Marbert Gentleman
Marbert (1986)

Here we have the grand Teutonic animalic that is Marbert Gentleman. I've heard great things about more recent formulations of this juggernaut, but I grabbed an older bottle, with its handsome ribbed semi-circle design that is lost in its newer incarnation.

The mythical alpha male, the search for Quentin Crisp's 'great dark man,' the virile, the virulent...whole dissertations could be written on how the stoicism of modern man has been represented culturally, and how it's been fetishized. Peel back the layers and we reveal the sensuality and vulnerability of it all. I have long been fascinated by this duality, the conflict, especially as a non-heterosexual identifying male who has long struggled, as have many out of the heterosexual sphere, with their own identity.

Wearing a fragrance like Gentleman is sort of like a love letter to this bittersweet reconciliation of affect. I refuse to cancel this legacy and I am not one for revisionist history, but I do see the paradox inside the projections (both figurative and literal), and want to honor them, embrace them, as if I am embracing manhood and letting it as whole know: yes, we know you are strong, but you are allowed to cry, be afraid, and feel uncertain.

I know this exceedingly tangential for a fragrance review, but I can't help it when I experience the potent civet, honeyed patchouli, musky roses, and the hum of olibanum in this fragrance, it just sums up where we were, where we aspired to be, and where we are today. That is the fragile beauty of this fragrance, even as it sings the praises of masculinity in olfactory form.

Not all masculinity it toxic, but there sure is a lot of it that's problematic. I feel it appropriate to quote the lyrics from song from Joe Jackson, "Real Men":

"Take your mind back – I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink and boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Then me and you

Is he rough or is he rugged
Is he cultural and clean
Now it's all change – it's got to change more
'Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure

And so it goes – go round again

See the nice boys – dancing in pairs
Golden earring golden tan
Sure they're all straight – straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see the leather shine

You don't want to sound dumb – don't want to offend
So don't call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend
You can wear the uniform and I could play along

And so it goes – go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

Time to get scared – time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Time to admit – what you call defeat
'Cause there's women running past you now

Man makes a gun – Man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore"

Marbert Gentleman is my beautiful, fantastical GDM.

Solid pleasant discreet old school frag ... a leathery sweet chypre , get the vintage juice which is golden in colour & in the curved shouldered bottle , the square bottle is the reformulated release , recommended .

Marbert Gentleman is a light, fresh chypre that smells familiar to me, but I can never seem to think what else it smells like. H&R's Fragrance Guide lists the notes as:

TOP: Bergamot, lemon, artemisia, galbanum, aldehyde, green note, estragon
MIDDLE: Jasmine, rose, geranium, cypress, patchouli, vetiver, cedar
BASE: Moss, labdanum, olibanum, musk, leather, castoreum, civet

Despite the civet and castoreum in the base, it comes across more fresh and mossy than animalic, and is fairly subdued in terms of projection and sillage. This "Gentleman" is reserved, polite, and well-mannered --- one who impresses with understatement and quiet confidence rather than by commanding attention.

Quite an unimpressive grassy scent, awfully green, but nothing more. A bit like Sisley's Eau de Campagne due to the same overdone herbal note, yet much more woodier drydown and, in Marbert Gentleman's defense, a little longer lasting, a more woody and masculine finnish. More classy notes, maybe a hint of not so " green" aromatic touches would have made this scent significantly better, a scent that actually starts of nice( yet not exquisite, perfect or groundbreaking) and is so little structured that it ends up unfinnished( or at least giving the impression of being so).

Quite a smooth and pleasant gentleman. If he has a blunt edge, he keeps it well wrapped in velvet.