SCENT OF MALE : JULES by CHRISTIAN DIOR (1980 )

Notes:

Artemisia, galbanum, lavender, bergamot, black pepper

Sage, jasmine, cyclamen, basil, rose, cumin

Leather, costus, tonka bean, oakmoss, amber, civet, musk

The last time I was in Paris you could still buy Jules. That was almost a decade ago, though, and even in reformulation I doubt that it was destined to remain very popular. Jules is just too intimate, too husky and sensual, to appeal to the fashionable common man.

The gravest mistake in contemporary men’s perfumery is the conflation of masculine and macho. Almost any scent released onto the market these days that is targeted at homo erectus is fuelled with clichés. Granite-jawed, gym-locker hardness: wooden aggressions with slim concessions to ‘freshness’ (immaculate,  GQ grooming); the latest spice; ozone; citrus. And though these perfumes can occasionally work on a subcellular level as Pavlovian lust-flaggers (the heterosexual woman, the homosexual man responding with their pituitary gland in a spike…