Coucou
Frater Perfumes (2022)

Jamie Frater, Perfumer & Creative Director:

In youth my father would treat me to a frosted glass dish with a big scoop of the creamiest vanilla ice cream topped with fragrant pink lychees, a fruit that seemed to be — to a boy with a wild imagination — almost alien. In those years my friends and I would pick wild berries on the nearby hillside until our eager fingers and lips were stained ink-black. They were warm days filled with wonderous smells and tastes and it seemed they would never end. But end they did, and boyhood pleasures of edible treats and the heady scent of sweet gardenia and jasmine bushes growing near a popular family picnic spot soon became distant memories.

It is from the dreamworld those memories now inhabit that the idea of Coucou emerged. I had watched a Belgian coming-of-age film during which one of the characters, a matronly piano accordionist, bellowed a joyful “Coucou!” (French slang for hello) in greeting to her friends. The film stirred up many memories of my own juvenile years and so, as was perhaps to be expected, childhood dominated my sleep. Blossoms of whitest gardenia, mounds of ice cream, perfumed fruit and the odour of freshly cut lawns swirled around me. I awoke with an intense urge to put my empyrean dream into scent. And so I did… it is Coucou and now I share it with you.