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Notes10/05/2021
Intersport
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9
YSL's subliminal message ..
My access to YSL was via jazz, or even more via Paris and opium in relatives' bathroom cabinets. For a long time I paid little attention to YSL Pour Homme, too old, too unfashionable. The detour to access it went slightly astray. Through Comme des Garçons' Soda (2004), I took a liking to the artificially citrusy, on the edge of functional perfumery as it comes into play in cleaning products, among others. Soda was a successful satire on this. At some point, the complete Series 6 Synthetic was discontinued, the search for overdriven citrus note began: Although with rinsing - and scrubbing means Gang and Gäbe, overbred citrus was for years in fine fragrances, if at all, only hard to find.
Finally, I perceived Pour Homme in the 80's and 90's via print advertising, nothing extraordinary back then, on the contrary: there was hardly any skimping on advertising photography and commercials, only with this subject the encounter was different, subliminal, smuggled into another context, like hidden additional frames in a film or backward messages in music: No full-page ad, that was still reserved for Paris or already 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 advertisement. 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. Quelle Tristesse!
At first glance, Pour Homme seemed like it had found the functional citric replacement. Yatagan's formulation of the 'powerhouse lemon' sums it up. 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, runs a course that - via a potently orchestrated bouquet garni of proportions that would have more than adequately spiced up even the most expansive dinners of the entire YSL Studio crew at La Coupole - quickly veers away from any cleansing aesthetic. A harbinger of the physicality that Kouros would take to extremes 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 wicked. 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 devoted extensively to the 'animalic' aspects that make up Pour Homme's character, and which presumably come from the lush bouquet garni. Sadly this too has since been discontinued, at least the older versions also mentioned musk, perhaps another modulation. In drydown, has reminded me last Club Majestic but / too much of the same at Pour Homme.
Finally, I perceived Pour Homme in the 80's and 90's via print advertising, nothing extraordinary back then, on the contrary: there was hardly any skimping on advertising photography and commercials, only with this subject the encounter was different, subliminal, smuggled into another context, like hidden additional frames in a film or backward messages in music: No full-page ad, that was still reserved for Paris or already 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 advertisement. 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. Quelle Tristesse!
At first glance, Pour Homme seemed like it had found the functional citric replacement. Yatagan's formulation of the 'powerhouse lemon' sums it up. 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, runs a course that - via a potently orchestrated bouquet garni of proportions that would have more than adequately spiced up even the most expansive dinners of the entire YSL Studio crew at La Coupole - quickly veers away from any cleansing aesthetic. A harbinger of the physicality that Kouros would take to extremes 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 wicked. 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 devoted extensively to the 'animalic' aspects that make up Pour Homme's character, and which presumably come from the lush bouquet garni. Sadly this too has since been discontinued, at least the older versions also mentioned musk, perhaps another modulation. In drydown, has reminded me last Club Majestic but / too much of the same at Pour Homme.
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