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Imperium: On the Fragrance That Makes Strangers Think They Know You
There’s a particular kind of fragrance person — and I mean this as a compliment — who doesn’t wear scent to be noticed, infact they wear it as a recall value, which is an entirely different ambition. The first is about presence. The second is about absence. What you leave behind when you’ve left the room.
I’ve been that person for as long as I’ve been serious about fragrance. My collection runs from the austerely minimal to the unabashedly opulent, and somewhere in that range I’ve developed what I can only describe as an instinct — a nose for the things that don’t smell like everything else. Not strange for strangeness’s sake. Just a very specific, peculiar, point of view in terms of a brief when skimming through what I feel like. Perhaps my olfactory system is in overdrive given my profession?
In my latest collection — the Imperium by Electimuss is one very interesting fragrance which literally turned heads every time I wear it. And it’s been a short while at that.
Electimuss : London
The House
Electimuss is a London-based niche house — and I use niche in its original sense, not as a price point. Their positioning leans into the language of power and legacy — Roman, classical, uncompromising. Imperium, their flagship, takes its name from the Latin term for supreme executive authority. It’s almost etched in stone (given the many inferences with stone, which you’ll understand should you ever get a bottle)
It’s a bold name for a fragrance. Which is exactly why what’s inside is so interesting.
First Impressions — The Deception
The opening is not what Imperium promises to be.
You expect, given the name and the house’s positioning, something commanding. Dense. Possibly heavy. What you get instead is a spray of bergamot and coriander — clean, almost airy, with a summery brightness that feels immediately wearable. It’s so light, you think youd want to spray a few more, but the lingering wispy wafts which are far from overbearing make you stop, initially, and think — let’s just see how powerful this is!
It is when you stop there and judge in the first five minutes — you might think: pleasant, well-made, nothing more.
Don’t stop there. (and I mean put the bottle away)…
Twenty minutes on skin and Imperium takes what I can only describe as a beautiful turn. The citrus recedes and something warmer moves in underneath — amber, vanilla, a faint woody dryness that grounds the whole composition. And then, surreptitiously, a powderiness materialises. Not the talcum-soft sweetness of a lesser fragrance but something a lot more luxurious and complex. By the way it shouldn’t work in the humidity of Mumbai. Somehow it does. I’ve been wearing it sporadically for a few weeks now and every time I’m mildly surprised by how it settles.
Imperium by Electimuss
The Concentration
Imperium is an Extrait de Parfum — 30% fragrance oil concentration, which puts it at the upper end of what any house produces. On skin this translates to longevity that outlasts the day comfortably, and a sillage that is present without announcing itself. Two sprays on pulse points. No more (mark my words).
I wear it on clothes as much as skin. Both work, but on skin — something about the interaction with your body heat, the way it develops across the hours — that’s when it becomes something genuinely yours. The same fragrance on two different people will smell like two related but distinct conversations.
The Flight
So I have been thinking about this a bit lately, and the real test of a fragrance is not what it does to you. It’s what it does to other people.
I’ve had three strangers stop me in two weeks. The most memorable was on a flight. As I moved through the aisle she leaned slightly and asked, quietly — the way you ask something you’re genuinely uncertain about — whether I was wearing Après L’Ondée.
I wasn’t. Guerlain’s Après L’Ondée is a powdery iris of an entirely different foundation — softer, more melancholy, all in all – French if you ask me. The comparison was not technically accurate. But I understood immediately why she made it. There is something in Imperium’s dry-down — that powdery warmth, that way of sitting on skin which is understated — this is what occupies the same emotional territory.
We talked for the better part of an hour somewhere over the Arabian Sea. About boutique perfume houses in London and Istanbul and Tokyo. Was an interesting conversation starter amongst the digital world.
That conversation is, I think, exactly what Electimuss intended.
Imperium : A complex bouquet
The Honest Take
Imperium is not a difficult fragrance. That’s worth saying clearly, because niche perfumery has developed a troubling tendency to equate challenge with quality. This is not challenging. It is, however, a genuine keeper (and a long term investment) — which is rarer than it sounds.
What it does exceptionally well is the gap between expectation and delivery. The name says one thing, the opening says another, the dry-down reconciles both into something you didn’t entirely anticipate. If you wear fragrance to signal, this is not your bottle. If you wear fragrance because you find it interesting, because you believe that what you smell like is a form of thought — this is very much yours.
Where to Find It
Imperium by Electimuss is available in India through Scentido — currently one of the most seriously curated niche fragrance retailers in the market. If you haven’t found them yet, this is a reasonable place to start. The bottle, incidentally, is absurdly heavy. It feels like it was made to outlast you. I mean that as praise.
Available via Scentido in India. @electimuss_london @scentido_india
Nikhil Merchant
Hospitality Writer | Culinary & Bar Consultant | Restaurateur | Brand Evangelist