Colony (original)
Jean Patou (1938)

To my mind, Colony's leather pineapple is the prototype for Aventus.

You can read more about it here
https://buchananb.substack.com/p/patou-colony-perfume-of-empire

The best pineapple accord I've smelled in a perfume is here, in Colony. It's not that it's the most realistic, complex, or juiciest, but it just makes sense here. I recall first having the pleasure of smelling the Ma Collection version at Colonial Drug in Newton MA some time ago, and was immediately hooked. A tangy, creamy ping pong that titillates the nose, but what is quite curious is when the pineapple is eclipsed with ylang ylang and rose, rendering it fattier, riper, more tropical.

I feel convinced that I am smelling banana daiquiri and piña colada in a smoky Tiki bar, and a dark, brooding quinoline leatheriness closes in—a remarkable turn of events, while the pineapple remains, growing more ripe, sticky, even carnation-inflected. I even detect in the dry down what my mind registers as costus within the musks. I am floored by every minute of it.

[From 1984 Ma Collection mini]

Stunningly beautiful Fruity Chyper-esque Feminine Jubilation 25 took this frame, turned up the volume and sharpened some of the corners.
Side by side they feel the same and throw off an accord LOV, sublime. Another Vintage charmer free from Contemporary deafening naff.

Like so many things that you await for years with rising expectations, my long-desired sample of vintage Colony brought me a mixture of both pleasure and disappointment. My hopes had been accelerated by the review from VintageVogue, who said:

"This is like an Agatha Christie novel set in French governed tropics. On the surface it seems to be all sunshine and light, but you quickly discover that there are some decidedly dark and dangerous undercurrents here, and they will not be ignored."

Since dark & dangerous is exactly how I like my perfumes, my movies, and my men, I was understandably eager. However, my tropical guide through Colony turned out to be much less Jarvier Bardem and more Ricky Martin.

I tested it simultaneously on skin and paper. On my skin, it wasted no time in going straight to the pineapple, not especially sweet, and lifted by some sparkly aldehydes. I got no citruses on top, probably due to its age. Ylang rose quickly to join the fruit, for a very tropical ambiance. It stayed in that exact mode for about 25 minutes, by which time I was tapping my foot and looking for the iris and vetiver, but none appeared. The frustrated fruitfly in me detected no rot in the pineapple, which stayed fresh and ripe. The basenotes queued up at about 45 minutes, yielding a very light leather, and at the one-hour mark some oakmossy decoration joined the light leather and then -- ahhh, the pineapple began to turn a bit overripe and darker.

The paper test was quite a different story; it was much less sparkly in the opening, and the ylang was flatter, but still no citrus there either. The heart was more detectable --- some vetiver, a tiny bit of iris. The base didn't appear until 90 minutes in, and was much, much lighter on the leather. The whole scent remained brighter and cooler on paper, quite light and airy.

Longevity: the whole concoction had gently faded off my skin by three hours, but remained quite bright on paper for at least four hours.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed Colony, would happily own a bottle if I ever found one, and yes I would wear it. I like a good vintage fruit chypre, and I can see why people make comparisons to Diorella (though much less to Rochas Femme, which truly is dark and dangerous fruit). If I were smelling this blind though, I'd probably be more inclined to categorize it as a fruity floral than a chypre, since the ylang is so prominent and the pillars of chypre construction are so faint. And I do think this was probably a far more complex creature when it was young and fresh. I'll bet it was quite a novelty in its day.

I was very fond of Colony: as with most Patou perfumes of the same era, it was very complex: to the extent I find it difficult to identify many individual notes. On my skin Colony had a chypre-aldehydic base, with subtle green middle notes, and a rather whimsical pineapple top note. The aldehyde kept the fragrance from becoming overly sweet, and stopped the pineapple becoming sickly or smelling cheap and tacky. In fact, I remember Colony as a rather formal fragrance.

I'm looking forward to trying the new Collection Heritage version of Colony - though I hope it hasn't been altered drastically (as Adieu Sagesse has been) - I note that on the Patou site, it is stressed that this is a new formulation.

Pineapple meets Bandit!

One of the first fruity chypres ever created, Colony balances the sweetness of pineapple against a dark, leathery chypre base. This is subtly and very well done. Too bad it is out of production as it is certainly a classy 1930s scent.

From Barbara Herman the notes are:

Top: Pineapple, Ylang Ylang
Middle: Carnation, Iris, Vetiver, Opopanax
Base: Leather, Musk, Oakmoss