But the first ‘truly’ orientalist fragrance arrived shortly after. Shalimar (1925), named after the gardens built by Shah Jahan in memory of his wife of the same name, is rich and luscious, thanks to the plentiful portion of vanillan. Its dense, heady composition of both the sharp and the cloying makes it seem almost more than a perfume but a mixture that provides a rite of passage into an exotic wilderness.

From Fashion and Orientalism, Adam Geczy