Mind Games is one of the more original ideas to arrive in niche perfumery in recent years. Every fragrance takes its name from chess: an opening, a tactic, a piece, an ending. The house's argument is that a perfume has the same architecture as a game, an opening that declares intent, a middle that develops it, and an ending that decides how you are remembered.
Checkmate is the statement piece, dark and confident. Zugzwang, named for the position in which every move makes things worse, is a fragrance with an edge to it. Bishop is smooth and diagonal. Endgame is where the house shows its patience. Sacrifice gives something up in the opening to win something later, which is a fair description of the fragrance.
The character of the house
Cerebral, well made, and more playful than the concept suggests. The bottles are handsome, the compositions are serious, and the idea gives people a way to talk about fragrance that does not require a vocabulary of notes.
Why Stacey admires it
Because a fragrance that unfolds in stages is exactly what she teaches people to look for, and this house built its whole identity on it.