"My wife, Pauline, created a wonderful birthday gift - a rose cultivated specially for me. This proved to be an inspiration for the fragrance," says Paul Smith.

The perfumer

Three years after the rose was cultivated, perfumer Antoine Maisondieu had created a modern, airy fragrance around this rose.

The edition for summer 2009 is like a seasonal cocktail: it starts with a squeeze of lemon.

“This citrus burst delivers a real freshness to the fragrance,” says Paul Smith. “It reminds me of summer drinks with lots and lots of ice.”

“I also added green apple. It’s juicy and clean. Nothing like red apple, which would have been too sugary. It also gives the fragrance a younger spin. ... So many old-fashioned rose perfumes are nothing like the scent of the growing rose,” says Antoine Maisondieu. “With headspace technology, we capture the fragrant molecules of the flower and then make delicate adjustments so it replicates the living Paul Smith rose. But how I’ve used it in this summer is edition is different. It’s been rebalanced, so you can fully appreciate the lemon too.”

The fragrance is perfectly sexy for summer sundowns!