Fete

Fête EDT is the chypre you never knew you needed in life if you're a diehard chypre lover. If Mitsouko makes your heart skip a beat, if Femme puts a tiger in your tank, if Cabochard puts a bee in your bonnet, Fete will be like butter to your nose. Plum butter that is, or perhaps a smoky prune and peach compote, lifted with a scintillating bergamot (still fresh as ever in this bottle), a sparkling verdancy. This is soon drawn in and shaded with a sensuous, aromatic caraway and Cellier- and Chant-esque leather as the top notes transition into its heart. As Barbara Herman points out in her Scent and Subversion, this is noteworthy for its time in that it is both fruity and animalic. This is something we wouldn't see explored to such an extent until the likes of L'Artisan Al Oudh and Parfum d'Empire Aziyade, and perhaps hinted at through the highly-coveted and powerful Loewe Gala and later-formulation Femme itself. This juxtaposition yields a stimulating umami quality to Fête, almost making my mouth water. It warms further into a bitter mossy + vanillic ambery ecstasy. This one will be filed under "thrill ride" fragrances.

Hippie's blend. A straightforward oakmoss, plum, and civet. A blend of a beauty animalic! perfection in a bottle indeed. It has that plummy oakmoss that made it smell like a tangy bitter yet sweet leather. It gives a tiny fizzy effect that makes it smell saffronic (saffron) somehow with bits of cognac cocktail fizz. It's a brilliant beauty that describes the 60s hippie era. Beautiful.

This is the first parfum extrait I've ever bought. Amazing! Mitsouko fan here, and this smells the way I like my aromas to smell. Now I know what civet is... or was. Women use it all day. Men wear it at night...

Parfum version. Caraway, plum, civet and oakmoss are the prominent notes here. At first this is quite nice but as I'm not a fan of heavy civet and it is in this, the dry down is not as much to my taste. Still a like, as it's interesting.

Getting a ton of smoke, like in lit cigarette smoke in this. Some notes similar with Rochas Femme, but where Femme goes warm, cozy and inviting, this goes cold, harsh and arrogant.

Vintage as vintage can. When first trying my blind-bought Fete, I flinched. This scent seemed way too harsh for me! Today I am giving it a second chance, and my reactions are: a) I do not really enjoy this b) Still, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on c) This is a high-quality perfume I smell a lot of caraway - or rather cumin -, bitter oakmoss, and woods. There is a distinct sweetness to Fete, which probably comes from the plum, even though I cannot perceive this fruit as such. Abstract flowers, no civet. Fete is strong in the beginning, but gets softer fast. It reminds me hugely of both Rochas Femme and Mitsouko. So while it is not my kind of scent and clearly outside my comfort zone, I find it fascinating and could see others enjoying it a lot. (I have a vintage bottle, in form of a cylinder.)

There's not much information around for Molyneux's Fete (1962), with only a grand total of 23 Fragranticans saying that they have it (including me). Fete was also the name of an older Molyneux scent, launched in 1927, but I can find no information on whether the 60's scent bears any relationship to the older version. Fete is listed as a "chypre fruity" in the database, and there aren't too many vintage versions of this genre, although many hugely popular modern designer scents fall into this category. The Great and Powerful Mitsouko (1919) is the starting point for this genre, along with Femme (1943), Patou Colony (1938), Balenciaga Quadrille (1955), and Dana 20 Carats (1933). I think it might be more accurate to call Fete a "chypre fruity floral woody oriental." Barbara Herman gives Fete a very positive review, saying "You get a little bit of everything with this." I agree with much of her description, although my nose diverges from Barbara's on a few things. Compared to Mitsouko, Fete opens brighter, much more hesperidic, with the tart bergamot crowding in on the sweeter fruit notes. As a result, Fete's fruitiness feels pulpy and fresh and more modern in feeling, while the fruit in Mitsouko and Femme always reminds me of dried, slightly dusty fruit leather in a jar. Mitsouko is sweeter than Fete from the start. And that brings us to the caraway note in Fete, which is most definitely present. Caraway, which is like cumin but a little sweeter, gives Fete a slightly raffish, vegan animalic quality that I enjoy, a little like Coriandre. If coriander and cumin notes immediately make you think of unwashed armpits, stay away from Fete. Barbara Hermann smells this note as cumin, and there is definitely a resemblance between caraway and cumin, which makes Fete the grandmother of the 1989's reformulated Femme, rather than of the original 1943 version of Femme, which was itself the ancestor of Fete (if you are still following me..) Fete's floral notes play backup to all of the fruit and spice. I get jasmine and ylang ylang, perhaps carnation. No presence of lilac or orris to my nose (perhap they are hiding under the caraway?) As Fete dries down, it slowly transforms. The fruits and flowers ebb, and Fete becomes decidely amber-ish or oriental in feeling. I don't smell any civet in Fete, and the leather is really just a suggestion. I get benzoin, perhaps a little vanilla, oakmoss, and a wonderful sandalwood. The wild party that is Fete has forced me to rethink my categorization of 1960's scents. Where did Fete come from? I wish I knew who designed this concoction! (I have just seen that FetishforPerfume identifies the nose behind Fete as Suzanne Mabereau, who won a young "Perfume Creator" award from the Société Française des Parfumeurs in 1959. Neat!)

I found a 30 ml bottle here in Holland. It's almost full. I think it's from the 80's. It's a round bottle with silver top, and it's an eau de toilette. It's a soft smell; I don't realy like it. I smell something of caraway and thats nothing my thing. If there is someone who will take this one from me in Holland for a reasonable price, you can mail me.

I am selling a sealed 1960’es bottle with box , (EU). Had it for a while , enjoying the beauty of the bottle and all - but the notes and composition makes me pretty sure it’s not for me, so even though I’m curious I decided not to break the sealing, instead move it to the right person.

OMG, look at the notes of this one!! Persephone help me out here!!