Yves Saint Laurent Pour Homme Review – The Favourites – Raymond Chaillan; 1971

I wish we knew more about the creation of YSL Pour Homme. The facts in our possession are bare, to say the least. Released in 1971. The first masculine scent from the brand. Composed by Raymond Chaillan, whose name is also connected with YSL’s own Opium, as well as Cacharel Anais Anais and Parfum D’Hermes. According to the original advertising campaign, Saint Laurent used this as his personal fragrance for three years, before deciding to gift it to his adoring public. (This may not be pure marketing fibbery: it’s certainly much less preposterous than the ‘origin stories’ that are perpetuated about some perfumes.) That’s pretty much it. And it leaves me wishing I could learn something about how it was put together, because I’d love to find out if the tale that I’ve concocted in my mind about its formation contains any truth at all.

In my fondly-imagined scenario, Saint Laurent tells Chaillan that he wishes to wear a scent that is simplicity itself. Nothing too fussy. No unnecessary details. No extravagant flourishes. Out of this streamlined aesthetic, he says, will come sophistication. An elegance that emerges only from a piece of work not concerned with passing fashions. A truly classic timelessness. Chaillan goes away and decides, quite rightly, that what’s needed here is a citrus chypre: or, to put it a different way: a tried-and-tested cologne bolstered by meatier ingredients in the base. He puts something together, and presents it to YSL. The reaction is an enthusiastic thumbs up, but Chaillan says he’d like to work on it a little longer. Try a few other things. Add a bit here. Tweak a bit there.

He sends further modifications back to Saint Laurent, and although they’re all met with approval, none of them wins the instant endorsement elicited by his initial draft. Finally, the designer decides he’s had enough. The process has gone on far too long, he says. He insists on smelling the first mod again. Dismayed and disappointed, Chaillan finds it and takes it back to his client. But this time, when he smells it, after having tried to ‘improve’ it so many times, he sees what YSL himself saw at the very beginning: a creation that was absolutely fine. It needed nothing more, nothing less. 

All of the above could, of course, be fanciful nonsense. But Pour Homme feels and wears like a composition that must have been perfect from the word go. Perfect — and perfectly graceful. It isn’t trying to be grand or bold: apart from a confident diffusiveness, it displays almost none of the attention-seeking qualities that we would later see in Kouros, Jazz and Rive Gauche Pour Homme. It simply works, from top to bottom — from the effortless, greet-the-morning energy of that lemon-verbena opening, through to the almost kissably suave herbal-aromatic middle stage (heavy on thyme), right down to the furrowed-brow thoughtfulness of the vetiver and mosses in the base.

As I write these words, the YSL website suggests that this paragon of elegance is on its way out. Perhaps it has nothing to say to contemporary buyers any more. Maybe it can no longer be tweaked to meet anti-allergen standards. Or maybe someone at L’Oreal just plain doesn’t like it. Whatever the reason, I will be sorry to see it go: it is one of those extremely rare examples of a scent that somehow makes you feel like you can reach up and touch the clouds while keeping yourself planted on the reality of the ground beneath you. An embrace that takes in everything that life has to offer: both the earthy and the celestial. No matter how they made it, there’s no doubt that Saint Laurent and Chaillan were guided by greatness. 

Persolaise

[YSL Pour Homme review based on a sample from my personal collection.]

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