Arpège
Lanvin (1927)

(Comparison of vintage Arpege extrait of the Lanvin Perfumes era, and Arpege Eau de Lanvin, both prior to 1990)

This was going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in all of my years of perfume collecting and writing. I can sum it up in one sentence if this is an undertaking you wish to do yourself: good luck picking out most of the notes in either one of these. Arpege is a true floral amalgam, the kind that No. 5 only wishes it could be (yes, I know those are fighting words). So, I’m not going to bother with my usual way of going about this, and we’ll look at the forest not the trees.

The first thing to note is that the extrait plays around with the fruit and florals a lot more than the eau. The eau pushes the honeysuckle and muguet very far forward, which in tandem with a big clove note gives a honeyed animalic type feeling - also likely thanks to some base materials already playing upwards. Strangely, and rather opposite to what happens with these concentrations, the extrait is brighter than the eau. Richer, sure, obviously, but the eau has dimmer light thanks to more spices and more emphasis on the darker and durable materials in the base. The extrait is compelled to hold on to the brighter fruit and brighter florals for as long as possible, and it does so for a long time before the fruit departs first. The heart of the extrait still keeps the lights on, seeming to focus more on rose, ylang-ylang, and mimosa rather than spices, and keeps the base materials firmly underneath and well covered.

It’s no surprise that the eau reaches the base before the extrait, the former going a more convincing chypre direction while the extrait commands a more amberic lean. The eau is classically mossy, and given sparing doses of sandalwood and spices to help it along. The extrait is very sandalwood, vetiver, and spices forward with a touch of leather. Thanks to the slightly green vetiver, the extrait still feels brighter with the eau feeling like a forest walk at dusk.

There is a lot more to Arpege than what I have described, but the primary thing to note is the extrait is more amber, the eau is more chypre, the extrait has a sunnier disposition while the eau prefers to play with shadows. Arpege is quite grand and statement making; many will not find it easy to wear, but that’s not because it is loud, ostentatious, or challenging, far from either of those things, it’s because it has one of those profiles or personalities that is so intricate, beautiful, and unique that it will capture the full attention of whatever room it walks into. Whatever the concentration, know that you will get a perfectly seamless composition of exquisite materials that will defy any attempts to break it apart or pigeon-hole it.

There you go, folks. That’s the best that I can do, which doesn’t do Arpege justice. It is a perfume to be experienced in its entirety and reveled-in from moment to moment, not a perfume for study or reductive commentary as above - though it certainly tempts study in every perfume nerd that comes across its path. In any and all forms Arpege is a legend, a maverick of modern perfumery, and one of the best ever made.

My mother had a bottle of Arpege sitting on her mirrored perfume tray for years and years. She seemed to cycle through multiple bottles of her favorites, like Joy and L'Air du Temps
and Karl Lagerfeld Chloe, while that fancy black and gold bottle sat there for years. I once asked her about it and she said "Arpege is very very nice. It's also boring."
To me that is the genius of Arpege. It's an aldehyde floral, like No.5 and many others, so nothing overly exciting. But vintage Arpege does smell much nicer, more rounded and richer, than a typical aldehyde bomb. You wouldn't get tons of compliments or have men throw themselves at you when you wore Arpege, but you would smell very very good. Also, during the 1950s Arpege was ubiquitous in the USA ("Promise her anything. Give her Arpege.") so I think that ubiquity led to it seeming rather dull. Revlon even did their own version- Primitif.
There was a marketing experiment once where a group of women smelled 2 fragrances blind. One was Chanel No.5 and the other Arpege. They overwhelmingly preferred Arpege. The next day the same women smelled both perfumes, only this time in their signature bottles. This time No.5 won. Chanel is marketed very well indeed.
Arpege might not be earthshaking, but that can be a good thing. If you have a large collection of perfumes, Arpege plays the right role when you just want to smell very very nice. Now, My Sin....

Would you gasp if I told you I prefer Lanvin Arpege to Chanel No. 5? Are you clutching your pearls? Well, the truth is out, and I think it has to do with its creamier, woodier heart that follows that radiant flash of aldehydes. Mind you, the bottle I have is from the 90s and cannot consult on more recent opaque bottles, but this particular formulation is impressive.

Arpege has an effulgent, coriander-laced jasmine, gleaming white heat, almost phosphorescent, with an antique rose and stealth peachy, lactonic undertone. One could argue that this would be a rather mature selection, particularly for women, but we might want to examine what it means to be "mature" enough to wear a fragrance. Luca Turin, the opinionated old codger, even argues that this would be dowdy on a woman but marvelous on a man. It does feel marvelous to me at least, and it dries further into its base of vetiver and sandalwood, it seduces me even more so.

It may be kaleidoscopic, even a bit too convoluted, for noses used to modern perfumery, and it doesn't seem to receive all the hype and attention that such icons as Rochas Femme, Guerlain Mitsouko, and the aforementioned No. 5, but is deserving of a seat at the table of great fragrances for the ages.

A typical floral aldehydic old school chypre of that period like Millot's Crêpe de Chine, Coty's L'Aimant, etc. Very dense, sweet and monotonal never changes and smells updated for modern times perfumery,the grandmother's smell referred to as. I guess is like the Rose Aoud accord, so many perfumes nowadays smells in that direction copying Montale's Black Oud, his creator just did the same with Arpege, and what was the trend of these days. The problem with old school chypres was too many basenotes creates a very think, heavy, opaque and soupy scent, the aldehydes should help to split notes giving the spatial champagne effect in the air and you should be able to smell almost every single note floating like woods or animalic notes. Is like mixing warm tones and at the end getting a black colour.
No comparison with Chanel n5,please. The old style chypres are difficult to like and understand as perfumery has evolutioned so much since the past centuty. If you are looking for a modern interpretation of this classic, the best modern Chypre,in my opinion, is Amouage Jubileum,the holly grail of all chypres and smells amazing even in a man,that's how all the old school Chypres should smell like.

I have a small dab bottle of early 1990s vintage – so the aldehydic top has lost its solar sparkle and undergone megawarp. But the rest has matured beautifully and remains splendid.
Arpège is a creation of such confidence it requires almost none on the wearer's part. Its mixed floral bouquet shines as if through amber-coloured stained glass with accents of candied orange peel and peach, a light, natural booziness around the edges and a reassuring silky soft base of sandal and vanilla (among other things). Once it has settled, the creaminess of its expression is what catches my attention most. Yes, here is a classic thousand-flowers composition with all the scaffolding of woods, resins and balsams holding it in place, but it has the grace of a swan floating down a calm expanse of water at sunset.
It's ‘perfumey' in what has become an old-fashioned sense – unapologetic, happy to stand naked before strangers and be admired. And that is perhaps a reason why its popularity has waned; we think we've had all this stuff before. But contrarily, when considering today's perfume fashions, it provides the shock of the new.
The deep drydown is marked by a quarter-turn away from the florals and towards the base which resembles more and more something from the Caron stable – this is perhaps the beige Luca Turin was referring to in his review in Perfumes: The A-Z Guide.
I can't talk about its current incarnation, but can note that it's available at a very tempting price.

A masterpiece of the roaring 20's if there ever was one, Lavin Arpège (1927) utilizes the "kitchen sink" method of composition popularly used in that time period by houses like Guerlain and Coty, whipping dozens of notes into a dark floral symphony of seductive proportions. Arpège is floral chypre, and combines the fruity top of something like Guerlain Mitsouko (1919) with the indolic floral heart of Chanel No. 5 (1921) and a green chypre base of something way in the future like Clinique Aromatics Elixir (1971). Arpège was very ahead of its time in terms of style in the final phases of the perfume, hence its long-lived popularity and reverence from classic perfume fans in the modern century. The stuff even got a male iteration in the early 2000's to bank on the name, but it was wholly unrelated in smell and summarily discontinued when it failed to find an audience. If you like any of the green chypres from the likes of Estée Lauder, Givenchy, or Patou from the 1960's through to the 1980's, Arpège is the archetype for the style.

Aldehydes, bergamot, and a touch of ripe fruit open Arpège, with a dominant honeysuckle and orange blossom reminiscent of Caron Narcisse Noir (1911) entering the picture. The kitchen sink effect isn't apparent until muguet and rose lead into a dark indolic floral heart smothered in clove. It's a deliciously cacophonous arpeggio of notes holding true to the perfume's name that Avon Unforgettable (1965) would do a bang-up job of imitating years later, but the depth of the base is what sets Arpège apart from any future inspired perfumes. A multi-layered base of oakmoss, styrax, ambergris, vanilla, patchouli, and benzoin goes the long haul with desiccation from dry notes like vetiver, sandalwood, and orris to keep Arpège clean enough to be a tempting display without the animalics making a vulgar affair of things. I consider Arpège a "serious" romantic perfume for ballrooms and dressing up in moderate weather conditions, but it transitions to the bedroom easily as it was likely intended. Guys can wear this if they like green chypres such as Clinique Aromatics Elixir (1971), but it takes a mature taste from any gender to appreciate Arpège to its fullest degree.

Unlike its failed men's variant, Arpège itself never seems to have trouble finding an audience even if it doesn't make the rounds in department stores anymore, and most people who find out about it do so from other fans, making direct sales the way to get ahold of it. My encounter with Arpège comes from a niche perfume store which stocks select older perfumes that it knows the big counters won't touch, and Arpège frequently clears out there, so I know somebody besides vintage perfume hounds is buying it. Arpège also has a dozen vintages and concentrations over the years, but from my tests, a reasonably-priced modern eau de toilette will serve adequately in lieu of a pricey vintage extrait or parfum de toilette, since great pains have been taken to reformulate with modern ingredients the same structure found in the original formula by André Fraysse. Of course, if you want full-tilt animalics rather than IFRA-compliant fillers, you will need to seek out older bottles, but those outside the cult of oakmoss will do fine with what's out there. Thumbs up!