You know the feeling. You're halfway down a corridor, or somewhere in an open-plan office, when a scent arrives before the person does — and it's still hanging in the air after they've gone. That's precisely the trail Prada went after with Infusion d'Homme, launched as a companion to Infusion d'Iris. And instead of commissioning the usual 30-second spot, the Italian house asked nine directors for nine short films, each with their own reading of the fragrance. Years later, the move still looks like a template.

Perfume bottle on an open-plan office desk, a woollen scarf draped over the back of a chair
A scent that arrives before the person, and stays after they've gone

It runs in the family

The family resemblance is right there in the pyramid. The opening is hesperidic: neroli, petitgrain, mandarin, lemon. The iris and violet heart pulls towards the undergrowth without ever sliding into something sweet. The base sets down vetiver, a peppery, smoky incense, and a benzoin that rounds the whole thing off. What you end up with is a woody hesperidic that reads more resinous than sunny, leaving a crisp, almost soapy texture on the skin. It's the work of Daniela Andrier, the perfumer behind the entire Infusions family.

Applying it takes no particular talent: two sprays on the wrists, one on the collar, then five minutes of patience before you decide anything. On skin, it's the base that settles it, not the first hit.

Editorial portrait of a woman in a grey wool coat in a concrete interior, side lighting
The same fragrance family for years, worn like a signature

Nine directors, one scent

The project was overseen by Pietro Scalia, the editor with two Oscars to his name — for JFK in 1992 and Black Hawk Down in 2002. The films cover very different ground: one tells the genesis of the fragrance as a birth, another starts from a free childhood, others stay inside the classic language of luxury advertising. They ran alongside the launch.

A 16 mm film reel and a warm lamp on an editing table, blurred projection screen behind
Nine directors, one scent: the fragrance goes to the pictures

Honestly? I haven't rewatched them recently, and I've never smelled this version on my own skin. What I can stand behind is what the house documents and what the pyramid says; the rest belongs to your nose.

Choose a fragrance at the end of the day, never when you've just woken up. The nose saturates fast: three scents maximum per visit, on paper first and then on skin, and go back the next day to smell what's left on your wrist. That's where the decision gets made, not in the first ten minutes.

Why it still matters

Because the short film signed by a name director has become the default shape of a launch. Except that in 2026 it mostly lives on social, in fifteen seconds, with a trending sound. Luxury kept the form and lost the running time. Infusion d'Homme, for its part, is a back-of-the-cupboard fragrance: a ritual you buy again whenever you come across it on the shelf.

Smartphone on a tripod filming a perfume bottle on pale linen near a window
Fifteen seconds and a trending sound: the format that replaced the launch film

Budget

In the UK, expect to pay somewhere in the region of £80 to £160 for a 50 to 100 ml bottle, depending on the size and where you shop. The spread comes down to size, how hard a particular reference is to find, and whatever discount happens to be running — beauty halls and department stores such as Boots, John Lewis and Selfridges, the brand's own online shop, or the airport. Online discounters that undercut the high street do exist, but a badly stored bottle degrades fast in the heat, and then your saving is gone.

On the eco side, the trade-off is easy to see: luxury alcohol-based juices rarely carry an organic certification, and the usual cosmetics labels don't map neatly onto this kind of formula. The most concrete lever is a refillable bottle, where the house offers one — less glass, less packaging, and a lower cost per millilitre. Worth checking reference by reference: it doesn't generalise.

So: a fragrance that did the whole cinema thing before anyone else, and still wears very well without a screen.

Sources

  • Prada, official site (prada.com): product pages for the Les Infusions fragrances and the associated film projects
  • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (oscars.org): Pietro Scalia's awards, 1992 and 2002