Paradigme
Eau de Parfum, Prada (2025)

If someone had told me that Prada, in 2025, would release a clone of Invictus — which is, let’s be honest, an old and worn-out story — I wouldn’t have believed them. Not only has Paco Rabanne released numerous flankers in this style, but other houses have long since made clones of this (un)natural type as well, including Davidoff Run Wild, which flew under the radar.

If you really want something like this but still want to stand out in the crowd at least a little, Paco Rabanne 1 Million Lucky is a much better scent and option.

Prada could have made L’Homme Parfum, or L’Homme Elixir, or even gone back to the Luna Rossa line and created something with a twist away from Luna Rossa Ocean.
No — instead, they made a completely outdated Paradigme (pun intended) and launched it as something new. Bottom of the barrel, as the saying goes.

Originality: 1/10
Scent: 4/10
Longevity: 7/10
Projection: 6/10
______________________________________________
Overall impression: 4/10 – to be avoided, with a cynical smirk.

Paradigme Eau de Parfum, as a warm-fresh woody-oriental launched as a new fragrance by Prada in 2025 (and introduced in a sleek green bottle), seems to serve as a masculine counterpart to Prada's Paradoxe for women (2022) and is presented in a bottle inspired by the iconic Prada Triangle. This fragrance is healed as a sort of avant‑garde brand new affair despite my first reaction over the first sniff was nothing but the impression of reliving a flashback of something already widely felt and experienced (and therefore of formulas already experienced in my olfactory long personal trip along the decades) with the impression of smelling a perfume halfway between the cheap Bottega Verde Nero d'Ambra (2015) and the more iconic Giorgio Armani Eau de Cèdre (2015), namely a blend of fruity-salty-aromatic and woody creamy notes with hints of final cedary green "creaminess". The noses behind this olfactory new experiment ( the experienced Marie Salamagne, Bruno Jovanovic and Nicolas Bonneville) seem to reverse the traditional fragrance structure running an inverted olfactory pyramid where the initial rich, warmer deep notes lead gradually to final lighter, fresher ones. The aroma actually opens with a warm (yet musky), resinous green/creamy richness including Peru balsam, benzoin resin and guaiac wood, a blend creating a smoky, amber‑wood accord quite sensual, deep and structured as a yet formed base. Gradually, on the central stage, the composition evolves and mellows into a floral‑green heart built on bourbon fresh aromatic geranium with subtle rosey facets that soften and refresh the opening intensity. Finally the aroma pours out with a burst of freshly hesperidic brightness provided by calabrian crisp bergamot and energizing citrus while airy musks provide a luminous, clean sophisticated lift. You can still perceive a sort of amber-wood basic accord but all of it is right now (after 2/3 hours from the first spray) muskier and fresher with a musky airy vibe refined with modern freshness. Actually the final aroma is somewhat generic in my humble vocabulary (creamy cedary with leafy floral and pencil shavings nuances) but definitely well performed and multifaceted (fruity, woody, floral, musky, ambery etc). Performances are great on my skin, especially duration (8/10 hours). Would I buy it for myself? No Sir.

Paradigme by Prada (2025) is more evidence of Prada's "L'Oréalification" post-Puig, and while it isn't horrible, does make me miss how good Prada once was when the perfume arm was more-aligned with the house itself due to Miuccia Prada's direct involvement. We all sort of saw this coming with the deprecation of the Prada L'Homme (2016) range and the reconfiguration of the Infusions line to be less about the previous signature house notes of amber and iris. The Luna Rossa Ocean by Prada (2021) has taken over the entire Luna Rossa by Prada (2011) range itself, while Paradox by Prada (2022) with its fruity-floral genericism has been the true shape of things to come for the brand under L'Oréal. As such, Paradigme smells like something that could have been released by YSL, Valentino, Viktor & Rolf, Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Thierry Mugler, or Diesel with very little to tell it apart from any of them. It's getting real tough to have any hope for the former "kings of soap", when the house was prized for it's clean, powdery, or floral scent profiles that flew in the face of convention.

The opening is sweet and green, with bits of that mint isolate known as Physcool added to the top. The bergamot isn't really all that evident, and it's just a generic "citrus-ish" opening that's a big sugared for my taste. There is something vaguely herbal here too, but it doesn't last and more of a standard geranium meets rose geranium tandem spiked with woody-ambers to squish out any floralcy that may result from the combo The base is the most uninspired part, but also the most pleasant, as the weird ambivalence between green and genetic sweetness does the opening no favors until Paradigme "picks a lane", which is ultimately one of the bog-standard woody-amber sweet designer type. At least when it finally stops trying to bait and switch, leaning into the "L'Oréalified" AI-generated dry down, it's being honest with itself, and you. From there, it's a pleasant if unremarkable several hour wear, of benzoin, peru balsam, tonka, ambrocenide, and clean musks; nothing to cry foul about, but nothing to be proud of, either. Performance is middling in the projection department, but that's a blessing in disguise.

Smelling this in the air on someone after that ambiguous opening has gone, you won't really know what it is, but you'll swear you've smelled it before. This sits somewhere in the diaspora of the more-recent Wanted by Azzaro (2016) flankers, which are also now L'Oréal-made, and the more-recent flankers of Valentino Uomo Born in Roma (2019). I also get bits of the musk profile from MYSLF by Yves Saint Laurent (2023) in the base of this, making Paradigme by Prada a real "L'Oréal soup" of basically everything I've been saying about the cosmetics giant since they went on their villain arc of acquiring then assimilating major designers to basically make perfumes that all smell like shades of the same thing. This gives me real Henry Ford vibes of "you can have any color you want as long as it's black" and it just makes me endlessly sad that the creative heat-death of the designer segment is here unless you want to spend upwards of $200 on something that is basically considered niche now taste-wise. Speaking of price, this generic pleasant stew of focus-group compliment-fishing will run you as much as MYSLF, which is not worth it when you can get a workhorse scent of the same type from any Zara. Neutral

An aromachemical bomb. My partner called it generic, and I have to agree. Not worth the price—honestly, not even worth it at discounter rates. A harsh, synthetic mess; I’d rather wear Sauvage than this. The only redeeming quality is its longevity (8+ hours) and perhaps a tolerable sillage at times, but overall, this might be one of the worst designer releases of the year.