Hedi Slimane has added a new fragrance to his Celine Haute Parfumerie dedicated to French poet Arthur Rimbaud.

Named Rimbaud, the scent is a “hypersensitive portrait of a seventeen-year-old poet that Hedi Slimane discovered as a teenager.” With notes of lavender, neroli, orris butter, musk and vanilla, the scent mirrors that “taut and fragile” chapter between childhood and adulthood – echoing Rimbaud’s life: he started publishing poems at sixteen and had finished with poetry by the time he was twenty-one.

Slimane has long been attracted to Rimbaud’s poetic romanticism, referencing the final stanza of his poem Le Dormeur du Val in the show notes for his SS02 Dior Homme collection, while the designer borrowed Parade from Rimbaud’s seminal Les Illuminations collection for his Celine FW21 womenswear title.

Look through Slimane’s work celebrating nascent musicians and artists carving their own path and his relationship with Rimbaud’s life and work is clear. Rejecting stuffy French literature, Rimbaud lived as a vagabond, running away from home repeatedly. Rejecting God, the army, and convention, he instead opted for a life of spontaneity, hedonism and obscenity: before leaving from Charleville for Paris, he scrawled ‘Shit on God’ across the town walls, smoked, grew his hair out, and mocked a priest with an homage to his unholy bowel movements – read Squattings. Through his poetry, this runaway romantic translated his bohemian experiences via fantastical verses that take the reader on journeys through visionary realms, creating a powerful mystique that still seduces today: bottled in Celine’s fragrance ode.

Shop Celine’s Rimbaud fragrance now.