Eva Kant – original and exciting and gorgeously niche

Photo: perfumeniche

Lately, perfume blogs and the press have been full of talk about the demise of niche fragrances. If you’re among those who believe niche is dead or dying, you haven’t yet experienced Eva Kant from Italian niche line O’Driù.

Contemporary artist and self-taught nose Angelo Orazio Pregoni launched O'Driù in 2011. Born in Milan in 1970, Sig. Pregoni makes art that is erotic, intimate, provocative and evocative. For him, perfume is art that is only fully realised when it is placed on the human body. From then on, it lives with the wearer, moving through the world with them.

Sig. Pregoni is a non-conformist, an original with the soul of an artist. The fragrance was inspired by a character in the wildly popular Italian pulp-fiction comic series Diabolik. Diabolik is a ruthless thief who targets criminals — think Robin Hood in a mask. Tall, dark and handsome, he uses disguises to conceal his identity. Eva Kant is his partner in crime: a glamorous blonde and, like Diabolik, a master of disguise. Diabolik and Eva carry out their nefarious deeds and work together to avoid capture by Diabolik’s arch-nemesis, Inspector Ginko.

This explains the exciting, original and complex nature of Eva Kant.

On me, Eva Kant opens with bitter, sharp grapefruit, tempered by pungent lavender—herbal, floral, and medicinal; it’s more of an announcement than an opening.  A note of damp woods smooths the edges perfectly. I love the bold confidence of the opening. The medicinal, woody facets of the top notes carry through the fragrance in myrrh, sandalwood and warm, fresh, juicy ginger. This is a tease: Eva Kant disguises her heart by echoing that strong opening until she is ready to reveal her inner beauty. The fragrance doesn’t evolve so much as shift to reveal a heart of creamy magnolia and rich, tropical ylang-ylang. These florals are carnal, unctuous and beckoning. They rest on a carpet woven from warm, sweet chamomile twinned with aromatic, resinous cardamom, creamy vanilla and benzoin.

The drydown isn’t romantic or charming; rather, it is complex, with different notes coming forward and receding for hours and hours. At times it is dry or creamy, floral or animalic, carnal or woody, camphorous, bitter and sweet — a gorgeous olfactory expression of the concept that the fragrance lives and evolves with the wearer and I am besotted with it.

Eva Kant is art as perfume: original, exciting and gorgeous to wear. Is niche dead? Not as long as fragrances like Eva Kant are being made.

Check out Eva Kant in our Shop.