Reviews of Jean Paul Gaultier Classique (1993)
by Jean Paul Gaultier

Hideous, confused, cloying and utterly shapeless vanilla floral mess with a bizzare curdled milk note. Great bottle though.

This smells old, musty and decrepit on me. I was given a bottle by a friend who assumed that because I loved Gaultier's clothes, that the perfume would be perfect for me. Instead I smell like a mouldy piece of old clothing that was put away slightly dirty in layers of tissue paper 50 years ago, and have now been taken out of the box, only to have the owner realise that the garment wasn't worth keeping in the first place. This is the only perfume I have ever worn where friends have actually told me how awful a fragrance smelled on me. Enough said.

Lots of vanilla with the sweetness blunted by spices and aniseed(?). This was a favourite for a good few months until I realised that my wearing Classique was coinciding with a "not so good" time in my life. I subsequently ditched the fragrance and things got a lot brighter, honestly! Perfume karma? I wonder...........Needless to say I won't be wearing Classsique again. I do find it very cloying now anyway but my opinion of it will always be coloured by negative factors.

As a designer, Jean-Paul is one of my all-time favorites - the few pieces I have of his are exquisite beyond words - but this signature scent has sadly never worked on me. I always get the dreaded "eau de nailpolish" thing and an oppressive blast of sandalwood (not an "official" note but it must be in here somewhere - it seems to be hiding in plain sight). It's an extremely severe fragrance, very sharp and commanding, highly defined, perhaps like the fit of Gaultier's classic corset silhouette. I've only used the EDT, by the way; one of these days, I need to try the EDP and see how it differs, as the lineup of notes appears to be quite different. It goes without saying that the bottle and the metal "drum cannister" container are genius.