Fendi, "For Women"

With so many of the greats set for discontinuation, it probably seems silly to wax nostalgic about the original Fendi, which was discontinued all the way back in 2005, before any of the crippling restrictions went into effect. Even recently extinct Palazzo is a more practical cause celebre.  Still, before I'd ever heard anything about Guerlain or Givenchy, I was spending what seemed like a fortune at the time (1985) for a bottle of Fendi eau de toilette. It was one of the first perfumes I ever bought, and though it was intended for women and owning it would give me some explaining to do, I couldn't help myself. I had to have it.

I've always been a sucker for a good wood smoke fragrance, which is what I took Fendi to be. I had no idea what was actually in it.  I only knew they sold it in the women's department, and that I loved it beyond reason. Now I know the pyramid: cardamom, coriander, bergamot, mandarin, laurel leaves, lily-of-the-valley, geranium, cypress, cedar, moss, labdanum, tonka. What's most remarkable about this incredibly potent perfume--potent even among its eighties sisters--is how devoid of floral notes it is. What, even then, made it feminine? It has less florals than most of today's men's colognes. Dior Homme is far more floral than Fendi, but so are less overtly flowery male fragrances.

Smelling Fendi now, years after first purchasing it, I'm able to examine it a lot more closely, a little more out in the open, and I realize it really isn't a wood smoke fragrance either, not officially, not exactly.  It smells leathery, with incense undertones, a pronounced herbal influence, and spices.  The spices, of course, aren't polite.  Cardamom gives Fendi a piercing, camphorous quality, a touch of resinous warmth; coriander magnifies the combustibility, reinforcing the overall terpenoid character.

As it turns out, Fendi has a lot more in common with masculines than feminines, a disposition signaled by the advertisement, which depicted a woman snuggling up to Michelangelo's David, perhaps her inner male.  Fendi is closer to aromatic fragrances like Kouros (geranium, coriander, laurel), Trussardi (laurel, geranium, tonka, landanum), and Paco Rabanne (tonka, geranium, laurel) than Poison, Giorgio, or Paris.  Several years later, Fendi would affirm this by producing Fendi Uomo, a more officially masculine variation on the women's fragrance, close enough in spirit that the two might as well have been brothers.

Both EDT and EDP require a light touch.  Fendi EDP is a little less overtly smoky to my nose, but the dry down comes very close to what you get in the EDT.  Both have off the chart longevity.  Comparisons have been made to balsamic orientals like Youth Dew, Bal a Versailles, and Opium, but Fendi is nowhere close to keeping that company.  It has no fruity embellishments and, as mentioned, no discernible floral backbone.  Granted, Youth Dew is no delicate flower itself, but Fendi is butcher still, and maybe even ahead of its time.  Ten years younger, it relates very clearly to the original Comme des Garçons by Marc Buxton (geranium, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg, labdanum, cedarwood) and it has more than a little in common with Comme des Garçons 2 Man, as well, also by Buxton.  Michael Edwards classifies Fendi as a floral chypre, which seems a bit of a stretch.  Still, though not listed, oakmoss is in the basenotes, and lily of the valley IS, after all, a flower.  Fendi is still available online.  I would love to know who created it. 

Comme des Garçons 2 Man and Gucci Pour Homme

Gucci Pour Homme and Comme des Garçons 2 Men seem similar enough at first whiff that for a while now I’ve been inclined to dismiss one or the other as inevitably redundant. The similarities, as it turns out, are purely superficial.

Gucci Pour Homme was created in 2003 by Michel Almairac, the nose behind several Bond No. 9 fragrances (Bryant Park, Fire Island, Saks Fifth Avenue for Him, Scent of Peace, West Side), L’Artisan’s Voleur de Roses, Dunhill, Rochas Lui, and Casmir, among others.

Gucci can’t seem to make up its mind. How many Gucci Homme’s must there be, or is it the company's intention to confuse their consumer base? Before 2003 there was Gucci Pour Homme 1976. In 2007 Gucci Pour Homme II was released. This year, another Gucci Pour Homme has appeared, Gucci by Gucci.

Comme des Garons 2 Man was created by Marc Buxton in 2004, close on the heels of Gucci Pour Homme. Buxton is well known for his unusual creations at Comme des Garçons. In addition he has orchestrated fragrances for Versace, Salvador Dali, Cartier, and Paco Rabanne. Early on, he did some of the Alain Delon fragrances. Like Gucci Pour Homme, Commes des Garçons 2 Man is something of a muddle in terms of nomenclature. Its name implies something of a masculine flanker to Comme des Garçons 2, which until then seemed to have been considered by many a unisex scent.

These confusions only add to the seeming interchangeability of the two fragrances themselves. Smell them at a remove from one another and you might swear they’re virtually identical. I did, many times. Yet there are subtle and even distinct differences between the two. Both are anchored by leather, vetiver, and incense accords. This gives them a shared tone of tangy smokiness, but whereas CDG retains a strong orientation towards tangy, Gucci submerges itself under more smoke.

Gucci is often considered a cedar fragrance, but you won’t find cedar in the pyramid. You will find olibanum, however. Like Guerlain Nahema, which conjures rose without actually employing it, Gucci manages to evoke something which isn’t there. Many people mistake olibanum for cedar and thus detect in Gucci Pour Homme the dreaded “pencil shavings”. Interestingly, olibanum typically has an orange aroma to it, which I don’t discern in Gucci Pour Homme, but I don’t discern pencil shavings either. Of the 123 customers sounding in on basenotes, many do. Perhaps that subtle aroma of citrus complicates what seems like a fairly linear scent in largely undetectable ways. There are ginger and white pepper up top and amber at the bottom, the latter probably contributing to the overall coniferous impression. Yet more than anything Gucci Pour Homme is the rich, oily but arid smell of burning incense, and a useful comparison can be made with YSL’s M7, the agarwood of which takes Gucci Pour Homme’s incense inclinations to their logical end points, and smells nothing like cedar but very much like Gucci Pour Homme--on steroids.

The top and middle notes of Comme des Garçons 2 Man are listed as white smoke, nutmeg, cumin, mahogany, saffron, iris, and nutmeg. The frankincense at the bottom can be smelled from the first, but it’s vetiver you apprehend most discernibly into the dry down. The vetiver note is made a little more complicated by cumin, nutmeg, and, according to Luca Turin, a big dose of aldehydes, which seem to wear off fairly quickly.

It might be the aldehydes which give some of the fragrance’s detractors an impression of synthetics. Either way, Comme des Garçons 2 is made more unusual by their inclusion, and though they leave quickly their effect createes a lasting impression, creating a singeing sensation, as though someone had struck a match to light incense and snuffed it, mingling the smells. Saffron adds an interesting touch, a tobacco or hay-like aroma. There's a lot going on in there. Comme des Garçons feels much more conceptual than Gucci Pour Homme, the picture it paints more vividly detailed, and it seems less linear for it.

Both have respectable sillage, though less than you’d expect from incense fragrances. Gucci Pour Homme is available at Perfumania. Comme des Garçons can be found online, or you can call the Perfume House in Portland, which stocks it. I own both now and find, however often they intersect as they develop, they stand alone quite well, too.

Dandy of the Day: Patrick Petitjean

Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the Ted Kaczynski of contemporary fashion: Patrick Petitjean, aged 25, of France. Patrick is versatile. He is Grizzly Adams, the man on the street who just asked you for a dime (you refused), Godspell revival, and Abe Lincoln. He is man, woman, and wolf, all rolled into one. He crosses and confuses gender boundaries and preconceptions. He's the perfect fashion model, we believe, because you can't look at him without imagining he must smell. He brings fashion down to earth, literally, rubbing it in the dirt. Here are the scents we suggest for Patrick Petitjean:


Kenzo Air: all peppery vetiver and arid grit

Comme des Garcon 2 Man: citrus smoke and a singeing incense vaporousness

Baron, The Gentleman: pungent, ever so slightly dysfunctional lavender

Kolnisch Juchten: charred leather and delicious, pickled wine barrel cork

Body Kouros: a slightly sexualized wrestling match with eucalyptus, and the plant is winning

M7: Look what happened to that glass of Coke you left on the table--for twenty years.

Hermes Equipage: Let's take a ride on my horse's saddle. Please sit on your face.

Knize Ten: Welcome to my studio. Sorry about the smell. I've been cleaning my paintbrushes.

Bond No. 9, Broadway Nite: What did you expect me to smell like--armpit?