I bought my first bottle of the Knize Ten during a particularly long (and chilly) wet season in Los Angeles, and I remember walking to and from work for weeks — wearing Knize Ten — on streets lined with blooming jacaranda trees, their strongly perfumed blue flowers drenched with rain. Today, in Seattle, rain isn’t rare as it was in usually parched and sunny L.A., but Knize Ten still blends well with cool, stormy weather.

The Viennese clothing firm Knize has been around since 1858, and it introduced its first fragrance, Knize Ten, in 1924. (Knize used images of polo players in its advertising, and “ten” is the highest handicap in polo.) There’s no doubt Knize Ten has been through some reformulations* in the last 86 years (its leather and musk notes have been softened considerably since I wore it 15 years ago), but it still possesses a crisp, “classic” vibe; it’s a debonair, spicy-floral leather fragrance…

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