Jean Claude Delville should be recognized alongside Alberto Morillas and Francis Kurkdjian as one of the three most influential perfumers of the nineties. Cabotine, Curve, Pleasures for Men, and Banana Republic's forgotten M are all noteworthy for shaping the olfactory landscape of the period. If you want a fresh and friendly fragrance to wear while kicking it at the mall, Delville's got your back. His specialty is sneaker juice.
M for Men (1996) has been through several iterations over the past 27 years, and has currently settled on what appears to be an eau de parfum concentration, which is much lauded on the interwebs. I can't be bothered to go out of my way to drop coin on that, but recently I did stumble upon the EDT formula on a discount rack, and figured that a Banana Republic fragrance isn't the gamble I once thought it would be (thank you, Icon Collection). The box for M cites Gap EU as a distributer, itself a major nineties throwback. It turns out to be a pleasant valencia orange scent, an intense blast of sweet and juicy orange zest that skirts floor cleaner by dint of smelling surprisingly natural, followed by a mellow and unapologetically chemical woody-musk drydown, suggestive of department stores.
M isn't the statement-maker nineties scent that Cabotine and Curve were, nor is it particularly complex and exciting, but it's an easy, sunny sort of smell that lifts spirits and conveys the neon-lit optimism of the time. I don't often encounter fragrances that focus on orange fruit, and when I do, the Italian in me perks up and gets excited, so I personally enjoy M as a gentle warm weather spritz for casual wear. For the bad boy version of this scent, try Juicy Couture's Dirty English, which adds terpenes and animalics.