Click on image to enlarge Vol de Nuit

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "Night Flight" was published in 1931. This story of French aviators delivering the mail via dangerous flights through the night skys of South America captured the national imagination and was a great source of national pride. Perfumer Jacques Guerlain created Vol de Nuit ("Night Flight") as a tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and the beginnings of commercial aviation in France. (In America, poet/author/aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is best known for a later book, "The Little Prince".)

Saint-Exupéry's life story was complex, tragic, romantic and heroic. The French military refused his request for flight training during the First World War — so he paid for lessons out of his pocket. He slowly obtained decent employment with French aviation companies, only to have them, one after another, go broke and leave him unemployed. When the French government finally put together Air France (out of the remains of these small, bankrupt aviation companies), Saint-Exupéry was not invited to join the party. When eventually Air France offered him a job, it was in the advertising department.

It is against this background that Guerlain introduced Vol de Nuit in a bottle that suggests an airplane propeller.

Some have described Vol de Nuit as a perfume "for women who like to take risks." Its top notes include hesperedic notes and narcissus. Heart notes are galbanum, oakmoss and green notes. Base notes are woody, iris, vanilla, and spices.

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