An Imagined Partnership: HoM Haute × Areej Le Doré
Partnerships · Imagined
Two Houses, One City
If HoM Haute and Areej Le Doré ever shared a bench.
An imagined partnership — a daydream, not a deal
This is the shortest daydream in the collection — because the partner is across town. We compose in Tangerang Selatan; so does Areej Le Doré, the artisan house Russian Adam built on the opposite instinct to ours. He distils his own agarwood by the hundred, ages real animalics, hunts vintage materials that can no longer be bought. We work the other way — free and jazz-souled, chasing feeling and story more than rules, taking a material somewhere loose and alive. Same city, opposite hands. So allow the daydream that's barely one: what would the two houses make if they shared a bench? Nothing here is agreed. But a daydream tells you who a house admires.
Why Areej Le Doré
Because it is everything we are not, done superbly. Over several years Russian Adam distilled nearly a hundred different agarwood oils by hand; the house is built on real oud, real musk, ambergris, vintage sandalwood and aged attars, released in small numbered collections that sell out and never return. Where he distils and hoards rare purity, we improvise and chase a feeling; where he reaches for a material depth no synthetic can fake, we reach for the soul of a song. The house has collaborated before — the Civet de Nuit work with the attar artist Sultan Pasha proves the bench has room. The most interesting partner is rarely the one most like you. It is the one who makes the thing you decided not to.
The materials he keeps
Start with what Areej Le Doré is famous for: a cabinet of rare naturals most modern houses will never touch. Tap through them — this is the masterclass we'd be there to learn.
Agarwood, distilled by hand
Oud · the spine of the house
Russian Adam has distilled nearly a hundred of his own agarwood oils — smoky, resinous, animalic-sweet, no two stills alike. A real oud is not a note; it is a whole landscape, and it takes a lifetime of stills to read one. This is the material we'd come to stand next to.
A warmth no molecule copies
Musk · the radiant base
Aged natural musk tinctures give a skin-like radiance and lift that the synthetic musks, for all their cleanliness, only gesture toward. It is the difference between a recording and a voice in the room.
Real animal musk is CITES-restricted and ethically fraught — any honest modern collaboration would have to confront sourcing head-on.
Found, not taken
Ambergris · the sea's gift
Beach-cured ambergris — weathered for years on the tide, gathered rather than hunted — brings salt, mineral and a glow that lifts everything above it. The rare material with a clean conscience, and one of the most beautiful in perfumery.
A creaminess you can't buy new
Vintage sandalwood · irreplaceable stock
Pre-ban Mysore sandalwood — lactonic, buttery, impossibly smooth — cannot be sourced new at that quality. To compose with it is to work in a material that is, by definition, running out. Vintage is not nostalgia here; it is chemistry that no longer exists.
The dirt that makes it breathe
Animalics · civet, castoreum, hyraceum
The classic animalic tinctures — the lineage behind pieces like Civet de Nuit — add the low, living warmth that keeps a perfume from smelling like a diagram. Used by a master they read not as dirty but as alive.
Several of these raise real welfare and legal questions; the responsible path is ethical, traceable sourcing or considered naturals-and-synthetics blends.
Worn by the drop, not the spray
The attar · a different medium
The Indian attar tradition — Areej's Genda and Tuba among them — is oil, not alcohol: aged, concentrated, applied a single drop at a time and warmed by skin for hours. A whole other way to wear a scent than the modern spray we build for.
Two temperaments
The collaboration is only interesting because the houses disagree about almost everything. Turn it over.
One bench, two minds
Whose hand is on it?
Areej Le Doré — rare materials, taken to the limit.
Distils his own oud, ages real animalics, hunts vintage stock; small numbered batches, uncompromising, old-world. More is more, when the more is real.
HoM Haute — free, jazz-souled, improvised.
Feeling and story before rules; we take a material somewhere loose, modern and alive, the way a player takes a standard somewhere new. Not restraint — freedom. The collaboration's promise: his rare cabinet, our free hand.
What we'd make together
Three things, in the daydream. Tap through them.
A vintage heart, played free
One co-signed release: Russian Adam's hand-distilled oud and aged animalics holding down the base, HoM Haute improvising over them — a free, jazz-souled top that takes his rare materials somewhere loose and alive. His depth, our soul.
A standard, reimagined
We each cover one of the other's classics — the way a player takes a jazz standard somewhere new. He reworks one of ours through his rare materials; we play one of his loose and modern. Two reinterpretations of a single idea, released side by side.
A duet, pressed
One release as two bottles — an A-side and a B-side, his composition and ours. Layer them on the skin and you hear both houses at once; wear one alone and you get a single voice. A record you put on, played in scent.
Possible releases
And the names they might carry — a tracklist, if the bench ever filled. His oud and animalics, our late-night soul.
01Deux Mains“Two hands” — the co-signed flagship; two houses, one bottle.
02Russian BlueHis wild oud heard through a Blue-Note lens.
03Oud NocturneWild agarwood meets a 2 a.m. trumpet.
04Civet de JazzThe animalic warmth of Civet de Nuit, played loose.
06Ambre, Après MinuitBeach-ambergris glow, after hours.
07Sang d'AgarThe resinous “blood” of agarwood, modern and alive.
08Tangerang NocturneThe shared city, after dark.
09Improvisation No. 1A one-take blend, never repeated.
10Smoke & BrassOud smoke and a brass section.
Names imagined, like everything here.
“The rarest thing in this city isn't the oud. It's a neighbour who works the opposite way.”
The point of a daydream
This one barely qualifies as one. The materials are real, the house is real, the city is shared, and Areej Le Doré already keeps a seat at the bench for collaborators. What separates the daydream from the deal is only a conversation neither house has had. We write it down anyway — because naming who you'd want to learn from is its own kind of compass, and ours points, today, about twenty minutes across town.
Notes & honesty
On the house. Areej Le Doré is an independent artisan perfume house by Russian Adam, known for hand-distilled agarwood (oud), natural musks and animalics, ambergris, vintage sandalwood and Indian attars, released in small numbered collections — including past collaborations such as the Civet de Nuit work with Sultan Pasha.
On the materials. Some of the naturals described — certain musks and animalics — are restricted under CITES and carry genuine ethical and legal weight. We've flagged this honestly; any real version of this would stand or fall on traceable, responsible sourcing.
This is an imagined homage written by HoM Haute. It is admiration and a thought experiment — not a commercial relationship, an agreement, or an endorsement by Areej Le Doré or Russian Adam. All fragrance names above are invented for this piece.