10/05/2021
Intersport
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Intersport
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10
YSL's subliminal message?
My access to YSL was via jazz, or even more via Paris and opium in bathroom cabinets of relatives. YSL Pour Homme I paid little attention for a long time, too old, too unfashionable. The detour to access ran slightly off track. Through Comme des Garçons' Soda (2004) I found pleasure in the artificial-citrusy, on the verge of functional perfumery as this comes into play, among other things, in cleaning products. Soda was a successful satire on it. At some point, the complete Series 6 Synthetic was discontinued, the search for overdriven citrus note began: Although in rinse - and scrubbing agents Gang and Gäbe, overbred citrus was over years in fine fragrances, if at all, only difficult to find.
Ultimately, I perceived Pour Homme in the 80's and 90's via print advertising, at that time nothing extraordinary, on the contrary: in advertising photography and commercials were hardly saved, only with this subject was the encounter different, subliminal, smuggled into another context, like hidden additional frames in a film or reverse messages in music: No full-page ad, that was still reserved for Paris or already for jazz, just a small black and white photo, which was also only shown in the context of 'general' reports about Yves Saint Laurent: YSL at the Opera Garnier, YSL with dog, YSL in Morocco, YSL with the Deneuve, and then just YSL - without: a naked YSL from the earliest 70's, dressed only with glasses and somewhere in the corner - thanks to the small size hardly recognizable - indications it could possibly be a perfume advertising. A photo that was gradually replaced by more irrelevant: from YSL in a suit, group picture 'Flakon and the Financial Times 1987' further to the other 80's cliché: young businessman cashing in a bonus. Source Tristesse!
Pour Homme seemed at first glance as found for the function citric replacement. Yatagan's formulation of the 'powerhouse lemon' brings it to the point. It quickly became clear that I had acquired a pig in a poke, or rather a dirty Trojan. Pour Homme, which opens with a famously polyphonic citrus note, executes a course that - via a potently staged bouquet garni of proportions that would have more than adequately spiced even the most expansive dinners of the entire YSL Studio crew at La Coupole - quickly veers away from any cleansing aesthetic. A harbinger of that physicality that Kouros would take to the extreme 10 years later. Combining an effectively-brachial opening with a distinct lived-in quality, YSL Pour Homme is simply fun to wear. Certainly it was a child of its time, connections to other 'great perfumes' that may have served as commercial anchors are evident. Chanel Pour Monsieur, Monsieur de Givenchy, only Pour Homme seemed to sharpen and exaggerate identical components. More citrusy, more spice-bouquety, more seductive. A dirty lemon. Poison and antidote in one, Scene of Crime and crime scene cleaner.
A credible if more restrictive re-release was attempted under La Collection - Profumo's review of this is extensively devoted to the 'animalic' aspects that make up Pour Homme's character and which presumably come from the lush bouquet garni. Unfortunately, this has also been discontinued in the meantime, at least in the older versions there was also talk of musk, perhaps another modulation. In drydown, last Club Majestic has reminded me yet/too much of the same at Pour Homme.
Ultimately, I perceived Pour Homme in the 80's and 90's via print advertising, at that time nothing extraordinary, on the contrary: in advertising photography and commercials were hardly saved, only with this subject was the encounter different, subliminal, smuggled into another context, like hidden additional frames in a film or reverse messages in music: No full-page ad, that was still reserved for Paris or already for jazz, just a small black and white photo, which was also only shown in the context of 'general' reports about Yves Saint Laurent: YSL at the Opera Garnier, YSL with dog, YSL in Morocco, YSL with the Deneuve, and then just YSL - without: a naked YSL from the earliest 70's, dressed only with glasses and somewhere in the corner - thanks to the small size hardly recognizable - indications it could possibly be a perfume advertising. A photo that was gradually replaced by more irrelevant: from YSL in a suit, group picture 'Flakon and the Financial Times 1987' further to the other 80's cliché: young businessman cashing in a bonus. Source Tristesse!
Pour Homme seemed at first glance as found for the function citric replacement. Yatagan's formulation of the 'powerhouse lemon' brings it to the point. It quickly became clear that I had acquired a pig in a poke, or rather a dirty Trojan. Pour Homme, which opens with a famously polyphonic citrus note, executes a course that - via a potently staged bouquet garni of proportions that would have more than adequately spiced even the most expansive dinners of the entire YSL Studio crew at La Coupole - quickly veers away from any cleansing aesthetic. A harbinger of that physicality that Kouros would take to the extreme 10 years later. Combining an effectively-brachial opening with a distinct lived-in quality, YSL Pour Homme is simply fun to wear. Certainly it was a child of its time, connections to other 'great perfumes' that may have served as commercial anchors are evident. Chanel Pour Monsieur, Monsieur de Givenchy, only Pour Homme seemed to sharpen and exaggerate identical components. More citrusy, more spice-bouquety, more seductive. A dirty lemon. Poison and antidote in one, Scene of Crime and crime scene cleaner.
A credible if more restrictive re-release was attempted under La Collection - Profumo's review of this is extensively devoted to the 'animalic' aspects that make up Pour Homme's character and which presumably come from the lush bouquet garni. Unfortunately, this has also been discontinued in the meantime, at least in the older versions there was also talk of musk, perhaps another modulation. In drydown, last Club Majestic has reminded me yet/too much of the same at Pour Homme.
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