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28.07.07, 01:05
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www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/fashion/26CODES.html
Younger, and Faster to Pick Up the Scent
By DAVID COLMAN
Published: July 26, 2007
WHEN Fabrice Penot and Eddie Roschi opened Le Labo, a small custom-brewed
fragrance boutique in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan, they expected
fashionable women to flock to their shop. Men, no. They even created a men’s
fragrance called Rose 31 as a kind of $125 gauntlet, just to see if men would
even take a whiff at a fragrance based on and named after a flower.
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Tom Ackerman for The New York Times
OUT OF THE WOODS Some of the best new fragrances, and one or two old-timers,
that are attracting surprising numbers of young men. Rose 31, $125 (100 ml.)
at Le Labo and Barneys. Etro Misto Bosco, $105 (3.3 ounces) at Etro and
Bergdorf. Comme des Garçons Series 2 Sequoia, $70 (100 ml.) at Comme des
Garçons and Jeffrey. L’Ombre dans L’Eau by Diptyque, $70 (1.7 ounces) at C.
O. Bigelow. Bois d’Orage by Frédéric Malle, $160 (100 ml.) at Barneys.
Carthusia Numero Uno, $110 (3.4 ounces) at Bigelow. Dior Homme, $69 (100
ml.). Tom Ford Oud Wood, $450 (250 ml.) at Tom Ford and Bergdorf. Prada Eau
de Toilette, $68 (3.4 ounces). Chanel Eau de Cologne, $175 (200 ml.).
Zimmerli cotton boxers, $65 at Barneys. Oxford-cloth shirt, $210 from
bandofoutsiders.com. Silver dagger on a blackened silver chain from Giles &
Brother by Philip Crangi, $120 at Odin. Karl Springer python-frame mirror,
courtesy of Lobel Modern.
Now, just 18 months after opening, fully half of Le Labo’s customers are men,
and Rose 31 is its best-selling fragrance. What is even more surprising to
Mr. Penot, as well as to others in the slow-to-change men’s fragrance market,
is how one group of guys in particular, young men in their 20s, is shaking up
the hidebound (and hide-scented) formulas that have held sway for decades.
“It’s so funny, because we’re reading this consumer research that says the
big market is young women, and that young men are not so interested,” Mr.
Penot said. “We see the exact opposite in the store.”
Let’s call them Generation Axe: 20-something urban men who, having been
bombarded by the overtly sexual ads for Axe body sprays, do not think that
wearing fragrance is somehow unmanly, a perception held by many men in their
30s and 40s. Free from qualms about wearing fragrance, and free from qualms
about whether a fragrance smells masculine, those young men are subtly
altering the men’s fragrance head space, a move that can be seen as readily
at Wal-Mart as at Barneys New York.
So while Axe ads cheekily claim that it “stimulates the clothing-removal
section of the female brain,” the only neurons it really seems to stimulate
are in the fragrance-buying cortex of the male brain. But the Axe effect is
not the only reason men are becoming more cologne-savvy. A general mistrust
of heavily marketed products, like Axe or even CK One, has driven many young
men toward artisanal scents. Karen Grant, the senior beauty analyst for NPD
Group, which tracks beauty trends, reports that this year a desire for
something “different” in fragrance handily beat out perennial favorites
like “sexy” and “cool” as a priority among 18- to 24-year-olds — and drove up
sales of niche fragrances.
Moreover, she said, in the ethnically diverse landscape of today, young
consumers have fewer preconceptions about where the masculinity danger line
lies, fragrance-wise: What smells “manly” in India, in South Africa, in Japan
or in Serbia are so different as to render the question largely moot.
“I do think that guys my age are more adventurous,” said Ryan Smith, 23, an
advertising salesman in New York. “But there are so many trends with guys
putting in extra effort to look good, smelling good just seems normal.” For
his part, he swears by a coriander-based essential oil from Kiehl’s. “It’s a
little floral, but still masculine,” he said.
Ned Benson, 30, a writer and director in New York, fell in love with Le Labo
Rose 31 on a visit to the store. “It’s more of a grass-roots feeling,” he
said. “It has this bizarre sensuality that almost feels subversive. It’s not
so mass marketed.”
THE trend has caught seasoned perfume veterans off guard. “It totally
surprised me,” said Kelly Fraser, the fragrance sales manager at Jeffrey New
York. “I’ve been in the business for 20 years, and I can’t believe how many
young men are spending hundreds of dollars on fragrance.”
Things seemed to change just over a year ago — or that’s when she noticed
it. “I remember when the Dior Homme colognes came out, priced at $125,” she
said. “I thought the high price might hinder sales.” Sales, she reports, were
outstanding.
“I think it has to do with casual chic,” Ms. Fraser theorized. “This isn’t a
dressed-down society, but casual dressing is so popular. The guy who might
have once thought a fragrance was something to wear for dressing up now wants
to wear one every day.”
Young male customers are more adventurous than older ones, she said, going
for moody unexpected scents from Comme des Garçons, for example, rather than
the new, widely advertised Light Blue from Dolce & Gabbana. “They come in
here knowing a citrus from a spice from a green from a floral,” she said. “I
don’t know how, but they know.”
This youthful connoisseurship is also evident at Barneys New York, where,
according to Alanna Delacrausaz, the fragrance buyer, some of the best-
selling fragrances are from Frédéric Malle, an in-crowd Parisian perfumer,
and Le Labo. The same is true at Bergdorf Goodman, where Tom Ford’s complex
(and pricey) fragrances are among the store’s hottest sellers. And at Aedes
de Venustas, the small esoteric-fragrance shop in Greenwich Village, young
men are buying scents from Escentric Molecules and Serge Lutens.
“The direction is more toward the niche market with the younger guys,” said
Karl Bradl, an owner of the store. “There’s a much more sophisticated taste
level with them. They’re much more open, and they’re all straight. It used to
be much different.”
Mr. Bradl chalked up some of the change to the wealth of fragrance
information on Web sites like basenotes.com and sniffapalooza.net. “I had a
teenage boy come in here off Basenotes,” he said. Last week he saw a 6-year-
old boy, in the store with his parents, buy a bottle of Creed Royal Water.
If you are over 30, and this is all a bit heady, take heart. Ralph Lauren is
releasing a new fragrance this fall, in a Hummer-style bottle, called Polo
Explorer.
Better yet, there are rumblings that Old Spice is making a comeback.