Creed Wind Flowers vs Chanel Coco Mademoiselle
Fragrance Reviews

by Eddie Bulliqi
05/13/22 13:41:46 ( 20 comments )

As many Fragrantica users have spotted, the parallels between Creed’s new Wind Flowers and Chanel’s legendary Coco Modemoiselle are intimate. Side by side on your arms, you feel their deep-rooted similarities in style, organisation, and aim. The main disjunction between the two, to my nose, is in the base, the Creed being much darker, richer, and more dramatic, and the Chanel more carefree, cheeky, naïve, and delicate. Both are archetypal examples of what has become known as the modern (maybe not so modern, anymore?) chypre – a sweet bouquet that leans white and citrus, with cleaned-up, chocolate-like fractions of patchouli underneath, void of moss. 

The Creed opens just as the name indicates, with movement, air, and volatility. The jasmine and orange blossom dance with hints of minerality (presumably through the bitter, dry peach aldehyde inclusion) that appropriately seem to swirl and sway in and out of sweetness, indole, powder, spice, and fruitiness, all the while remaining gentle, graceful, delicate, fragile, and slightly coquettish. All these adjectives could also be applicable to the right sensibility in their analysis of Coco Mademoiselle. The top note accents differ in Chanel’s softer, brighter, more citric take on fresh-faced rose and jasmine, whereas the Creed paints a steamier and slightly heavier image with more going on at the expense of some of Chanel’s signature subtlety and lightness. 

From 30 minutes onwards, they diverge. The Chanel, remaining ethereal and translucent, veers into powderier and make-up-like territory, with a sugary trail and green elements floating around a soapy patchouli. Wind Flowers brings the dusk, with much more shadow, contrast, and even a quasi-foreboding element indicative of an approaching storm. There is a humidity to the sandalwood-praline-musk lower mids that hang heavy, rounded, and more serious than the Chanel. Creed’s notes list reads like La Vie Est Belle but comes across much more Acqua Di Parma Profumo to me – leathery, bitter, ambery, resinous, dense, and high intensity. They don’t mention patchouli, but the effect produced certainly smells like real oil was used, with characteristic thickness, earthiness, and weight. Just when the Chanel starts to fade, the Creed picks up pace, with a lingering iris and sandalwood combination that communicates milkiness without detracting from the flowers, ending buttery, bark-like, and Grassoise. 

Try both scents on and see what you make of their synchronicity. In taking the Coco Mademoiselle template into darker and deeper territory, Creed have produced an interesting, exciting chypre in the quintessential 2000s style, looking more to the recent past than the future. Nothing wrong with that in this case. Instead of the springtime dew of Acqua Fiorentina, here we have jasmine under an angry, brooding sky, waiting for the storm to pass. Beautiful and evocative.