to explore further!

Photo by Getty/Dave Benett, edited by Diangular.

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Love The Way You Feel has the vibrant freshness of a Mojito cocktail with elements of lemon and mint and heart notes of green leaves and magnolia flower and fused with iconic vetiver. As with all Kilian fragrances, it remains on the skin and stands the test of time, but this time leaves an effervescent sparkle to prove its endurance. The perfumer for this edition is Sidonie Lancesseur.

The fragrance is photographed alongside sunglasses by a great new brand I discovered from Belgium founded in 2009 by Raf Maes and Anton Janssens, Komono.

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To celebrate 10 years of cult icon fragrance brand Kilian, a new addition to its ever growing portfolio has arrived. It’s fair to say that Straight To Heaven is one of Kilian’s heritage scents – laced with Madagascan vanilla and rum but now with an added extreme factor. The fragrance definitely has an impact “skipping purgatory altogether, it heads straight to heaven as notes of Martinique rum hit climax in high dose.” The endearing elements including nutmeg essence, dark patchouli and dry cedar wood are all amplified through this sensory experience. I’d definitely recommend!

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Heir to the Hennessy throne, Kilian Hennessy began his career in the shadows of the iconic 18th-century family business. This heritage almost certainly guarantees a curated human with exceptional taste and innate understanding of luxury, which is undeniable once you explore the DNA of the brand.

Before graduating from CELSA, Kilian wrote a thesis on the semantics of scent, in search of a ‘language’ common to gods and mortals. This translates into the architecture of what is known today as Kilian, a fragrance house recently acquired by Estee Lauder. After graduating, he then went on to train with the greatest noses in the business including Christian Dior, Alexander McQueen and Armani.

Uniqueness is key in such a saturated market and Kilian, launched in 2007, pairs pop culture ideologies with luxury heritage and a sense of sweet provocation with every note with fragrance names include Back To Black (Amy Winehouse), Good Girl Gone Bad (Rihanna). Ten years on, the world of Kilian now includes more than 35 scents.

Today I wanted to Spotlight the latest fragrance, Black Phantom. Previous ones that I have worn include Back To Black and Straight To Heaven. With Black Phantom, you’ll experience a very sweet world, which is so unique on a non gender binary level with such a strong 2017 focus from other brands on a more “green” and “earthy” direction. Black Phantom features rum, sugar cane, dark chocolate, coffee, caramel, almond, heliotrope and sandalwood, which cohesively deliver a sensual and provocative experience with notes of timelessness and the desert.

To test it out yourself, I’d definitely recommend visiting the Kilian shop at 26 Burlington Arcade in London. Packaging is such an essential part of the experience and as you can see the box for Black Phantom is striking with an almost McQueen-esque skull box with lock and key – perfect for the top shelf of your fragrance collection.

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