Hermès’s latest olfactory offering isn’t what you’d expect from a men’s fragrance. Instead, H24 forgoes the trappings of masculine stereotypes rendered by luxury brands—think either dark and brooding, or a bit too clean—and takes your nose on an unexpected journey as the scent settles on your skin. “I had to open up other, less predictable paths, to move away from the conventional woodiness of men’s scents,” says Hermès in-house perfumer Christine Nagel, who channeled mens artistic director Véronique Nichanian’s graceful balance of fluidity, proportion and material. “When I attend one of Véronique’s runway shows, I’m always struck by how I’m able to feel the texture, the very weave of the fabric, with my eyes.”
That same thinking applies to H24, the first men’s fragrance released by the French house since the enduringly popular Terre d’Hérmes debuted 15 years ago. But instead of cedar and grapefruit, a decidedly old-school mixture, H24 opts for an offbeat approach that isn’t afraid to dabble in artifice. As a starting point, Nagel chose clary sage—a dominant botanical noted for crisp inflections of hay and cut grass—alongside a highly distinctive amber base. “This variety is far more enveloping and more sensual than garden sage with its medicinal, camphor-infused accents,” says Nagel. “I was thinking of urban nature, the accelerated image of this fragile little shoot pushing through concrete to claim its space. I find the expression of this movement, this life force, enormously moving.”
