Paradise is a dangerously wild-hearted proposition in Karen Walker's new
scent, Runaway Azure.
"Runaway Azure has an almost combustible sensuality," Karen says. "It's
a mystical bonfire with smoky amber and warm spices, cardamom, black
pepper, and Guaiac wood, sparkling against the lushness of oriental
mandarin and rose. For me, there was something compelling about how
wildly feminine this scent feels when you wear it."
To create Runaway Azure Karen collaborated once more with Veronique
Nyberg, the French perfumier behind the original Runaway, with a
doctorate in organic chemistry and an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure
and rare botanicals.
"Veronique inhabits a very traditional world and yet her work possesses
such singular modernity," Karen says, "She instinctively captured that
sense of untamed wanderlust we were seeking."
"The process was like going on an adventure together," Veronique says,
"Karen is passionate and audacious, and her nature is a little more
bohemian than you might expect. I wanted to capture that in Runaway
Azure."
Veronique immediately saw this new scent occupying its own beautiful,
delicate universe, but with elements of its predecessor. In Runaway, she
had explored the interplay between masculine and feminine notes and this
time she retained those same dark base notes: sun-ripened Guaiac wood
and Vanilla Pure Jungle Essence, a unique vanilla patented by
Veronique's fragrance house. This time though, instead of taking the
scent down the path of a dark wood at midnight, she walked out onto
shimmering white sands, where the air is luminous with top notes of
juicy mandarin, cardamom and kumquat, and heart notes of Absolute
Jasmine, rose and black pepper.
"The warm and cold spices vibrate against each other to create a nervous
energy that's edgy and intoxicating," Veronique says.
The colour of the Runaway Azure bottle is a shade of cool turquoise
reminiscent of the beaches of Capri, one of Karen's own secret places to
run away to.