Ex Nihilo is one of the youngest houses in Stacey's library and one of the most confident. Founded in Paris in 2013, it took its name from the Latin for out of nothing and its home on the Rue Saint-Honoré, in the middle of the most competitive stretch of luxury retail in the world. The confidence was justified within a year.
The idea of the house is simple and difficult: choose a single extraordinary raw material and let the composition serve it. Ex Nihilo builds outward from an ingredient, and the results have a clarity that is easy to recognise once you know to look for it.
The fragrance that made the house
Fleur Narcotique is the one everyone has heard of, and deservedly. A peony and lychee opening over musk and moss, it is the rare modern fragrance that is both immediately likeable and quietly strange, and it has become one of the defining scents of the last decade of niche perfumery. Smell it beside the house's darker compositions and you understand the range.
What Stacey admires
A house this young chose materials, kept its catalogue small, and let the boutique on the Rue Saint-Honoré do the talking. That is a philosophy Scented Emotions recognises.