Ralph Lauren Tuxedo Perfume

The real star of Ralph Lauren's perfume line-up, at least for me, is his 1979 release for women called Tuxedo. It's bottle, a twin to the original Lauren but done in black with a red applied color label.  Tuxedo did not have too long a run before it was discontinued. Given the name and understated packaging, people may have assumed it was a man's scent; I guess the sweet floral meets buttery leather did not sit well with most of them.  The testers probably sat on counters ignored so Lauren quickly moved on.

That's a tragedy, since Tuxedo is one of the most stunning and flat out gorgeous leather scents I've come across. According to Irma Shorell of Long Lost Perfumes, the notes for Tuxedo are:

Top: Italian citron, peach and clove buds
Middle: corriander, ylang-ylang, tarragon, jasmine, rose and gardenia
Dry down: benzion, labdanum, musk, oakmoss and vetiver

I'll admit my sample, which is the Ralph Lauren version of Tuxedo, is more than a few years old.  But others who smell the Irma Shorell version describe this scent as being very sweet and green. Those notes are not so apparent to my mind. Yes, there is sweetness in the leather; and yes, that deep darkness smells more green than black, but it's really all about the leather. I came across it assuming Tuxedo was for men and wore it greedily, thinking how cool it was that something 'made for a man' sat so well, so deliciously on my skin.

I was really impressed to discover that Tuxedo had been conceived of for women. Can you imagine a sexier type of scent then something that makes you smell as if you've just been snuggled against the leather clad chest of a super-hero and are now wearing some of his manly-man scent on your girly-girl decolletage?

I'm also very partial to tarragon. In the garden it tastes and smells similar to fennel or anise but in perfumes it brings forth more green and aromatic facets. Schiaparelli 's Shocking is another perfume where I really detect and enjoy that touch of tarragon. Ylang-ylang and jasmine bring out the buttery facets of the scent.  Exactly which notes create that impression of oh, so soft leather, I don't know. Perhaps something else, unmentioned, is responsible because I don't 'see' leather, looking at those notes. The scent is much more exciting to my nose than the listed notes let on.

So now that Mr. Ralph Lauren has all the money, and his empire has been rejuvenated by the 'big pony' - I wonder if he's ever looked back or thought about reprising the one that got away-Tuxedo. Could it be done? Probably not- since the push today is for new, new, new. For a while, it looked like maybe the perfume bloggers and perfumistas might have their way, to exert some form of pressure on the perfume market at large. Maybe there could be a dialog? But instead the marketing teams answered back with deluges of new releases. Recycled releases are OK, too, but only as long as they serve the company's own agenda. Those tactics have managed to quell most of the foolishness of consumers trying to talk back to the machine. But if by some miracle, if Lauren re-released Tuxedo- would it make any difference? 

Are we ready for Tuxedo now- today? Truth is, we (I speak of the huge market share that Ralph Lauren would be aiming for) aren't. And Lauren? He (or his controlling interests) wasn't, isn't and would never play at the niche game. Decisions at that level come down to volume driven formulas. 

Tuxedo is part of the exceptional zeitgeist of its time. Lauren must have envisioned an androgynous, brave new world dawning, one where men and women would play openly, elegantly at changing roles. I remember: Grace Jones, David Bowie, Boy George, Prince- it felt like we were almost there for a minute. But then AIDS happened and that ideal didn't have so much appeal anymore. People took their freakery back underground. Wall Street and Republican conservatism hit back hard in the next decades- there was more money to be made elsewhere. Most of the big players, took this sea-change in American culture to heart. Lauren was no exception; he struck a tone as an arbiter of wholesome 'family values'.     

So Tuxedo was, is, and always will be a niche creation. But what a lovely vision. And so perhaps it is fitting that Tuxedo is destined to live on as only a memory glimpsed here and there, and in the twilight zone of the Vintage Perfume Vault.

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

BLAZER by ANNE KLEIN Concentrated Cologne Review

Blazer by Anne Klein is in a select group of largely unsung classics of modern American perfumery; it's just under the mainstream radar but it has many fans and genuine bottles always sell quickly, when you can find it, usually at online e-tailors and EBay.
Much like its namesake, American fashion designer Anne Klein, Blazer came and was gone off the scene much too quickly. Her name and timeless design appeal continue on- you may sense or even remember when Donna Karan took over Anne Klein, after AK died from breast cancer in 1974, very young, at age 50 and certainly near the height of her power- proven by the popularity of her work as a designer and her enduring name-brand.
My life was much too humble and my style too home-grown to have any need for her Young Sophisticates line of clothing as a young girl growing up in the late 1970's. But despite my lack of a 'decent' wardrobe, I recognized Anne Klein. Originally born Hannah Golofski in the 1920's, she excelled in fashion from an early age and won several Coty awards as a young woman designer. Perhaps from her Coty connection she learned her good taste in perfumes? In any case, her three perfumes (Anne Klein I, Anne Klein II and Blazer) were all very well done and each one still has many fans. Although Helena Rubistein died almost a decade earlier (in 1965 at the age of 94!), her company had produced many perfumes from the 1930's into the 1970's and Rubinstein's company bought Blazer in or near 1974. The newer HR bottle is rounder instead of the sharp rectangular lines of the original AK version & the AK lion logo is gone. The newer HR version is simply called BLAZER. My impression is the scent is the same (but there is a price difference) and I've not sniffed the HR directly.

But BLAZER by ANNE KLEIN is a most divine green aromatic that represents an almost ideal scent. It is clean and streamlined and seems perfectly balanced, more than any other of its type that I could compare it to. As a starting point I would reference Clinique Aromatics although Clinique's fragrance is not as smooth and has a sweeter heavier patchouli base. Y (YSL), is another famous green from the 1970's that is almost the polar opposite of Blazer. If Y is green silk, Blazer is green tweed. As far as notes, not many are listed. But we know the top fragrance notes are juniper, bergamot and lavender- in addition, I smell lemon verbena, mint, clove, and especially in the base, patchouli, cedar and perhaps ambergris. The flowers are restrained and green. To my nose, geranium and marigold stand out. However, a Nell Butler copy for Chanel 22 mentions Blazer as "a clean, crispy scent with the soapiness and whiteness of Chanel 22, but pared down and less flowery." I concur it is pared down. Huge chunks of Chanel 22 - incense/leather against aldehydes, rose and iris, the sweet musky drydown have been subtracted from Blazer. What is left smells naturally clean and brisk. Blazer starts out like a tonic, juniper lavender and bergamot give it a crisp herbal and soapy start- which is followed by the clean green/white floral & spice heart. The finish is lightly green and woody.

I love Blazer; it is less mainstream but represents the same idea and time in American perfume as Charlie. Both came out just after the American feminist movement and the free love/sexual revolution. Anne Klein's streamlined tailored sensibility was not traditionally feminine and Blazer was a fairly masculine smelling perfume that fit her style clothing. Today we see a strong unisex trend in the area of fashion and especially marketing perfume as unisex, although all personal grooming habits, including piercing, tatoos, hairstyles, make-up and scent are being marketed this way more and more. Blazer was an early example of what we now are told is the older concept - fragrances that are genderless. Some compare Blazer to Charlie, a mass marketed 70's mega-hit scent with gender play in mind, but I have never been able to wear that one. Blazer is easy to wear and still smells amazingly modern to me, making it a gem of 1970's perfumery; its balance of green masculine and white feminine notes would be appropriate for work or casual day wear today, as it was 40 years ago.