One of the unfortunate but inevitable side effects of postmodernism is the blurring of identities. This creates a lethally effective fog of war, you see. Where once people and objects enjoyed definition, now nothing does. In 1978 we had Azzaro Pour Homme, and a decade later we had Cool Water. One was an anisic lavender fougère in the modernist mold; the other a new-wave dihydromyrcenol-fueled fresh fougère. Then postmodernism kicked into a higher gear, and in 2016 we got a weird mishmash of them both (with a few other things) in Wanted, Azzaro's bizarre postmodernist fougère. It is both fascinating and terrifying in equal measure, and was followed by the even more Deconstructionist 2022 flanker, The Most Wanted Parfum. So how does intellectual nihilism smell?
Weirdly good, as it turns out. Luca Turin wrote, "Touch your nose accidentally with the smelling strip and you will be followed around by Virtual Guido all day." That may be true. But Virtual Guido got lucky in this fragrance after he culled together the best parts of the greatest contemporary classics into one obnoxious olfactory hair slick; the sweetness of A*Men's tonka, the forceful clarity of Azzaro's old-world lavender, the fizz of Envy's ginger, the gleam of Pierre Bourdon's imagination, the musks of Le Male. The Most Wanted is an apt name, as it is a gathering of the twentieth century's most wanted accords, poured into a kitschy Dadaist bottle by a brand with nothing to lose. Loris is spinning in his grave.