Persolaise Review: Pour Homme Parfum from Bottega Veneta (Daniela Andrier & Antoine Maisondieu; 2017)

I can’t help but envy Italian men their sense of style. Yes, I know I’m making a generalisation as broad as the shoulders of Michelangelo’s David, but spend a few minutes sipping an espresso in Verona and you start to believe that every single guy in the country is born reading a good grooming manual. Those bright red moccasins. The silk pocket square. A tangle of leather bracelets. Precision-cut facial hair. The pale yellow Lacoste jumper draped over a polo shirt. It’s all so deliciously sprezzatura. This very particular masculine aesthetic – part nonchalant bear, part predatory tiger – has in recent years found expression in Daniela Andrier and Antoine Maisondieu‘s Pour Homme scents from Bottega Veneta. And although the initial version veered just a tiny bit too close to cardboard-cutout territory, its flankers have been more impressive, leaning away from the pseudo-citrus notes towards the leathers and the spices. That trend continues in this new ‘Parfum’ iteration (despite its name, it’s an eau de parfum) which sees the tannery-centred base notes cling even closer to the wearer’s skin. The trademark pine inflection is still present, but in this case, the sun has long set behind the trees, forcing one’s gaze to pick out details in the dark: the undergrowth, the dying embers, the resinous vegetation releasing its scent into the sky. The effect is convincingly nocturnal, yet resolutely modern and urban… proving that even when he’s shed the day clothes and slipped into his sleeping gear, our Italian gent never sacrifices the need for a high-quality fabric and some fine stitching