7753 - The Unexpected Mona
7753 is a perfume about hands softly overlapped, eyes gently inquisitive, and lips smirked oh so subtly. 7753 is a perfume about a woman unexpected. A woman we may know, but we may never understand. Her beauty is inexplicable, but definitive. Her glance punctures. She stirs emotion in such a way that transcends language. Her portrait is famous, but she is an icon.
The dimensions of the Mona Lisa are 77 by 53 centimeters. This compact space is made vast by master painter Leonardo Da Vinci and centuries of longing, imagination, and dreams have made it limitless. 7753 echoes this transcendence with a sillage strong and enduring, announcing the entrance, prolonging the exit, and emblazoning the essence of a woman.
The female subject lived in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-centuries, but her celebrity began at the intersection of a paintbrush and poplar board. As the subject of the Mona Lisa, she wore a virtuous mourning veil, deftly rendered by da Vinci’s practiced hand, and clothes plain and ordinary, to outlive time’s indelible mark on fashion. Sfumato confessed structures of bone and muscle underlying satin skin. The subtle graduation of color allows shadows to collect like smoke and then evaporate into thin air; two sides of the same coin. She is a woman of nature: gathered fabric sleeves are mirrored in unrefined mountain peaks, a tender smile and luscious curves are the origin of the snaking river beyond. Organic ringlets of hair and her eyes aligned with the horizon. She is a woman of the earth. Nature and mankind converge in the symmetry and tranquility of her likeness. Hands, eyes, mouth—these features compose the face of the Renaissance.
Her true identity is potentially antithetical to understanding the meaning and essence of the Mona Lisa. In fact, no one claims certainty as to who the revered beauty is. Some say the woman is most likely Lisa Gherardini. The remaining information about Lisa Gherardini is sparse, but she is said to have been born into either a Tuscan or Florentine family; She married Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy Florentine cloth merchant, and her portrait was most likely painted to celebrate the purchase of their home in 1503, or the successful birth of their son Andrea in 1502. The Mona Lisa, however, appeared to remain in da Vinci’s possession until his death at which time it joined the French Royal Collection. The entire narrative remains dubious and experts remain questioning. Maybe she is Lisa Gherardini, but what if she is Leonardo da Vinci’s mother? da Vinci himself, feminized? The allure of the Mona Lisa is the allure of mystery, withheld information, and shimmering secrets collecting and dispersing just below the oil paint.
7753 is a perfume exploring the unexpected, puncturing gaze of this woman, about her moods, what she does to you, the emotion she stirs. The glimmering glance of Bergamot’s clarity clouded with Ma Khaen Berry, a fruit caught between dark and light, negotiating between smoky tones of the earth and bright, reedy citrus. An alluring, unexpected Tuberose—white to your eyes, midnight to your nose; the untainted petals emit an animalic muskiness unknown to most vegetal life. The sweet almond marzipan of heliotrope and voluptuous barbary fig meet like old friends, the sense of comfort in the unknown. A sfumato of smoky and earthly textures of vetiver and oakmoss are smoothed by the sweetness of sandalwood—their trio transcends your nose forever. 7753 is the perfume of a woman, of the Unexpected Mona. ‘Tis the perfume of a smile, a glance, a cosmic touch… a bliss.
written by Madison Hofert
