Room 1015 Cherry Punk Extrait de Parfum

What it smells like

Cherry Punk Extrait de Parfum is cherry treated as a spice rather than as a fruit, and it is a genuinely different composition from the eau de parfum of the same name — not simply a stronger version of it.

Cherry, saffron and Sichuan pepper open it together, and the effect is immediately dry and metallic rather than sweet. Saffron in particular gives the top a leathery, almost medicinal quality that cuts the fruit.

The heart is violet, jasmine and mimosa — powdery florals that sit underneath the cherry and give it an old-fashioned, cosmetic texture. The base is black leather, tonka bean and patchouli, and the leather here is supple and dark rather than tarry.

Where the two Cherry Punks diverge is in the balance. The community ranks this one cherry-first at full weight, then sweet, warm spicy, vanilla and fresh spicy, with a notable nutty and metallic facet. The eau de parfum, by contrast, is ranked leather-first with animalic and smoky facets the extrait does not have at all. Fragrantica even files them under different families: this one as a leather fragrance, the eau de parfum as amber spicy. If you know one, do not assume you know the other.

Who made it

Composed by Jérôme Epinette, a French perfumer at Robertet in New York who trained at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery after a biochemistry degree in Dijon. He is best known for his long collaboration with Ben Gorham at Byredo, where he composed most of the line. His Room 1015 work is darker and more textural than that, reaching for leather and patchouli where Byredo reaches for clarity.

You can see the other fragrances he composed for the house, and for others, on the Jérôme Epinette collection page.

Who it's for

For anyone who likes the cherry trend but wants the fruit handled with restraint. This is the version where cherry is a material rather than a flavour.

It suits people who already wear saffron, leather or powdery florals. If you have tried the eau de parfum and found it too animalic, this is the cleaner, brighter, more cherry-forward of the two — and vice versa.

Unisex. The extrait concentration makes it the longer-lasting of the pair.

When to wear it

Cold weather and evenings. The leather and patchouli base wants cool air; in heat the saffron becomes insistent.

This is a dressed-up fragrance — special occasions, dinners, romantic evenings — and not an office choice. Expect long wear and moderate-to-strong projection for the first few hours.

About the house

Room 1015 is a Parisian niche house founded in 2015 by Michael Partouche — Dr. Mike — a trained pharmacist who spent five years in London touring with his band before deciding that fragrance was the one discipline that could hold both halves of his life. The name is a hotel room number: 1015 of the Continental Hyatt House on Sunset Strip, the "Riot House", where touring bands took their after-parties in the 1970s.

The house calls what it does olfactory counterculture, and every fragrance starts from a specific cultural reference rather than from a material. The bottle is the same throughout — heavy coloured glass sized for the palm, under a faceted cap cut like a dark gem, black for the eaux de parfum and silver for the extraits. Cherry Punk takes its brief from London punk and the King's Road. See the rest of the line in the Room 1015 collection at Redolia.