Persolaise Review: Gucci Guilty Absolute Pour Homme (Alberto Morillas; 2017)

Woah! Don’t ever let me say that mainstream masculine scents can’t be surprising any more. After years of fobbing us off with various editions of the amoeboid dross that is Guilty, Gucci‘s fragrance output seems to have had a sudden awakening recalling the heyday of the Tom Ford era. What’s even more unexpected is that they’ve slotted it under the Guilty banner and simply called it Guilty Absolute Pour Homme. But make no mistake, this stuff warrants a name of its own. Like some rocket-fuelled thruster burning a swathe through a cypress forest, it burns with patchouli-heavy, petrol-soaked leather notes so incendiary, they must have caused the marketing bods at Gucci to weep into their velvet loafers. How did this whip-smacking beauty get past them? Who knows? But apparently, the newish director of the fashion line, Alessandro Michele, deserves some of the praise. According to the official press notes, he collaborated with Alberto Morillas to bring this unexpected composition to life, providing just the reminder the mainstream needs that no amount of focus group testing will ever replace lucid, artistic vision. Okay, maybe the flames in Absolute don’t project far enough – a concession to the pleas of the loafer weepers? – but that’s a small price to pay for a startling, impressively linear, long-lasting piece of work that throws down the gauntlet to all other comparable brands. I just hope it delivers the goods at the till, so that Michele is allowed to have his way with the rest of the collection.