The caste lines between perfumes: which are niche, which luxury and which mass passing as luxury (currently the industry’s greatest growth sector)— have become increasingly blurred, their defining cues both subtle and contradictory. The new David Yurman scent, which will be available at Yurman retail stores in late June followed by Neiman Marcus and Saks in July, provides an excellent example of how fuzzy it’s gotten. Perhaps this is because its perfumer, Harry Frémont, is one of the art form’s greatest masters at moving between styles and classes.

Perfumers by definition are both aesthetic and psychological chameleons, constantly creating scents for vastly different brands. And while it is possible to go straight from a niche Frederic Malle project to a Lacoste flanker designed for the Wal-Mart shopper, the vertiginous mental drop must be difficult to negotiate. For Frémont, it seems effortless. He is an author of both the androgynous, intentionally abstract modernism of 1994’s cK One and Aramis New West, a reactionary 1988 men’s scent that was crucial in elevating, for a period of time, adamantly mass-market synthetic marine/fake-sea breeze minimalism to the position of obligatory masculine uniform. Frémont can go from standard mass market (Black Kenneth Cole) to expertly faked luxury (the cheap-for-expensive Coach, the scent equivalent of the best Canal Street knock-off handbag) to commercial luxury (Vera Wang’s original, and best, feminine scent) to authentic luxury (the rich, delightfully odd amber Noir de Noir, from the non-gendered Tom Ford Private Blend collection).

Now the Yurman project. Here was a challenge: distilling the essence of a high-end commercial jeweler into scent. Yurman is the Tiffany for people who summer in the Hamptons. (Tiffany is the Zales of people who summer in Cape May.) Yurman jewelry is generally very expensive, well-made and worn at nightclubs within range of Ron Perelman’s house. At the perfume’s recent press launch, Yurman commented, “Whether we sell a ton or none at all doesn’t matter to me! I love it! That’s all that counts.” Sybil Yurman, David’s wife, added, “This wasn’t a brand-building exercise, it was another way of being creative.” Both were delightful, enthusiastic and thrilled with the perfume— understandably so, as Frémont has created a fragrance that, almost more than any other I’ve ever smelled, perfectly distills the brand.

This perfume is not niche. Nor is it mass. It is very expensive, it is precisely positioned to sell a ton, which is of course what counts; companies would be well-advised to avoid pretending their commercial products are some altruistic artwork— and it is one of the most successful brand-building exercises in years, which is very much the other point. It is also very well made. But what is startling is that Frémont’s scent actually morphs into something else mid-flight.

It starts out as a powerful, gold, floral department-store luxury perfume, with the subtlety and style of a Jackie Collins novel. This is the thick floral luxury of calla lilies, gardenias and makeup aimed squarely at those who love Yurman jewelry. Then, about an hour in, the perfume changes. The brassiness drops away, the horns lower their volume, and what emerges is a marvelous wood scent, rich and smooth and quiet, with excellent persistence on skin and (the surprise) subtlety and beauty. Frémont has smuggled authentic luxury into a perfume wrapped up as high-end commercial. Which means the Yurmans, lucky people, have gotten an unexpectedly good perfume.