Description
Italian designer house Missoni, known for its knitwear clothes, has launched its first perfume created in cooperation with Estee Lauder. The perfume is named Missoni and is promoted by the grand daughter of the founder of this family business, who is also supervising production of this perfume.
Missoni addresses younger audience and was highly rated by the perfume reviewers. The perfume comes in bottles of red, rose, and orange, the colors that symbolize Italian festivities (joy, passion and love), and are at the same time the colors of multihued Missoni knitwear.
Missoni is a casual perfume with floral-fruity notes, light woodsy accord, and sweet base which reveals Gianduia chocolate (milk chocolate with hazelnuts). The top notes are bergamot, mandarin, and spicy orange. The heart combines magnolia, peony, wild rose, and sweet Japanese apple. The base is composed of pear tree, chocolate with hazelnuts, and amber. Missoni comes as Eau de Parfum in 30ml, 50ml and 100ml bottles, and as perfume (15ml and 6ml). It was created in 2006.
Missoni was created by Maurice Roucel and Trudi Loren.
ruckog – :
A raspberry that doesn’t smell cheap. Iris in abundance. A floral spicy geranium. Oakmoss in abundance. Honey, civet, and an animalic musk that growls. Leathery. Dirty.
This is Missoni in a nutshell.
Fairly cheap to find, this first fragrance by the Italian house is vastly underrated and almost forgotten. No one seems to mention it, while it is in fact a glorious perfume like they don’t make them anymore.
The raspberry in the opening, helped by the geranium and honey gives off a slight tea smell; dark and black tea that is enhanced by the dryness of Iris. Iris here also shows a somewhat soapy aspect, but not your typical creamy and soft soapy aspect that luxuriates in many a vintage. The oakmoss helps make the soapy aspect green and slightly dirty. The combination somewhat recalls the medicinal aspect of Aromatics Elixir.
This opening lasts for quite a while, and many will find it slightly bitter and rough. I love it. It gives it an air of distinctiveness that sets it apart from other chypres of the era. And Missoni is just that, a wonderful chypre that belongs with the best from the 70’s even though launched in the 80’s.
Maybe that’s why it never caught up; while bombastic floral orientals were hitting the shelves, Missoni showed some restraint, gave off Italian luxury, and showed there’s nothing that denotes expensive perfume more than a chypre.
The heart shows a more pronounced floral aspect, the geranium becomes rosier and the honey sweetens it leaving an impression of a crimson red rose.
But the best part, and the part that perfume lovers dream of, is the base. Ample doses of real oakmoss, pungent and beautiful at once, what smells like real civet, and a warm animal musk that recalls ever so slightly vintage MKK from Lutens.
And it lasts and lasts. It doesn’t disappear; instead it lingers on skin showing at times bits and pieces of the opening. Green, aromatic, animalic, sweet.
Sillage and longevity are outstanding, the edt I own from the first release packs more punch than the strongest edp’s of today.
Very unisex, even more masculine by today’s standards, Missoni is a forgotten gem that will appeal to lovers of strong chypres, leather and oakmoss lovers with a penchant for animalic growl.
Seek the edt splash in the square bottle with the half moon plastic cap. The box is like the one shown above with the typical Missoni stripes. Fairly affordable compared to other similar fragrances like Magie Noire and Mystere. (Similar in spirit)
rhygiedge – :
I own the original, it is a purse bottle. Found it at my local Goodwill for $4.99. Didn’t know how much juice was in the bottle because of the packaging (the bottle itself is covered with a blue metallic thingy). So, I just crack opened the outer part and found out I had nearly a full bottle:))), but the juice was darker, kind of like Youth Dew juice. Anyway, the perfume is divine! It’s honeyed styrax and mossy civet. It is complex. The moss is prevalent on me, but it is not a dry moss as in the Aromatics Elixir; it’s like moss in Rumba by Balenciaga. Love it. It stays for a looong time on the skin-16 hours (after that I showered). It stays on the clothes after 2 laundries (the mossy and patch part).
Bars606 – :
I own the original Missoni perfume just like in the picture. Certainly one of the forgotten 80s perfumes. I do think Missoni perfumes get overlooked, even recent launches it seems. The house is more known for its…crochet. Or perhaps because it lurked in the shadows of other giant fragrances like Poison or Coco. It’s a shame that I do not wear this often though!
assa111 – :
@therealpaloma
the original version of the 80s has a box whose pattern is the same as the fabric on fragrantica picture above . On the box the name MISSONI in capitals is surrounded by an oval line .
x282xx – :
Can anyone tell me how you can tell which version of this perfume might be available on ebay? ie. did they change the packaging or name, etc.?
Gesyelisk – :
Ah, what a big sexy giant from the 80s! It more of a chypre than oriental. Its a go “wild in the country” type of aphrodesia on a bottle. It is the obvious inspriration for La Nuit from Rabanne. It had a lot more big flowers and honey amid the civet and oakmoss/patcholi. Pure seductive love potion! One drop last for a good 12 hour!
At times overwhelming, its a little vampy. Like its sister chypres from the 80s Paloma Picasso and La Nuit, it is after dark night club background. Chypre in the 80s went underground, moving away from the “natural look” of the 70s. The green notes were accompanied by civet. Jeans and sandals were replaced by black fishnets and leather skirts. Missoni ushered in this new look.
Sadly, it gone from the market. Perhaps it was a little too X-rated in our PG-13 perfume world.
Thank you for this precious decant, Natalie!
Тунгуска – :
@sarahrice—ebay has quite a selection to chosse from (the original missoni)
sofi – :
I LOVED the original 1982 missoni.
The re launch smells awful…
Is there anywhere that I can get the original 1982 formulation any more?
legleg – :
Where to begin? I’m drowning in this stuff right now, celebrating because I just got a 2 oz bottle and no longer have use my 1.7 oz bottle sparingly! The ORIGINAL, not the plasticky syrup that’s on the market today. Blah, I had some sample vials of the new Missoni and couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. No resemblance at all to the original.
Original Missoni opens with dry, bittersweet raspberry, a hint of soapiness from the aldehydes, which leads into florals-which I can’t seem to distinguish which is which because either my nose isn’t trained enough or this stuff is very well blended. I do seem to smell patchouli almost from beginning to end.
Lots of patchouli (a bit on the dirty side or maybe it’s the civet giving me the impression of dirty?) and oakmoss on the drydown, which lasts forever. The honey keeps it from smelling too herbal or hippie-ish. Reminds me of La Nuit by Paco Rabanne, and slightly of Paloma Picasso- but Paloma is much sweeter, and I haven’t worn either as much as I have Missoni so, it’s off the top of my head of what it reminds me of.
Yes, it’s heavy and strong, which is a plus for me. Whenever I wear it I feel confident, strong, sexy and thin. Ok, thinner. One of the first times I wore this (in October) I had been dieting (I always am but this time it worked) got into my “skinny jeans” and discovered they fit. I wore those jeans, my favorite shirt, a leather coat (that previously didn’t fit), sprayed on the Missoni and went to town. Can’t say anything else about that day…..
puarto – :
I only realize now – after joining this site – what a complete perfume HOARDER I am 🙂 I have revisited the dark recesses of my bathroom cupboard for long-forgotten bottles of fragrances… among them I found an almost full vintage bottle of this!
Unfortunately a screw-on rather than vaporizer, so most probably the scent has changed over the years.
Smelling it now, it is very “of that period” – ie. early to mid-80’s, when I had my first jobs and started spending money on spoiling myself.
I would not wear this now; it’s a little heavy and judging by how full this old bottle still is, it obviously disagreed with me even then.