Bogart (Jacques Bogart)

The house of Jacques Bogart was established by Jacques Konckier in 1975, many years before its acquisition of Balenciaga in 1986, and Ted Lapidus in 1998. Konckier's stated vision for the brand was "I create only for men." Bogart's 1975 eponymous debut had been, until recently, their flagship scent; it is apparently discontinued. Jacques Bogart has always been a European concern, with its main distribution channels snaking through the central and eastern regions of the old continent and across the Middle East, only appearing in the USA via the secondary grey and eBay market. Bogart, dubbed "Signature" after the pen-and-ink graphic on its box, is often likened to another major European export of the time, Paco Rabanne pour Homme (1973), but I think it's a little more accurate to view it as the European progenitor to a popular American mainstay of that groovy era, Halston 1-12, which was released the following year. 

Halston 1-12's resemblance to Bogart is obvious from first spray, as they share a similarly bombastic opening accord of desiccated citrus, green galbanum, lavender, pine needles, and mastic resin, but Bogart's notes are filtered through more than just the soapy linalool of Roy Halston's scent. Max Gavarry and Vincent Marcello's collaboration on 1-12 was a unification of Marcello's mastery of the agrestic chypre (Lauder's Private Collection) with Gavarry's unique take on lavender and vetiver (Puig's Estivalia), which resulted in an erstwhile barn burner of a chypre-fougère hybrid. Their other Halston chypre, Z-14, was an early "clubber" (Studio 54) frag, while 1-12 competed with "mature" colognes like Royal Pub, Kanøn Man, and Grey Flannel to win over the Republican Wall Street types who quietly bankrolled these brands and demanded something in return. 

Perfumer Maurice Maurin nodded to this conservative segment of American fragrance culture with an aromatic fougère body on a rawhide leather chassis. The distinguishing feature of Bogart is a finessed accord of phenylacetic acid (dank sweetness), Atlas cedar oil (fetid woods), and trace isobutyl quinoline for an unassertive animalic base under otherwise clean greens. Bogart is like a cool breeze through a wilderness in late summer, after the funk of high heat has dissipated, with traces of deer and beaver gently lingering on its trail. Some reviewers mention the inclusion of dimetol, but Maurin may have also tinkered with trace amounts of dihydromyrcenol, which is perhaps why many link Bogart to Paco Rabanne pour Homme. Combined with dimetol, DHM creates the same nuanced herbal freshness found in Acteur, Maurin's 1989 brief submission for Azzaro. Bogart is unusual for the brand in that it is the only Bogart frag that lacks bombast; it smells demurely green, leathery, and dry, and recedes instead of reaching out. Patchouli and oakmoss complete its far drydown, with cedar-centered woods growing only slightly funkier, and I appreciate the somber woody-green aura of this stuff.

That said, I actually prefer many of Bogart's contemporaries over it, and find its staid personality a little too reserved for my liking. If you were to ask me which is better, Bogart "Signature" or One Man Show (1981), I'd have to point to the latter. It's cruder, yes, but it's also crisper, grassier, muskier, and all around more distinctive and, frankly, more fun. Still, Bogart "Signature" is a worthy olfactory callback to an era when men in suits and ties commuted by train to New York City for twelve-hour workdays, indulged in expensive martini lunches with their attractive female secretaries, then boarded the seven o'clock express home to their wives and young children in Groton.