Théâtre Saint-Siméon

The seduction might be out in the audience.

Violet and vanilla wind through the seats in threads thin enough to miss. The painted boards are lit by rosewood and by patchouli dark enough to stop the brightness reading clean, and the vampiric actors on them beckon into brightness and indulgence.

Underneath, orris root goes cold. Dirt and stone put it in the catacombs below a stage, where frankincense and candlewax whisper of ancient ritual and bewitchment. Made with Titan Books to celebrate Sara Hinkley's novel The Red Sacrament.

Jean Robert takes its name from Jean Robert Charles, a Haitian-born high school French teacher who played for Haiti's national team and ran a men's clothing store called Justin's. Tennis was for recreation, and taken very seriously all the same. What the son remembers is a father who always smelled good, of citrus, spice and wood, and who kept a tray of bottles a child could hold and spray.

Justin Charles came to making fragrances from online media, design, technology, academia and political organising, after ordering an introduction kit online out of curiosity, with a five-month-old daughter at the time. Blending accords came first. Everything is hand-crafted in small batches and filtered several times, with sediment or cloudiness sometimes showing for the natural material in it.