Rose Gambit

Chess players give a piece away on purpose, to gain advantage and eventually take the board.

The rose gives up its conventional prettiness. Aldehydes are the classic way to do white; an almond milk accord goes in instead, fresh and creamy, slightly disturbed by a bitter liquorous chamomile. That creaminess leads down into a dark rose and keeps going to the very end. Liatrix absolute holds the tobacco. Coumarin-heavy, dry and hay-like, it comes off a meadow plant that goes by deertongue, gayfeather and blazing star, and carries a subtle boozy sweetness reminiscent of a good vanilla bean.

Nos Republic grew out of an eponymous blog, Ksenia Golovanova's first Telegram channel on the subject. The name comes from res publica, a public affair, and rests on the idea that smell is the rawest and least filtered sensation available, and therefore the one that levels people from very different countries and cultures.

The stories start in Golovanova's own culture and are built to carry past it: the longing for space, or a city seen at night from the top of a tall building. Seven releases now, each credited on its own page to the person who made it, Stéphanie Bakouche on four of them and Cristiano Canali, Valery Mikhalitsyn and Maria Golovina on one each. On several products Golovanova signs a material story herself and leaves the rest to the maker.