By Thomas
One of the benefits of having Fairy Godfathers (a term I use with total affection) is that they are the most thoughtful and engaging people with whom I have the good fortune to exchange ideas. Plus, I occasionally get packages at my door with samples or even bottles and a note attached: “What do you think of this?”
Such are the circumstances that surround my bottle of Versace’s The Dreamer (Grazie Nathan!). It sat at the doorstep, and I wondered what would come from a house so flamboyant that even their plain white shirts seem unwearable to me. Hmmm, let’s give this a sniff…
Well, the opening is…hard to pin down, but I can already sniff out trouble here. The Dreamer opens with a bit of blobby strangeness, cherry cough syrup and tobacco, with just enough citrus lift to keep it from crashing. Once in a while I think there’s a bit of bread, but it comes and goes. This blobby strangeness…reminds me of Serge Lutens on a diuretic diet. But…let’s don’t be hasty in going out to buy this just yet.
Into the heart of The Dreamer (okay, the name works for me…) the tobacco starts to assert itself, and there’s a big similarity to D&G Pour Homme (released two years earlier to critical acclaim) which seems to have the same tobacco note. Now – this tobacco note: I love cigars and love to sniff pipe tobacco, but there’s a petroleum buzz to this ‘tobacco’ note (what – synthetics in perfumery??? Okay, I’ll get off the high horse…) …that I hate. I mean, I just do not like this note: way too sweet, and not nearly earthy enough. Tobacco and coffee should be mildly sweet, but not cloying like this! Keep the High Fructose Corn Syrup out of my colognes! (…off the soapbox, Thomas…)
Ultimately, drydown arrives, and it’s…there. Just there and kind of useless, as when a congressman votes “Present” instead of Yea or Nay. I could see someone out there liking this quite a bit. As for me – I don’t really like, but despite the blobby cherry fruity tobacco…thing, I don’t really hate either which is a triumph of sorts.
Safe for the workplace? Probably. Will chicks dig it? Some will. Is The Dreamer for me? I have too many scents I like better than this one. That’s The Dreamer for you: Present and accounted for, something you count among the herd instead of loathe or love.
Year: 1996
Perfumer: Jean-Pierre Bethouart
Notes: Clary sage, Lavender, Mandarin, Geranium, Rose, Tobacco, Cedar, Tonka Bean
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