Queen of Silk
Creed (2024)

Queen of Silk by Creed (2024) is further evidence for some that Creed's best days are in the rear-view mirror, and to that point, one needs only look at the fire sale the Creed family made to Blackrock, walking away newly-erected billionaires from the empire a single fragrance built them largely by accident: Creed Aventus (2010). Once the mega-investment venture capital firm hot-potatoed Creed two years later, slashing production costs, macroing-out distribution footprint, trading upper-echelon exclusivity of years past for sheer price point exclusivity alone, the brand became Kering's "problem", as the first step towards them building their own fragrance empire in-house a la LVMH. I can understand this move, considering what Coty and L'Oréal have done to Kering's biggest brands, but hollowing out the former kings of niche perfume while still raising prices isn't it.

The overall structure of this scent is a very tired amber fruity-floral freshie, with the same camber and cadence of a 2000's Michael Kors perfume, Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb (2005), or one of the many modern reiterations of Miss Dior (2017) . The opening is fresh and sweet, but of course it is. Tuberose and magnolia ride on light aldehydes, bergamot, and shimmery calone. The heart of osmanthus and a claimed passionfruit note brings the juicy elements to the fore, and the osmanthus is oddly not super apricot-like, being drier and almost leathery like davana. Unfortunately, once Queen of Silk cooks up a little more with its vanilla and predictable greenless patchouli isolate, the "silk" of timbersilk and cashmeran becomes apparent as the finishing base, putting us back in 2000's Kenneth Cole or Victoria's Secret territory again. No slightly salty Creed base, nothing. This stuff nags on forever too, which is of course, "quality" for the nouveau-riche numpties who get their culture from a Google search.

The "new Creed" as we know them, is one that now plays relatively the same game Tom Ford, Byredo, and many upstart luxury brands have been playing in their wake for years: cheap novelty like Avon used to peddle, dressed to the nines with potency and sometimes high-cost materials, to make nightmare fuel versions of every kid brother or kid sister's favorite mall fragrance, in a heavy bejeweled or brass-capped bottle. We even see this with the move from Creed's cute-but-laughable plastic to brass caps, changing nothing else about the fit and finish. There is a startling lack of self-awareness here with this move, especially with the discarding of the very thing that made Creeds recognizable in the way their perfumes wore in the air, and on skin. Queen of Silk? More like Queen of Home Shopping Network. Thumbs down