I have two abiding memories of Giorgio. One is from around 2006, a totally incongruous experience where I was walking up the hill from Kitakamakura station at night in the dark past Buddhist cemeteries and shrines, and a tiny, oldish Japanese lady of crooked gait was pounding determinedly up the winding path behind her tall and very serious, lanky, and much faster son ( this was always the pattern whenever I saw them, like a fable from Aesop).
I was about half a kilometre behind, could glimpse them briefly, but could easily have followed them straight to their door. On the cool, coniferous air lay the unmistakeable vine trail of Giorgio. The yellower than yellow buttery tuberose jasmine; the sandalwood vanilla middle; though on this person the vetiver stood out markedly, quite beautifully. I could hole onto this rope and been saved from an underground cave, holding on til I saw light the perfume was so vivid. I hadn’t smelled it in years, could still see its detractors, but its singular potency, on that night, had me spellbound.
The other memory is from when I smelled it the first time in the actual eighties. I was at a party. with bad girls from another school: older teenage girls in lip gloss and stone washed, with gelled, long tight perms smoking and dancing to early house tracks like Jack Your Body. As the 12” if Steve Silk Hurley spun on the record player in the deliberately dark lighting, I breathed in nicotine and cheap alcohol, bubblegum, and Dior Poison and Giorgio Giorgio – the first time I smelled either, and you can only imagine my young febrile intoxication.
Poison I adore(d) unapologetically from the offset. Purple plum tuberose pimiento musk vanilla perfection. Giorgio was much more difficult; thick, imposing, rich, almost headache inducing – but still dangerously sexy ( at least on this older girl who was sixteen or seventeen). It felt brazen yet still semi-‘classy’; robust, self confident: lusciously materialistic.
I don’t think I have come across this most pilloried of Reaganite colossuses since until the other day in Yokosuka, where I found an unwrapped ( possibly vintage ? Not 100% certain ) bottle in that familiar yellow and white striped box languishing in a box with some incense that was so old it had lost all its smell.
Not so the Giorgio : even before I actually took the bottle from its wrapping the strong smell of Indian jasmine leaked forth, taking me immediately to an area of Little India in Singapore, where we were entranced three weeks ago buying up ‘Mysore sandalwood’ soap and rolll on delectable jasmine sambacs, Yardley sandalwood soap, Nag Champa incense and the like; all these deep, sensual smells rolled into one.
The perfume itself : on my skin, after ten minutes, an ‘ah I see’ of powdery vulgarity – I smelled like a ‘cheap whorehouse’, or at least how I imagine one would smell, a gnarled and overpancaked old still lip synching drag queen. And yet back at home, the narcotizing white florals, bathed in the laundromat fabric conditioner of the heart, the rich woody base, had me pushing my entire face into the box inhaling like an opium eater.
Dated and outrageous, Giorgio is a perfume I am sure I would hate if I had any actual associations with the women it was intended for at the time : money-grubbing, Trumpian socialites, who had it supposedly banned from American restaurants. All the Michael Douglas Greed cliches. I imagine that this perfume could have come across as disgustingly obnoxious.
In itself though, as an intrepidly overegged concoction whose inner contradictions – the antagonism of cooler earthier wood notes, ambered Californian sprawl. and orgasmically overeager pollinators – fascinating, actually – meant that there was no way in hell I was not picking this tarnished diamond up for my collection.
I was a 100% Team Poison. Still am.
Giorgio BH always had something that caught in my throat.
Time Machine forward 30 years & entering the changing rooms at work to find a fug of Giorgio punching me in the throat. Obviously a member of my nursing team was flouting the minimal fragrance convention for nurses.
Easily traced I admit she wore it well but the whole unit smelt of it.
Sadly, I had to ask her to cease & desist. She took it badly
Pure poetry, I love it
How long did it take to clear the aroma ?
!
an hour or so after she was thrown from the seventh floor balcony
Not really surprised about that Ha Ha
Wow, what a great paean to the “Age of Giorgio”! I was in high school/college when the shoulder pads came out in force; I also associate this with the show Falcon Crest. And Dallas!
And I’d never considered it before, but OF COURSE this is the perfume for Trumpy socialites!!
Best line: “fabric conditioner of the heart”!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Thanks for joining me. And yes : extremely Falcon Crest ! Which Dallas character might wear this ? I think Charlene Tilton could have perhaps rocked it. It’s not Sue Ellen. Nor JR. Victoria Principal would have worn something softer, more floral.
Georgio is such a bombastic monster white floral I never wear, but lovingly keep on my shelf and sniff occasionally or spray into the bath. Your phrase “Reaganite colossuses” had me giggling. Perfumes from that era, including Poison are unwearable in public but are so important in my collection. I tried wearing the gorgeous Paloma Picasso the other day but it was too much for going out among people, especially here in the Colorado Rockies where everything has to be ‘natural’. So I wore it on a hike and the deer and elk did not seem to mind.
How fantastic.
Paloma is beyond words good – did people actually comment on it being too much or did you just sense it ?
Good to read you again. Starting off with a bang!
Thanks R.
Been a bit of an intense time … good to start with a similarly intense perfume.
What are your thoughts/ memories of this monster ?
Beverly Hills matrons in tight white polyester slacks and a great deal of leopard print. Always together with the smell of Ellnet and cigarette smoke.
I’m sold !
My mom loved Giorgio, that nuclear neon tuberose was room clearing. Sadly, the latest formulation is grape juice and fabric softener.
Yellow! For me, sunshine and happiness from Georgio, but I seem to be able to wear it far less than I smell the bottle. So my old bottle is going down veeeeery sloooowly. No Trumpian socialite me, but I have to confess Elnett is involved. The same has been happening with my Hermes 24 Faubourg; a little abandoned but still has the power to thrill a bit. But Paloma has come roaring back and is worn often these days.
Fauborg and Giorgio definitely share something, don’t they … a thickening aspect – quite good armour when feeling vulnerable.
Paloma is just everything – and far more intelligent-smelling to boot while being so witchily SEXY