It took some nerve. In a world of fragrance that favors noble flowers, sacred woods, clean musks, and refined fruits, Juliette Has a Gun chose the banana. A fruit that’s too obvious, too popular—perhaps too cheerful—and long kept at arm’s length from so-called elegant fragrances. With Banana Rush, launched in March 2026, Romano Ricci takes precisely the opposite approach: transforming an almost childlike fantasy into a source of desire, warmth, and sophistication.
“With Banana Rush, I wanted to reinterpret a fruit that the perfume industry had hardly ever explored: the banana,” explains Romano Ricci, founder and creative director of Juliette Has a Gun. The intention is clear: to take the fruit beyond its playful realm and lead it toward a more intense sensuality. “I wanted to push the banana beyond its playful image to reveal a more sensual, more sophisticated side of it.”
The fragrance opens with an accord of ripe banana and maple syrup. From the very first notes, Banana Rush seems to play with indulgent notes without ever getting bogged down in cloying sweetness. The heart, more radiant, combines creamy coconut and frangipani blossom—two ingredients that evoke a tropical light, almost tangible. In the base, vanilla and sandalwood provide a creamy, enveloping depth that transforms the fragrance into a warm, sensual, and addictive trail. The fragrance is classified as “Solar Gourmand,” a category that perfectly captures the balance it seeks: gourmand, yes, but radiating a warm elegance rather than mere fruity whimsy.
What works here is the playful seriousness of the gesture. Juliette Has a Gun doesn’t try to hide the whimsy behind overly conceptual rhetoric; on the contrary, the brand exposes it, amplifies it, and dramatizes it. Romano Ricci cites Wes Anderson as his inspiration—his colorful scenes, his meticulous symmetry, and his taste for the slightly stilted absurd. The campaign features Ben and Ana, two characters united by a shared obsession: their love of bananas. The idea could easily have veered into caricature. Instead, it becomes an exercise in style: “very serious, very luxurious, almost burlesque,” in the designer’s own words.
The bottle extends this interpretation. Crafted from frosted glass, it features a luminous gradient ranging from creamy white to golden yellow, evoking the ripe flesh of the fruit, maple syrup, and the sunny warmth of vanilla. The velvety feel echoes the creamy texture of the fragrance, while the shiny silver cap adds a more contemporary, almost metallic edge to this warm, yellow, and deliberately extravagant world. The brand speaks of “feel-good” luxury: the expression might seem lighthearted, but it sums up quite well this approach to infusing humor into the fragrance without sacrificing refinement.
In the Juliette Has a Gun collection, Banana Rush joins signature fragrances such as Not a Perfume, Vanilla Vibes, Lust for Sun, Pear Inc., and Lipstick Fever. But this new creation holds a special place: it embraces the fruit in its most immediately recognizable form, while exploring it through contrast, depth, and texture. The banana takes on a golden hue, becomes enveloped, and takes on an almost animalic quality under the influence of sandalwood, vanilla, and maple. This isn’t about nostalgia for candy, nor is it about decorative exoticism. Rather, it’s a gourmet indulgence elevated to a higher level—deliberately offbeat—that reminds us that contemporary perfumery often moves forward when it stops adhering to established hierarchies.
Banana Rush will be available in two sizes: 50 ml for 105 euros and 100 ml for 145 euros. A 100-ml version priced at 160 euros is also listed for certain specific fragrances in the collection, including Another Oud, Superdose, and Midnight Oud. For Banana Rush, the positioning remains accessible within the niche perfumery world, while retaining the brand’s signature style: irreverence, powerful visual storytelling, and the art of perfume as a statement of personality.
With this creation, Juliette Has a Gun reminds us of something essential: luxury isn’t always a matter of solemnity. It can also lie in the ability to see an ordinary object in a new light, to elevate it without toning it down, to transform the obvious into a surprise. Banana Rush doesn’t seek to make the banana discreet. On the contrary, it gives it a grand entrance—sunny, indulgent, sophisticated—and delightfully irreverent.
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