Note that I'm asking this question, not suggesting it must be accurate. And by "modern," I don't mean this century, but the mid/late twentieth (I'd call the ones of the aquatic era or later "recent" or "contemporary"). I recently obtained a bottle of the original Revlon version of Chaz (1975). I have no idea what the new one is like. It seems like it might have been an attempt to "marry" the fougere with the oriental, and as some of you know, this was characteristic of many of the "80s power frags" marketed to men.
I looked up other frags from the late 60s and early 70s, but none of them seemed to have done this before Chaz (though I certainly haven't sampled them all, and it's possible that Chaz was not the first of this type). To be clear, Chaz does not dry down to something sweet/powdery and highly blended, such as the original Old Spice. It is also not animalic at all (as many frags of the "classic" period were). Instead, it is a pleasant and fairly complex blend, but many of the notes are detectable. Quite a few of the 80s frags featured a strong leather base note, though here wood is used (though not the harsh cedar note so common today).
Moreover, French fragrance companies of the time seem to have had more of a focus on developing specific kinds of frags (orientals, chypres, etc.), and "masculines" of the time seem to have been simpler in general. The reason why I'm writing all this is because, as I've mentioned on another post from a month or so ago, I consider these kinds of frags to be the apex of the personal fragrance. Thus, I'd like to know who deserves credit for this type of frag. Soon after Chaz came Z-14, Yatagan, Gucci Pour Homme (original), and Punjab, for example, and that was before 1980. So, is someone at Revlon owed a great deal of gratitude, or does it seem to have been just a copy (and if so, what was being copied)?
I looked up other frags from the late 60s and early 70s, but none of them seemed to have done this before Chaz (though I certainly haven't sampled them all, and it's possible that Chaz was not the first of this type). To be clear, Chaz does not dry down to something sweet/powdery and highly blended, such as the original Old Spice. It is also not animalic at all (as many frags of the "classic" period were). Instead, it is a pleasant and fairly complex blend, but many of the notes are detectable. Quite a few of the 80s frags featured a strong leather base note, though here wood is used (though not the harsh cedar note so common today).
Moreover, French fragrance companies of the time seem to have had more of a focus on developing specific kinds of frags (orientals, chypres, etc.), and "masculines" of the time seem to have been simpler in general. The reason why I'm writing all this is because, as I've mentioned on another post from a month or so ago, I consider these kinds of frags to be the apex of the personal fragrance. Thus, I'd like to know who deserves credit for this type of frag. Soon after Chaz came Z-14, Yatagan, Gucci Pour Homme (original), and Punjab, for example, and that was before 1980. So, is someone at Revlon owed a great deal of gratitude, or does it seem to have been just a copy (and if so, what was being copied)?
