Bond No. 9 Andy Warhol Silver Factory

One of the paintings in Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can series (left) served as inspiration for the design of Bond No.9’s Silver Factory perfume bottle (right).

I don’t claim to be a first-rate perfume connoisseur, but I am certain of what moves me. And, every once in awhile, a fragrance comes along that my nose and soul find riveting.

For me, the blend of incense, amber, jasmine, iris, and violet in Bond No. 9’s new fragrance, Andy Warhol Silver Factory, powerfully evokes seemingly unrelated dots of memories and connects them into a constellation of olfactory experience.

A deep breath of this provocative, unisex fragrance swept me though the metallic clang of an incense burner swinging from its chain during a Good Friday mass, the smell of burning pinon wood on a winter night in New Mexico, and the pheromone cocktail of colognes that envelopes you in the sultry womb of an after-hours night club.

The scent is as complex as the combination of memories it evokes. It’s sacred, yet irreverent. Dissonant, but somehow soothing.

Like the work of Andy Warhol, or the city that inspired him (and Bond No. 9’s other New-York-City-themed fragrances), Warhol is a fragrance that needs to be experienced to be understood.

Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory by Bond No. 9 ($230) will be available December 1st from Bond No. 9’s New York boutiques and Saks Fifth Avenue. It will also be available online from www.bondno9.com and saks.com.