Tag Archives: Style

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale – Vintage Favre-Leuba Square Steel BLUE Daymatic “Cioccolatone”

SOLD

Up for sale is this very cool and highly uncommon vintage Favre-Leuba Daymatic with beautiful blue dial and impressive square “Cioccolatone”-style all steel water resistant case. Like most rectangular and square watches, this wonderful late-1960s/early-1970s model wears larger than its 33 x 37mm dimensions might indicate and delivers great wrist presence, as you can see from the photo of it on my 7-inch wrist. The rather heavy and ingeniously engineered steel case features wide, downward sloping beveled edges for a distinctly muscular feel not unlike a smaller version of Heuer’s famous Monaco.

I haven’t seen more than a handful of these “Cioccolatone” Daymatic models and never with this exact case design or a blue dial, making it highly unlikely that you will run into anyone else wearing this watch in the wild. The stunning vertically brushed cobalt blue dial with original luminous also happens to be in Mint condition.

The watch itself appears unpolished and is in Very Good to Excellent overall vintage condition, showing honest wear commensurate with having been worn and enjoyed for most of its long life. The rather over-engineered and quite substantial case design features, I believe, some sort of split-crown method for removing the dial, movement and back from the top case in one piece once the locking ring has been unscrewed and thereby gaining potential access to the movement.

In addition to the signed dial, case and crown, this sporty yet elegant Favre-Leuba also comes with its likely original and period correct signed steel buckle, a nice bonus for the attentive collector. Though increasingly difficult to find, there are still some vintage watches out there where you don’t have to spend crazy money to get a ton of style on your wrist. I’d say this striking Daymatic “Cioccolatone” is proof of that.

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT ME ABOUT THIS SUPER COOL FAVRE-LEUBA DAYMATIC

SOLD

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage 1970s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak JUMBO 5402ST B-Series

SOLD

Up for sale, a watch that needs no introduction — Gerald Genta’s all time design classic, the original, legendary all-steel Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbo reference 5402ST. This coveted and rare Royal Oak is from the second B-series produced in the mid-1970s and is in Excellent vintage condition overall with a stunning original deep gray Petite Tapisserie dial in absolute Near Mint condition. Featuring all its original case parts as far as I can tell, this Royal Oak 5402 still has its correct second generation signed bracelet clasp, correct unsigned octagonal crown, correct original date wheel and original matching Tritium slim paddle hands. The amazing integrated bracelet has minimal stretch for its age and will fit up to a 7 1/4” wrist comfortably.

This ultimate cult Royal Oak features AP’s revolutionary JLC-derived caliber 2121 ultra-thin automatic-winding calendar movement, a technical marvel with recessed rotor that enables the brilliantly engineered case to remain so thin. This magical caliber was also used in the original Patek Phillipe Nautilus 3700 and the Vacheron Contsantin 222 among others. I had wanted to send this watch to AP for a service but their new policy is to make any 5402 “like new” cosmetically, replacing crown, hands, etc and thereby destroying the vintage originality for us true collectors. So you know going forward unmolested examples like this one are going to become harder and harder to come by. In any event, instead I just had this Royal Oak fully overhauled by my watchmaker, including the installation of a new mainspring, while allowing no other cosmetic work. 

While not a safe queen, the case of this Royal Oak still has sharp chamfers & bevels that appear to me to be unpolished, while the bezel has either softened from years of cuff wear or has been lightly polished at some point in the past (never by me). The watch shows minor wear commensurate with semi-regular use over its nearly 50 years of life, though it’s still in Excellent vintage condition. To my mind, that means you don’t have to worry about babying it and can just strap it on and go when the mood strikes, which is what I’ve done for the eight or so years that I’ve owned this beauty.

The star of the show is the magnificent original Petite Tapesserie dial, which has not gone tropical as so many have and retains its original deep metallic charcoal gray color, with notes of blue in the sun. There are a few very subtle speckles showing in places from the brass beneath under magnification, an effect more noticeable by far in these macro photos than to the naked eye. The original slim hands match the dial perfectly and the appearance is absolutely stunning, looking just about like it came out of the factory yesterday save the pleasingly warm lume patina and the slight “sparkle” effect.

On the wrist, this classic ultra-slim Royal Oak is simply magic. You’ll understand all the hype once you’ve put one on and they don’t come up for sale in this sort of condition too often. Think about making this piece of watchmaking history yours today!

SOLD

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage Heuer Camaro 7220NT Exotic CHOCOLATE Dial

Up for sale is this absolutely stunning vintage Heuer reference 7220NT Camaro chronograph featuring a beautiful Near Mint+ Third Execution Exotic pure Chocolate dial with stunning red Tachy track and orange chrono hands. This example is in overall Excellent original vintage condition for a 50+-year-old watch and, along with its pristine dial, also retains its original brushed sunburst finish on the top of the iconic cushion-shaped Camaro case.

 SOLD

This 7220 Camaro, which Heuer heads more knowledgeable than I have dubbed the 7220NT Third Execution Exotic, has the correct 174,xxx case serial number for this specific iteration of brown dial, which was only made for a very short time.

I have also just had its famed Valjoux 72 column wheel movement fully overhauled for the convenience of the next owner, including replacement of the mainspring, so it’s good to go with all timekeeping and chronograph functions operating as they should.

Everyone seems to rave about the Panda versions of Camaros as the ne plus ultra but having owned both, this stunning and uniformly “tropical” brown dial blows them away, IMO. In fact, the dials on these are not actually “tropical” per se, as the consensus opinion of the experts is that these were born brown… and I’d have to agree!

Personally, I call this one King Camaro and I think when you peruse the pictures in different lighting conditions you’ll see why I do. After all, you find Panda dials on Carreras and Autavias but nothing as unique as this. There is just something so appropriate to the funky Camaro case shape and the late-60s/early-70s ethos that makes a deep brown dial with a red Tachy track and orange chrono hands totally work. And I know the lucky next owner will enjoy the one-of-a-kind style of this cool brown beauty as much as I have. 

 SOLD

Men’s Cologne — Pasha de Cartier by Cartier

Pasha de Cartier is a very interesting, reasonably daring but, at its core, classic and conservative men’s fragrance. Created in 1992 by famed nose Jacques Cavallier, auteur of such varied artistic and commercial successes as Bvlgari’s Aqva Pour Homme, L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme and a yin-yang duo for Yves Saint Laurent, the archetypal male oriental, Opium Pour Homme, and the throwback wet-shaver fougère, Rive Gauche Pour Homme (among many others), Pasha is variously listed as a Woody or Fresh Aromatic but is more of a typical fougère top grafted onto a somewhat Oriental-style heart and base. That twist is where the interest lies for this yellow juice in the ornate, ribbed, bullet-shaped flaçon. As others more knowledgeable than I have noted, Pasha seems like a kind of bridge between old school barbershop scents and the last gasp of pre-aquatic, spicy masculine semi-but-not-really-powerhouses like the boozy Ungaro pour L’Homme III and the spice-rack-in-a-bottle that is Halston’s Catalyst. Pasha is frequently compared to YSL’s much admired Jazz from 1988 and I can see that — they both share a very classic citric/lavender opening zipped up by spices. But Pasha is altogether sharper, with Cavallier favoring a more focused and pared down offering of mint and mandarin orange to mate to the bracing lavender, as opposed to Jazz’s very busy mix of bergamot, artemisia and basil plus several more culinary spices like coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. The spices in Pasha are also not so well behaved and gentile as they are in Jazz, with caraway seed paired with anise giving a hint of licorice skank playing just below the surface of the brighter top notes for a classic dirty-clean trick of the nose. I also get just a hint of the notorious Kouros in the far dry down for what that’s worth, which may be due to a still-present oakmoss note laying down the bass for those aforementioned high notes. But Pasha is definitely more well behaved and user friendly than the famously difficult and iconoclastic Kouros, so no need to steel yourself for decidedly mixed reactions to that extent when you apply the Cartier.

I also hear Pasha described as sweet an awful lot but I don’t really get that in any honey or fruity sense of the word. In fact, there is a bit of austere dryness to the heart of aromatic rosewood and coriander that seems to suck out any of the juiciness of that initial burst of mandarin orange rather rapidly, leaving just the more bitter and oily peel. By the time this fine eau de toilette evolves into its base of labdanum and a creamy but not cloying sandalwood, buttressed by rather faint hints of patchouli and that fizzy and genuine-smelling oakmoss, you’ve experienced the sort of pleasant olfactory journey of something akin to a good amaro, with pronounced natural citrus fruit and sharp mint melded to slightly funky herbal-spice-woody accords. Pasha also gets compared frequently to Van Cleef & Arpel’s formerly cheap but now discontinued and coveted classic, 1989’s very forest green Tsar, perhaps due to both scents’ perceived “soapiness”. But that seems like more than a stretch to me, as there are no evergreen notes in Pasha whatsoever and it is far more refined and less in-your-face than the rather prickly, pine-juniper/oakmoss bomb that is Tsar. I’d say a more apt analog would be Dunhill’s Edition, which mines a similar hybrid aromatic fougére vein to Pasha in the way they meld traditional bright lavender-citric tops with heavy doses of spiciness, nutmeg and clove in Edition’s case, caraway, anise & coriander in Pasha’s. So, if you like the style of Edition you’ll probably also enjoy Pasha.

Pasha is strong but it’s not loud, screechy or overbearing by any means a la today’s Sauvage EDT, which could actually be considered a descendent if you squint real hard. Somewhat laughably, the famed Leffingwell/H&R Geneology chart of masculine perfumes puts Pasha in the “Fresh Fougére” category in essentially the same column as the key exemplar of that style, Drakkar Noir. Maybe in 1992 Pasha could register as “fresh” compared to, say, bruising chypres like Anteaus, Yatagan and the original, ominous Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme. But nobody in 2022 is going to think you smell particularly fresh per se when you’re sporting Pasha. Well-groomed certainly, but Pasha completely eschews any airy aldehydes, florals or really any green, forest notes whatsoever, not even coumarin, which is how you know you’re dealing with an unusual take on a fougère. In fact, it’s a little challenging to contemporary tastes upon the first few wearings, the well blended but diverse notes a bit difficult to get a handle on, not to mention its rather unsmiling and all-business manner. But the quality of the ingredients, the refined nature of its composition and its overall hearkening back to classic masculine tropes in perfumery with a creative twist should win over anyone not solely addicted to ambroxan or vanilla-laden modern “freshies” or ” blue” scents.

There’s none of that contemporary style in Pasha and it definitely skews more old school formal regarding the situations where one might wear it, be that at the office or for a fancier night out at a fine restaurant. But I also feel it works particularly well in cool weather and in outdoor situations due to the bracing nature of its overall citric spiciness and warm, creamy woodiness, both of which frankly make it unsuitable for warm weather. As mentioned above and as with so many iconic men’s fragrances, one definitely can get a “soapy” vibe off of Pasha, which perhaps is where the misguided comparisons to Tsar come into play. But for me, Pasha is the sort of luxury soap found in a fine English hotel; Tsar is a pine resin soap at a lumberjack’s camp. Both have their merits but they’re really nothing alike. Wear time is quite impressive on my skin at a solid eight-plus hours with, like Edition, notable development throughout. Projection is moderate but its subtle sillage is certainly consistently noticeable from about two feet away at its peak and you will get wafts of this from beneath your shirt until the bitter end. At the price point, about $85 on the secondary market for the larger 3.3-ounce bottle, Cartier’s Pasha is not cheap but you get what you pay for quality-wise and it’s pretty much a no brainer for the fan of traditional men’s fougères with just a bit more going on than simply lavender-bergemot-coumarin-oakmoss. While I haven’t tried any of the myriad flankers, I don’t think you can go wrong sampling the original. Pasha is a bit of an acquired taste in today’s world but one that many mature and secure guys will have no problem getting into, even if it should take a little time to do so. The potential rewards from Pasha are essentially too good to pass up giving it a few cool weather wearings to see if you can connect with it.

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — Vintage Mido Multifort “Extra-Flat” Gloss BLACK Radial Dial

SOLD

Newly on offer — and now newly REDUCED — is this handsome and uncommon late-1940s/early-1950s Mido Multifort “Extra-Flat” manual winder with wonderful original gloss black dial in classically sized 34mm all-steel FB/Taubert et Fils case.

This lovely midcentury Mido is powered by their high quality caliber 1200A. This cool Multifort “Extra-Flat” also features an all-stainless steel screwed case manufactured by the famed case makers, FB/Taubert et Fils, which also made cases during this era for Patek Phillipe, Vacheron and Movado.

But the main attraction is the glossy black sub-seconds dial with “copper gilt” print and original radium radially positioned Arabic numerals showing lovely patina. Overall, this great little Mido is in Very Good unpolished vintage condition with a black dial that really pops on the wrist and a wearable size that a lot of vintage Midos don’t possess (it’s the same diameter as a Rolex Date for comparison).

A really nice bit of genuine vintage style & quality for not a lot of money in today’s market. Jump on it now before its gone!

 SOLD

Men’s Cologne — Explorer by Montblanc

First off, let’s discuss the elephant in the room when it comes to Montblanc’s Explorer, namely that it is widely considered one of the best “clones” of Creed’s genre-defining blockbuster, Aventus. That’s certainly part of the reason I bought it blind: because I wanted something more economical than Aventus. I enjoy that high-end fragrance but seeing as Aventus retails for somewhere north of four hundred bucks for 100 ml and Explorer can be had for around $100 (and often less than that via discounters like Fragrancenet.com) it seemed like a no brainer to give the Montblanc a tumble. But now having tried them both, applying the Aventus clone label to Explorer seems a bit damning with faint praise in a snobby kind of way. Yes, there are certainly similarities between Explorer (created 2019) and Aventus (2010). But there are enough differences for me to say that Explorer is not so much of a clone per se but rather a designer offering that utilizes the same modern and somewhat minimalist style that has essentially redefined masculine perfumery the way the inexpensive Davidoff Cool Water and the pricey Creed Green Irish Tweed did for the “aromatic aquatic”/”fresh fougere” in the late 1980s (although those two really do smell virtually identical).

From the Montblanc Explorer ad campaign

Instead of the rather heady and photorealistic sweet pineapple top notes of Creed’s Aventus, Explorer opens with a more astringent but still slightly sweet bergamot note which is much more fleeting than the lush tropical fruit of the Creed. It is paired with that ubiquitous pink peppercorn note now found in virtually all flagship masculines like Bleu de Chanel and Dunhill’s Icon, putting Explorer firmly in the same easy to reach for, easy to wear category as those two modern classics. They say there’s clary sage at the top, as well, but I don’t really get a lot of that and Explorer will never be mistaken for classic sage-heavy ballbusters like Antaeus and Maxim’s Pour Homme. Rather, Explorer is always a very polite and office friendly offering. Some have even claimed that it’s a more versatile cologne than Aventus, since it lacks the smoky birch tar/incense note that certain batches of that endlessly fetishized juice seem to emphasize more than others (trust me, you don’t want or need to go down that rabbit hole of Aventus batch micro-analysis — that’s its own weirdly obsessive demimonde). Instead Montblanc and the trio of perfumers who apparently worked by committee to develop this Eau de Parfum opt for a very pleasing vetiver in the heart to pair with the rather seductively salty ambroxan/Ambrofix/ambergris note that also makes Aventus such a joy to wear and such a consistent compliment getter. In some ways, I actually prefer the vetiver-ambergris pas de deux in Explorer, as it comes across like a real exotic beach experience with both the smell of the ocean and the fizz of Haitian vetiver — the coming together of the sea and the land — complimenting each other marvelously. So kudos to the creative team at Montblanc for pairing these two classic notes and blending them so well.

Where Explorer is decidedly inferior to Aventus is in terms of performance. While it gets knocked a lot for smelling “synthetic,” this is a facile criticism to make because Explorer proudly touts the use of artificial scent molecules like Ambrofix and Akigalwood. In fact, Explorer smells just as “natural” as the Creed icon and is never screechy or loud in the vein of another ambroxan-laden poster boy, Dior’s polarizing Sauvage. But frankly Explorer could use a bit more of Sauvage’s swagger because, while it is altogether classier and easier to wear, this “eau de parfum” concentration struggles to perform like even a decent eau de toilette. It could be the way it wears on my skin or perhaps I become anosmic to its scent molecules but I get only about four hours of noticeable wear time and the latter half of that is pretty much entirely as a skin scent. The promised patchouli-Akigalwood base sadly never really materializes, at least from the brand new bottle I have, making this purported “woody aromatic” actually fit the mode of an aquatic aromatic instead with a slightly soapy a very faint finish. I don’t think it is peculiar to me, though, as I can’t really smell it in on my clothes the following day when my nose has been refreshed, a test nearly all colognes that I’ve owned usually pass with flying colors.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Explorer. I think it’s not so clone-like that if you already have Aventus you would never need or want the Montblanc, especially if you’re particularly fond of this modern style of men’s scent but don’t feel like burning through the high end Creed quite so rapidly. But Aventus thrashes Explorer in terms of longevity and sillage, as do such other modern pillars of perfumery like the aforementioned Bleu de Chanel and Terre d’ Hermès. And while the price is easy enough to afford a backup bottle since you’re going to need to reapply a couple times of day if you want it to stick around, that’s still disappointing. For something that should be an ideal work or casual scent, good in all weather except the very coldest and a definite compliment getter, the poor performance really lets this juice down in the end. I keep waiting for the aeration of the recently acquired bottle — which is a really beautiful flaçon, by the way — to bring a little more punch and power to Explorer, much as time seems to benefit Aventus’s complexity and performance. But I have my doubts. Maybe you’ll have better luck, though, and on just pure wearability and enjoyment of the overall fragrance I still have to highly recommend Explorer to any guy out there looking for a can’t miss crowd pleaser at a fair price. The brief top and heart is so pleasing and frankly addictive you’ll probably forgive Explorer’s rather anticlimactic disappearing act.

Men’s Cologne — Invasion Barbare by MDCI Parfums

I don’t often write outright negative reviews — what’s the point in that there is usually something to enjoy in most offerings out there so why take time to dwell on the negative? But for Invasion Barbare, I’ll make an exception. Because anything both this hyped and this expensive should be exceptionally good and it just isn’t to my nose. I’m not even going to go with the damning with faint praise “it’s solid but nothing special.” I’m saying that I do not like the way Invasion Barbare smells at all. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this reaction places me in the extreme minority of opinions about this highly regarded niche fragrance from the very lux MDCI Parfums. Perhaps swayed by the retail price of $250 per 75ml via Lucky Scent ($375 if you spring for the over-the-top Roman bust flaçon) or grand guru of perfume reviewers Luca Turin’s 5-star rave, people can’t seem to help gushing about this 2006-created “oriental fougère.” But I really don’t like it. For all the talk about the incredible blending of ultra-natural ingredients, IB smells highly synthetic to my nose, as well as unbalanced and flabbily “spicy” until the reasonably pleasant woody dry down. There is a notable lack of greenness in the composition with a lavender that is barely there, subsumed by violet, ginger, cardamom and vanilla notes that provide an almost oppressive warmth and sweetness. I suppose this is what makes Invasion Barbare skew “oriental” but simply put this is not how I like my fougères.

Invasion Barbare starts out with a very heavy violet accord — a note I don’t dislike at all in a many classic men’s scents from Grey Flannel to Morabito’s Or Black — but here it is somewhat flaccid/withered and paired pretty much instantly with ginger, cardamom and a very persistent vanilla, which I admit is a note I usually don’t love and I certainly don’t love it in this. If this parfum-strength juice did actually have more of that promised lavender — or more kick and brightness from the very fleeting grapefruit/bergamot top notes — it might rescue it from the claustrophobic feel I get when wearing it. But the “sharpness,” such as it is, comes from a kind of cedar note buzzing in the background through the dry down, which is pleasant enough on its own, paired with a very realistic but incongruous thyme that just adds to the overall sense of a construction out of balance. It’s also not helped by an utterly generic musk in the base that, paired with the persistent vanilla, really clings to the skin for hours on end for a kind of clean laundry meets woodsy-spiciness plus powder effect. How anyone could perceive these accords as “ultra-natural” and “of the highest quality” is beyond me. Frankly, they smell cheap and artificial and that’s with trying it in winter, undoubtably showing this fragrance in its best light. In warm weather I think it could well be unwearable.

If you want something in this vein but one hundred times better and more distinctive (again, my opinion only) search out an original bottle of vintage Gucci Pour Homme. Yes, the cedar, patchouli and general pencil shavings feel that it shares with Invasion Barbare are dialed up way higher in the lamentably discontinued Gucci PH, perhaps due to a greater concentration of Iso E Super (an ingredient I would bet is also in IB in some quantity). But that is a good thing as it doesn’t allow the ginger that they also share to become so stiflingly prominent and more patchouli would, in fact, have really helped Invasion Barbare to counterbalance its cloying vanilla/musk base notes. At least Guccci Pour Homme has a real masculine personality and doesn’t come across like it was designed by committee out of the most clichéd and synthetic aroma chemicals available after being planned on a white board in some conference room, as well as containing no unisex vanilla. Sure, Gucci Pour Homme may also be nearly as expensive on the secondary market as a brand new bottle of IB but I will take the vintage, out-of-print designer frag over this over-hyped niche offering any day of the week. For a more economical analog you could go with the original Burberry for Men, although in its current formulation it is undoubtedly less refined, more minty and less bold than either the Gucci or the IB, but does share a lot of the same general vibe and can be had for very little money.

So there it is — I don’t like Invasion Barbare. A lot of people do, however, and will praise it to the skies as one of the best fougères in the modern firmament. For me it is neither “fresh” enough or “fougère” (i.e., green) enough to be a pleasant wearing experience, much less deserving of a full bottle purchase at that extremely high price point. Worst of all, it lacks cojones and is altogether generic smelling. Your mileage may vary, of course, so I suggest sampling before you buy, as you probably should with any cologne, especially an expensive one like this. You may well like it a lot, as most reviewers seem to, and find it one of the best, most masculine, most gentlemanly scents out there. For me, it served as a fine motivation to have a vigorous workout so I could justify a second shower on the day to wash it off. So I suppose it wasn’t a total loss after all.

Men’s Cologne — Ungaro pour L’Homme I by Emanuel Ungaro

Ungaro pour L’Homme I was the first of three Emanuel Ungaro masculine fragrances released in successive years between 1991 and 1993. Of the three, only the unapologetically macho and boozy Ungaro III is still in production, which is a pity as I and II have plenty to offer the omnivorous frag-head. That said, it’s not hard to see why the first two Ungaro pour L’Hommes were discontinued rather abruptly shortly after Salvatore Ferragamo acquired the brand from Chanel. This first one is described as an Oriental Fougere, a term that seems somewhat like an oxymoron but I suppose because there is a bit of lavender, bergamot and lemon in the composition that is the justification for this hybrid categorization and it is placed close to the infamous Zino from Davidoff on the definitive H&R Genealogy of Masculine Fragrances chart, which makes sense both conceptually and in terms of their similar styles. Like Zino, Ungaro I is primarily an Oriental scent, though it is thankfully much less musty/heavy than Zino. What you get with Ungaro is a heady rose/pathcouli/oakmoss blend with a hard to pin down musk in a base that mainly features sandalwood with hints of amber, tonka and honey. Perhaps because the bottle I have is likely from the early-to-mid-’90s (though not the first batch since it has the Roman numeral on it to distinguish it from it’s successors) I don’t really get a lot of the bright citrus top notes originally listed, though there is definitely some cool lavender up front. Mainly this is one of the most rose-forward men’s fragrances I’ve ever come across, much more so than another ostensible rose powerhouse, Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme. The Ungaro is altogether brighter than the gloomy VC&A Pour Homme with an almost photo-realistic rose accord as opposed to Van Cleef’s impression, which is submerged in massive amounts of oakmoss, spices, woody notes and leather. Sure, the oakmoss is quite prominent in Ungaro I, and since this is a vintage potion I assume it’s the real stuff, but here it seems to be dancing a pas de deux with the rose and not overwhelming it. There is a touch of sage, artemisia and pine giving this juice a forested if not really a green feel and I also get some sort of cedar-like woodiness that doesn’t seem to be in the notes. But these heart notes are fairly fleeting and quickly become submissive to a rather impressive and refined patchouli that emerges to the fore in the dry down alongside a pleasantly creamy but subtle sandalwood and just enough amber and honey to keep Ungaro I from getting overly somber.

Now, as you can probably tell from that description, the original Ungaro pour L’Homme can be a tricky scent for the uninitiated and there is something definitely throwback-gentlemanly about it that will make a younger guy raised on aquatics and sport scents run screaming for the hills at first sniff. This is a man’s eau de toilette and specifically a rather well dressed and even formal man. I wore this on New Year’s Eve and I think those sorts of special occasions are where it shines most brightly. You’d be hard pressed to pull off Ungaro I in jeans and a T-shirt or a casual meet-up for brunch with friends. This is essentially a nocturnal scent and not suitable for the office unless you are the boss and want to make a power statement to strike fear into the hearts of the millennials who work for you. It’s not even doable for your average date night unless you happen to be going to a fancy French restaurant that still has a dress code and a wine list like an encyclopedia. Undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its short time in production was that this first Ungaro pour L’Homme was asking a question that was becoming increasingly irrelevant in the ’90s when it debuted and certainly even less so as we progressed into the 2000s and beyond. That would be: What should the well-dressed man wear during some of life’s more formal occasions? There just aren’t enough of these sorts of black tie events in most people’s lives to justify something as over-the-top conservative slash dandified as Ungaro I. I enjoy wearing it but this is no one’s idea of a signature scent — it’s simply not versatile enough for that — and I probably reach for it a mere handful of times in any given year. I’m fairly sure my 3.5 oz bottle will last longer than I will. In fact, it almost feels more 1890s than 1990s and you could easily see Sean Connery’s suave, cigar smoking, ruffle-shirted rogue in The Great Train Robbery wearing this rather majestically anachronistic masculine concoction.

Ungaro pour L’Homme I does smell very, very good and if you have acquired the taste for a dominant rose note in your colognes it’s definitely worth sampling. The problem being, however, that it is discontinued as mentioned and the prices on the secondary market are quite high, like well into the $200s for full size bottles. You can find somewhat pricey decanted mini-samples on eBay from time to time, so that might be the best route to try before you really buy and spend niche money on what was always just a very good quality designer frag. Alternatively, I don’t see the comparison anywhere else but to my nose Ungaro I smells reasonably similar to Guerlain’s Heritage, at least to the latter’s current EDT formulation. For me the two share a similar bright rose note with fizzy oakmoss/patchouli/sandalwood vibes, though there isn’t any of the famed “Guerlainade” vanillin base of Heritage in the Ungaro. Heritage is also somehow more versatile even if still an acquired taste for most modern men and lends itself to casual as well as formal situations once you’ve gotten into a groove with it. But the original Ungaro pour L’Homme is simply too jarringly out of time for that kind of everyday wear. While I don’t find it as gloomy or overly dark as many people seem to and I think comparisons with animalic ball breakers like Salvador Dali Pour Homme and Balenciaga Pour Homme are misguided — de la Renta’s brooding Pour Loui this is definitely not — this eau de toilette performs more like a parfum, projecting quite strongly for the first four hours or so and then settling down to a still potent moderate phase where the patchouli really kicks in until dying down to a pleasant skin scent at around the 8-9 hour mark. I’d say it’s for a relatively mature man who is secure in his own skin, as this one will perplex most men and women under 35, if not 45. It’s definitely masculine and a borderline powerhouse but has a classiness that pulls it back from the brink of loud and uncomfortable. Given the right occasion, Ungaro pour L’Homme I is a rather stunning addition to one’s gentlemanly presentation. It’s just that finding such an occasion and an appreciative audience for this fascinating and rare out-of-print Oriental Fougere can be more of a challenge than actually finding a bottle.

Men’s Cologne — Dunhill for Men (1934) by Alfred Dunhill

Talk about a golden oldie! The original Dunhill for Men dates all the way back to 1934… and yet it wears just as well today. I suppose a classic is a classic and Dunhill for Men has stayed immune to the whims of fashion and fad so that it simply remains a very good smelling gentleman’s fragrance here well into the 21st Century. Very much in the English style, as one would expect, Dunhill is currently found in Eau de Toilette strength and is big on a masculine arrangement of flowers, with lavender, geranium and jasmine being the most prominent of them to my nose, though rose and iris are also listed in the notes. It goes on clean and bright without a lot of pumped up musks or other scratchy elements but with a rather juicy lemon kiss up front. You can tell that Dunhill for Men is still crafted with natural, high quality oils despite being around for a million years. The yellow juice inside its classic squat, clear spiraled glass and heavy, ridged black plastic cap flaçon has a decidedly less synthetic feel than even very good modern colognes like Bleu de Chanel and Armani’s Acqua di Gió Profumo, both of which I like very much. But then Dunhill for Men has zero relationship with today’s aquatics or aquatic/fougère hybrids. Rather, it is focused not just on those very pleasant floral/citrus top notes, which are reminiscent of a scented hot towel at the end of a shave or haircut from a particularly good barber, but also on a supporting lattice featuring subtle base notes of woods, vetiver and slightly creamy sandalwood that anchor and give depth to the composition. With that hit of lemon and a touch of clary sage it actually adds up to a rather pleasant and easy to wear leather fragrance even though it is categorized as a “woody spicy” scent. Yes, there are some vague hints of spice but I think Dunhill kept most of those in reserve for their much more nutmeg-y Edition some 50-years later.

What you realize while wearing the original Dunhill is how it became a touchstone and inspired a whole distinct lineage of men’s colognes further down the road. There is definitely something in the composition of Dunhill for Men that leads directly to the floral powerhouses that crop up and dominate men’s cologne in different eras. Despite the absence of violet, I look at Dunhill as the progenitor of classics like Geoffrey Beene’s Grey Flannel, Dior’s Fahrenheit and Morabito’s Or Black. The flower powered Hemes Equipage also bears a bit of resemblance and you could even make a case for similarities to Eau Sauvage and Monsieur de Givenchy. When you smell these and then get a whiff of Dunhill I think you’ll know what I’m talking about. The Dunhill is altogether more restrained than most of them, however, without the moss & violet overload of Grey Flannel, much less of a petroleum vibe than Fahrenheit and Or Black (though the jasmine does add just a touch of that) and altogether less dandified and sort of borderline unisex than Equipage. It’s definitely more in tune with the everyday wearability and restrained masculinity of Eau Sauvage and Monsieur Givenchy, albeit an even better performer than those two stalwarts.

Continue reading

Men’s Cologne — Vetiver by Guerlain

In much the same way that Givenchy’s original Gentleman is essentially a pure pachouli fragrance, Gurlain’s masculine classic Vetiver is, as you would expect, headlined by a sharp and spicy-clean vetiver note above all others purported to be in this Eau de Toilette’s deceptively cluttered-looking fragrance pyramid.  Yes, if you try really hard you can pick out a bit of nutmeg and cedar undergirding the construction of this well made and timeless offering from the legendary house of Guerlain. And perhaps there is a hint of classic fougere citrus-herb-wood notes floating in and out of this woody aromatic beauty, as well as a subtle civet that was probably much more in your face when this benchmark men’s cologne was introduced way back in 1961. But in the modern iteration the civet is nothing more than a subtle binding ingredient and Vetiver gives of zero funky vibes from that famed catlike mammal’s often challenging but prized secretions.

No, what you get is green, grassy, slightly smokey vetiver at its finest, a clean scent easily splashed on after a shower and a shave with polite sillage and projection but a strong manly, outdoorsy quality. Guerlain’s Vetiver should probably be in the fragrance arsenal of any stylish man because it is so pleasing and pleasingly versatile. While particularly appropriate in the warmer months where the lack of sweetness and the juice’s overall bracing astringency is welcome, it is also easily worn in cooler temps. And while the sharp and smoky earthy grassiness characteristic of good vetiver are stimulating to the senses, Guerlain’s Vetiver lacks the sometimes unpleasantly strange and pervasive sharpness and amplified woody overkill of other highly regarded modern descendants like Lalique’s murky Encre Noir and Commes des Garçons aggressive Wonderwood that make those two much more difficult to wear on a regular basis (or maybe there is something about their shared cashmeran accord that I just don’t love). Instead Guerlain’s original is highly versatile, good for the office or the weekend. In fact, if you’re only taking one cologne on an out of town trip with you this Vetiver is a great choice. Continue reading