Issey Miyake Fusion D’Issey Review – Nathalie Lorson; 2020

The journey from L’Eau D’Issey Pour Homme to the subject of today’s review – Fusion D’Issey – is probably as neat a summary as we’re likely to get of what’s happened to ‘masculine’ perfumery in the last thirty or so years. Loathe it if you wish, but you’d be hard pressed to deny that the former – composed by Jacques Cavallier – is a landmark of modern scent creation. I had the pleasure of returning to it recently, and I was so pleased to be reminded of how excellent it is. The glass-like coolness of the citrus-aldehydic opening. That downright strange, yet reassuring, flinty-mineralic cleanliness of the heart. And then the ethereal, paper-thin woods of the drydown. Their overall effect remains so heart-stoppingly recognisable, so confident, so articulate. 

But then, I shouldn’t be surprised. L’Eau D’Issey Pour Homme emerged at a time when you could rely on a mainstream brand to try to bring a genuinely new scent to the air. This was the era of Chanel Egoiste, Dior Fahrenheit, Dior Dune Pour Homme, Cartier Declaration, Calvin Klein Eternity, Mugler A*Men and Davidoff Cool Water. Yes, the clone mentality was beginning to take hold, but it was still years away from becoming a dominant force, and most high-street fragrance houses seemed to adopt a policy that the way to achieve any measure of success was by pursuing originality. It’s no wonder then that the period produced so many pieces of work that are still with us today, enjoying well-deserved popularity. 

However, somewhere along the line, things changed. Priorities were re-calibrated. Power lines shifted. And we’ve ended up in a place where the brand that once gave us L’Eau D’Issey now tries to tempt us with Fusion D’Issey. Let me make one thing clear: this is not a bad perfume. It comes nowhere near the depths of, say, the execrable Versace Eros, or the equally amoebic Paco Rabanne Invictus. It’s a passable piece of work. But that’s part of the point I’m trying to make.

It’s the same passable piece of work that we’ve smelt for about the last decade. ‘Fresh’ top notes that are too timid to indulge in more than the most marginal deviation from the norm — in this case, a whisper of what could have been an interesting yuzu-coconut idea from Nathalie Lorson, had it not been straitjacketed into conformity. Followed by the same over-planed woods that are rolled out time and again in an effort to convey some hackneyed notion of broad-shouldered masculinity. According to the press notes we’re supposed to detect sharp contrasts here. Hot and cold. Molten lava and solid rock. Air and water. But no such delights are in evidence. Instead, we get what we know so well: solidly-executed safeness.

I have a feeling that in another twenty years time, we may still be wearing and talking about L’Eau D’Issey Pour Homme. But I’ll be surprised if that turns out to be the case with Fusion.

Persolaise

[Review based on a sample of eau de toilette provided by Issey Miyake in 2020.]

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