Animated by Oak: My Tuesday With Serge Lutens Chêne

If Tuesday had a spine, it would be carved from oak. That’s why I sprayed Serge Lutens Chêne this morning and let its sap-streaked gravitas set the tone. It’s International Animation Day, and I wanted something that moves on skin like hand-drawn frames, scene by scene, no shortcuts.

Chêne is often called an ode to wood, which undersells its theater. On me it opens brisk and green, like bark scored with a pocketknife, then warms into a honeyed, rum-lit glow. There’s a tannic bite that feels almost intellectual — a nod to Erasmus — before the resin thickens with a gourmand wink worthy of Auguste Escoffier. The wardrobe changes are seamless, and somewhere between the sawdust and resin I swear I catch a costume-drama flourish fit for Edith Head. Dry wit? Evelyn Waugh would approve of the restraint. And the clean, aldehydic snap at the edges reads lab-coat tidy, a faint salute to Jonas Salk. Perfume is biography in vapor if you let it be.

I’m sipping an organic Ceylon from Idulgashinna while it unfolds, because oak and tea share a temperament: both know how to be stern without being joyless. Projection is respectful, longevity is impressive, and the finish is an ambered hush that sticks to the collar like a good ending.

Today’s roll call comes with a soft curtain-fall too — RIP Prunella Scales — which makes Chêne’s theater all the more tender. There’s a dignity to this scent that refuses melodrama, even as it conjures shadow and stage dust.

Consider this a timely pointer if you’re hunting a fall fragrance with authority. Serge Lutens Chêne reads polished without becoming polite, oak-forward without lumberyard clichés, and it refuses to collapse under sweater-weather sugar. It’s the rare woody-amber that keeps its posture from morning emails to late trains.

And yes, mark your calendar: Halloween lands on the 31st, which means the week’s end is reserved for the weird, the feral, the uncategorizable. I’ll go off-book then. Today belongs to oak that animates rather than shouts — a scent that sketches in ink before it paints in shadow.