The Black Knight
At first, he's sweet and flowery, then later he's in leather chaps and playing rough, lasting more hours than you think you can handle.
At first, he’s sweet and flowery, then later he’s in leather chaps and playing rough, lasting more hours than you think you can handle.
The Black Knight performs an inversion of what you might expect. Where 1740 starts rough and dries down sweet, this one opens with a gentler hand—floral, sweet, almost inviting—and then the leather looms in the background, gradually taking over until you’re left with a smoky-leather drydown that dominates for the long haul.
On the matrix, this moves from (-3, +5) to (-6, +6)—starting softer and more balanced, then shifting decidedly Butch while maintaining its Cerebral quality. I place it at -6 on the Butch/Femme axis because while that opening is floral and sweet, the leather is domineering throughout. This isn’t a scent that lets you forget who’s in charge.
For Cerebral/Somatic at +6, I think we’re in agreement—while it’s grounded by leather and carries an animalic flair, it’s telling a narrative. It’s conceptual. Bianchi likes to tell stories with her fragrances, she’s trying to capture something here. Compare it to The Lover’s Tale—that one is conceptual in intent (capturing a lovers’ encounter) but somatic in execution (it smells like a sex-soaked leather couch). The Black Knight is more conceptual in execution—it evokes an idea, a character, a narrative arc rather than just a physical scene.
The drydown lends itself to that smoky-leather experience which keeps it butch for the long haul. This is leather that doesn’t soften, doesn’t apologize. It starts off softer, gentler, and then turns more leathery and smokey as it dries down—the inversion of 1740’s trajectory.