GUERLAIN: Dress Code - the ultimate refashioning of Habit Rouge?

To many, Guerlain reside at the pinnacle of French perfumery where they have been held in high regard for almost two centuries. Within its bountiful history, countless perfumes have come and gone, but Jean Paul Guerlain's masterstroke of 1965 Habit Rouge is something of a perfume pillar Chez Guerlain... arguably their most beloved and revered masculine. Over the years Guerlain have tinkered with it - reprising it in every concentration imaginable, and shuffling components in its pyramid to try and achieve a flanker that can come even close to its legend. In 2015 - the 50th anniversary of Habit Rouge - master parfumeur Thierry Wasser has arguably pulled off the unthinkable... he has refashioned this timeless classic and given it a new lease of life. Habit Rouge Dress Code may very well mark the Mount Everest of flankers... can anything shoot higher than this new edition whose charisma might very well eclipse the original?

I don't think I've been more excited about a flanker, um, ever. Dress Code takes all the aspects I love about the original and amplifies them... it creates an orchestral passage that increases in volume and force, drowning out the annoying white noise (those love/hate nuances) that dogged Jean Paul's creation. Today, Wasser paints from a palette that is partially his predecessor's and partially his own; Jean Paul's comprises vibrant pops of citrus and subtle tints of leather whilst Wasser's is rich with infinite shades of almond and toothy praline. The result... Wasser's considered reorchestration sees Habit Rouge galloping forth and leaping out of the 1960's and right into the here and now. Much like a museum-quality restoration of an old master, Wasser has removed the lacquer that has yellowed with age, exposing a colour spectrum that is infinitely more lively; the contrasts are more pronounced; the fonto more vibrant; the highlights crisper and whiter. Wasser has rendered Habit Rouge more relevant to today; heightening it's already-celebrated status to something stratospheric.

As with years gone by, if it is Guerlain's intention to release a Habit Rouge flanking edition every year, then in the years to come Dress Code will be hard to trump. To my mind - at least - it has achieved everything it could possibly wish to. It stands a head and shoulders above the L'eau's, the Legere's, the Driver editions and the Cavalier presentations. How sad it will be to crowd it and devalue it with countless more revisions, when frankly, Dress Code comes within atoms of pure perfection.

One not to be missed.