L'Original

Façonnable

Façonnable 1994 Eau de Toilette

Wow, 1994..that was a whopping 24 years ago!! Do you sometimes feel the same way about years that were close to the millennium, that it feels like it was just recently...but it’s actually 20 years ago!?
1994..what a year, people were excessively going to techno and later rave parties, Mayday was a term known everywhere, a term for a whole generation, zeitgeist. Marusha’s Over the Rainbow was an anthem, Hyper Hyper somehow too, which I categorized into the fairground music drawer, just like Cotton Eye Joe or Eins, Zwei, Polizei. Despite the recently passed 80s, it was also a time of love songs, like Love is All Around (Wet Wet Wet), Always (Bon Jovi), Without You (Mariah Carey) or All for Love (Bryan Adams) or the unforgettable Mhhh Mhhh Mhhhh. The birth of many actors, 4 Weddings and a Funeral, The Moving Man, or the still extremely touching Philadelphia with Tom Hanks..the title song by Bruce Springsteen still gives me goosebumps today. Apartheid was history, Nelson Mandela was free again, Ayrton Senna had a fatal accident, people drove a Golf 2 Fire+Ice by Bogner in dark violet or the rich kids had a Golf 3, at least as a special model Pink Floyd...there were more to follow. People wore Diesel Sattle jeans in extra wide and rolled them up a bit at the bottom, Joop jeans with (!) matching denim shirts and wide sweatshirts from Chiemsee, Oxbow, Blue System and the poppers and slightly better Chevignon...and yes, there was Jordan Letschkow (better we stay silent) and unforgettable fragrances like Heaven by Chopard, CK One, Catalyst, Fuel for Men, Issey Miyake pH, Blue Jeans and of course Faconnable..the last two, in the trendy tin cans of that time.
Looking back at music or fashion, it makes my stomach turn today..but oddly enough, that’s not the case with fragrances. Yes, I know, that’s the nostalgic view, everything was better back then and of course the fragrances are loaded with memories, for me of a carefree time when 50 marks were enough for the entire weekend.
Heaven and Faconnable still appeal to me greatly today. I would kill for Heaven today. Back then we thought they were good, but we didn’t make such a fuss about fragrances like we do today.
Faconnable was thankfully re-released last year, why that hasn’t happened with Heaven is beyond me. Faconnable is somehow a fragrance that feels a bit out of time, its strength, character, and longevity are no longer or only very rarely found in that price segment (50-60€), but powerhouse would be too much to say. But back then it was completely normal for fragrances to last easily 8 hours or at least the whole disco night (an important criterion). Faconnable is an unusual mix of freshness, flowers (lots of lavender and neroli, but no 4711), mint, and an extra dose of oakmoss. Fresh-spicy fragrances were very popular back then and not too dissimilar from each other, see Issey Miyake, Heaven, Patou’s Voyageur (great with the ship as a stand) or Ultramarine by Givenchy, but still very unique, today one would say character fragrance. I can’t find any similarities to toilet cleaners, but I can understand why many might not like it. The piercing freshness and the dominant oakmoss and musk base are not to everyone’s taste. I like it a lot because with just one spray of the fragrance, I can rewind back to that wonderful time and enjoy, indulge, wonder, shake my head, sigh.
Sillage and longevity are great, easily 8 hours or more are possible and not much has been tinkered with the fragrance, I can’t recognize any significant differences...the comparison from memory is just too long ago, but I recognized it immediately:-)!