Arpège (1927)
by Lanvin

As a floral chypre for women, this is a very classic scent that has unfortunately gone out of fashion. It's a delightful scent. However, I'm not sure why Luca Turin thinks this will make a good masculine. On my skin it is more obviously feminine than Chanel No. 5. It has a very aldehydic top, an extremely feminine floral heart, and a unisex woody dry down. If I were wanting to wear this out, I'd have to apply it and wait a good 2 hours before the dry down started until I felt comfortable wearing it in public. By then the projection is very muted and it is a wonderfully unisex skin scent for several more hours. I'm giving Arpege a thumbs up as a classic aldehydic feminine floral, but I'm not convinced at all of it's usability as a masculine; not only does Turin like it as a masculine, but it's one of his top 10 feminines for men. ????

Poor Arpège. As a dark, weighty, floral chypre, it belongs to a fragrance genre now so out of fashion as to be positively gauche. It lands on the skin potent and massive, arriving quickly at its central structure of a thick, rose-dominated floral accord and deep spices (the pyramid lists coriander, I smell cinnamon and nutmeg,) over an intense, earthy chypre foundation. To contemporary sensibilities this sort of composition is liable to smell ponderous, “perfumey,” and hopelessly dated, but it’s really a better scent than that, and deserves to be judged on its own terms.

Even when met with an open mind, Arpège does pass a conspicuously awkward episode in its early development. Not long after application the floral accord mounts an enormous crescendo, during which an unfortunate combination of waxy aldehydes and an artificial edge on the rose note makes for an embarrassingly crass, dowdy impression, the olfactory equivalent of Edna Turnblad answering the door in her housecoat. (I’m talking the Divine version here, not the scrubbed and sanitized John Travolta.) Then, somewhere between a half an hour and an hour’s air time, a sweet, smooth amber settles in to bind the ingredients and tilt the composition into balance. What remains is an appealingly spicy and somewhat sweet oriental-tinged chypre, that while still bulky and opaque, nevertheless manages a staid brand of poise and grace in motion.

The remainder of Arpège’s stay is very pleasant, especially once the ambery, mossy drydown sets in. In fact, the drydown exudes such elegance and understatement that the earlier clumsiness is forgiven, if not entirely forgotten. For those tolerant of its anachronistic style and patient enough to experience Arpège in its entirety, this grand old survivor offers some tempting pleasures.

If I would ask a random person to smell this fragrance out of the bottle, they would probably say that it has an old lady-sort of smell to it, and maybe it has. But regardless, this perfume makes me feel like an old fashioned femme fatale. It is luxourious, yet simple: the very definition of the kind of sofisticated femininity that doesn't have to boast itself. To me, this is the fragrance equivalent to the little black dress.

For you fans of this vintage fragrance, it seems that the women's version of Jacomo's Anthracite is very similar (it just doesn't have amber or vanilla listed in the pyramid, and my guess is that this is the only main difference, though of course it might be important to you). I haven't tried this one, so I'll give it a positive so as not to make anyone think someone didn't like it (which is what neutral often means).

I got a miniature of this just a month ago and have been loving it since, but application has been difficult, since its a splash bottle. Much to my dismay, the splash bottle splashed about half of itself onto me one morning before school. I didn't have time to take it off, so I braved the massive sillage. As my AP US History teacher paced the room, he started sniffing the air on our side of the classroom, saying, "It smells nice in here, who is that?" Everyone around me turned and pointed to me. Needless to say, it was embarrassing and flattering and hilarious all at once. Thank God this stuff is so good. Definitely unisex, it starts along the lines of a muted No. 5 of Joy in a more beige tone that isn't as strident with the aldehydes. After that, it grows into a beautiful rich musky floral that dries down into the best musk base out there, hands down. A must try for anyone.

Curious as to how a 1927 fragrance survived to this day, I got hold of ARPEGE. My curiosity quickly turned to surprise and then disappointment. Perhaps the sample had gone 'bad' but the scent felt rather masculine and reminded me of the ubiquitous prayer attar used by Muslim men. While the drydown is pleasant enough it can't seem to shake off the dowdy character. Nonetheless I would take this review with a healthy pinch of salt as earlier reviewers have highlighted the poorer notes coming from the smaller samples. As it stands this classic deserves a neutral at best. At least until I get hold of a larger sample.