Bandit Suprême Robert Piguet 2020
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Go from the forest through the tiger cage to the leather chair!
Germaine Cellier created a chypre classic with Bandit in 1944. In 2012, the fragrance was brought onto the market in a reformulated version. Now, the Robert Piguet brand and its in-house perfumer Aurelien Guichard are trying to recreate the magic of the original with Bandit Suprême. I haven't been able to test Cellier's work or the 2012 yet, but Bandit Suprême totally grabbed me. I think it's terrific.
Immediately after the first spray I stand naked in the forest. Wood, moss-covered ground, fresh, bitter primordial green in its wildest form surrounds me. And when I say bitter, I mean bitter. The galbanum used here takes no prisoners, but holds the gun right to your chest. The neroli mentioned in the ingredients list, on the other hand, I can't make out on my skin.
In the now following phase of the fragrance, it becomes clearly more animalistic, and suddenly I'm standing in the middle of a tiger cage. Holla, here is but someone on riot brushed! It smells like crusty fur and not-quite-fresh straw. When first worn, I imagined a similarity with YSL's Kouros in this phase, but had to revise immediately in the direct comparison: the Kouros is sweeter and tends with its funk more in the direction of "public baths".
The phase that now sets in between the middle and the base is one of the things I like best, because now the leather comes out. It's an animalistic, used-up leather, like an old, worn-out leather chair (more brown than black) that's been sitting in a corner of the room for years and has been lived on a lot. Sweat and who knows other liquids have been soaked up by the leather, it's cracked and stained. Great Orange blossom and jasmine, as indicated in the fragrance pyramid, elude me, but perhaps the indolic nature of the jasmine adds to the wickedness of the scent.
Towards the base, the fragrance then settles a bit, becomes smoother, patchouli, ambroxan, musk and oakmoss take over and make Bandit Suprême significantly softer, rounder and more pleasing.
The durability of BS is out of this world. Sprayed on in the morning, I can smell the fragrance the next morning in the shower still clearly on the arm.
So even though I don't know the predecessors: this reformulation is going on my wish list real quick. Luca Turin writes of the 2012 version, saying it's certainly not the original, but still several unlit streets ahead of all the other leather chypres. I would say the exact same thing about Bandit Suprême. To all who love chypres, leather and animalism, a test is highly recommended.
Immediately after the first spray I stand naked in the forest. Wood, moss-covered ground, fresh, bitter primordial green in its wildest form surrounds me. And when I say bitter, I mean bitter. The galbanum used here takes no prisoners, but holds the gun right to your chest. The neroli mentioned in the ingredients list, on the other hand, I can't make out on my skin.
In the now following phase of the fragrance, it becomes clearly more animalistic, and suddenly I'm standing in the middle of a tiger cage. Holla, here is but someone on riot brushed! It smells like crusty fur and not-quite-fresh straw. When first worn, I imagined a similarity with YSL's Kouros in this phase, but had to revise immediately in the direct comparison: the Kouros is sweeter and tends with its funk more in the direction of "public baths".
The phase that now sets in between the middle and the base is one of the things I like best, because now the leather comes out. It's an animalistic, used-up leather, like an old, worn-out leather chair (more brown than black) that's been sitting in a corner of the room for years and has been lived on a lot. Sweat and who knows other liquids have been soaked up by the leather, it's cracked and stained. Great Orange blossom and jasmine, as indicated in the fragrance pyramid, elude me, but perhaps the indolic nature of the jasmine adds to the wickedness of the scent.
Towards the base, the fragrance then settles a bit, becomes smoother, patchouli, ambroxan, musk and oakmoss take over and make Bandit Suprême significantly softer, rounder and more pleasing.
The durability of BS is out of this world. Sprayed on in the morning, I can smell the fragrance the next morning in the shower still clearly on the arm.
So even though I don't know the predecessors: this reformulation is going on my wish list real quick. Luca Turin writes of the 2012 version, saying it's certainly not the original, but still several unlit streets ahead of all the other leather chypres. I would say the exact same thing about Bandit Suprême. To all who love chypres, leather and animalism, a test is highly recommended.
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