Recently, my friend- in- fragrance, Wim Janssens and I had a bit of a "duel". Whilst I said Guerlain Habit  Rouge is the fragrance of a gentleman, he proclaimed Guerlain Jicky is the scent of a confident man. 

 

He is right;I began to ponder 'what is a gentleman? It is a subject that has been on my mind  for over a week now that Dolce & Gabbana are introducing a new fragrance called The One:Gentleman; they admit in an article in Women's Wear Daily, that they had no hand in creating it.

 

A gentleman wouldn't do that.

 

There is no honor in creating a flanker and collecting a check. A  gentleman places HONOR above alll else.

 

 

I  look to  fiction to illustrate a true gentleman's  fragrance, and to Wim's point, a most confident man.  Who would  embodies the spirit of a true 'gentilehomme'? D'Artagnan, the hero of Alexandre Dumas's Three Musketeers. 

 

 

The monumental plot of this classic book takes place against the backdrop of the war between France and England. In the very first sentences of his preface Alexandre Dumas indicated as his source Mémoires de Monsieur D’Artagnan, printed by Pierre Rouge in Amsterdam. It was in this book, he said, that D’Artagnan relates his first visit to M. de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers, where he met three young men with the names Athos, Porthos and Aramis. D’Artagnan, an aspiring musketeer is a hot head and tries to engage the trio in combat. They gain each others’ respect and quickly become friends; the foursome embarks on a seemingly endless series of swashbuckling adventures.

 

“While D’Artagnan was examining Mme. Bonacieux, and was, as we have said, close to her, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief, which he picked up, as was his habit, and at the corner of which he recognized the same cipher he had seen on the handkerchief which had nearly caused him and Aramis to cut each other's throat”. — Chapter Ten

 

 

They pledged service to the French Queen against The Cardinal , and D’Artagnan falls in love with the Queen’s confidante, a married woman Constance Bonacieux. They unite to defeat the King’s guard and the influential Cardinal Richileiue. There are dalliances and intrigue; D’Argtagnan is caught off guard by the amorous overtures of the duplicitous Milady.

These guys get busy…the three musketeers and D’Artagnan have a lot of thwarting to do — Cardinal Richelieu, The British and a host of schemers and plotters who are purported to be enemies of the Queen of France (who is in love with the Duke of Buckingham of England, (the enemy of France) to whom the ‘quatre amis’ have sworn to serve and honor.

The Three Musketeers is a tale of loyalty to one’s friends, espionage, intrigue, alliances, adultery, battles,  trickery, love ,chivalry, and above all… Honor .There are so many twists and turns to the plot and the characters encountered by the four friends are never whom they appear to be.

Throughout it all, it is D’Artagnan who is the leader-the intrepid one, the one who bucks the establishment. So our fearless, impetuous and dynamic French hero would wear….Jicky by Guerlain.

 Jicky?  Not Monsieur de Mouchoir? …Of course the amazing Monsieur de Mouchoir, created a decade later is considered a ‘masculine’, but when Jicky was created, it was the 19^th century (when The Three Musketeers was published and gained popularity).

 

Jicky by Aime Guerlain is one of the most  well known reference fragrances of all time but when it debuted in 1886, Jicky was  targeted to women, yet was much more successful with men. In fact, when first introduced, women were turned off by this pioneering fragrance. Jicky marked the end of an era of single-note scents, and the birth to a daring new concept representing new ideals in perfumery. Rather than trying to duplicate nature (i.e. soliflores, natural perfumes, and citrus/herbal colognes), Jicky created an alternative. It was also around the same time that the use of synthetic molecules commenced – first with coumarin, and a little later with vanillin.

 

Jicky's composition consists of top notes of lemon, mandarin, bergamot and rosewood — fairly standard eau de cologne notes for that era. Jicky opens with a burst of herbs, and the presence of lavender and rosemary.  But it is when the citrus– some bergamot and lemon is transformed by the underlying sweetness (Constance) of tonka bean that excitement begins. The heart notes are  the regal rose (the Queen) and seductive Jasmine (Milady). Base notes of Dark Vetiver and animalic woods complete the composition. All in all, it is this daring, this integrity, and ingenuity separates Jicky from those of the aromas and colognes of the time.

 

 Jicky is “One for all and all for one”, then, now and possibly forever.

-Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief