Most fougère fragrances are overtly manly and smell old fashioned to contemporary “noses.” When I smell a classic fougère, I think of a well-off/well-fed, outdoorsy, conservatively dressed and groomed man of a certain age, who, when not traipsing through wet woods hunting or hiking, holds court in a plaid-rich den (in a log cabin if resources allow) with one hand clutching a whiskey and the other resting on the forehead of a happy Labrador retriever. Let’s call this guy Traditional. The only fougère perfume I truly loved is extinct: Houbigant Fougère Royale (I don’t much care for the reissue) — it conjured the outdoors, but was dry and buoyant, not soggy.

Maison Francis Kurkdjian just released a new fougère fragrance, Pluriel Masculin: a man can be “one and many things at the same time” sayeth Kurkdjian…

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