Grès Monsieur fragrance notes
Head
- Lavender, Bergamot
Heart
- Carnation, Cinnamon
Base
- Moss, Tonka, Amber
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Latest Reviews of Grès Monsieur

Head: Mandarine de Sicile, Estragon d’Italie, Laurie du pays (Grasse)
Heart: Sauge du pays (Drôme), Lavande des Alpes, Géranium de Grasse
Base: Tabac des Indes, Ambre, Santal des Indes, Patchouly de Singapour, Mousse de chêne de Yugoslavie
In English…
Head: Sicilian mandarin, Italian tarragon, locally grown laurel from Grasse France
Heart: locally grown sage from Drôme France, Alpine lavander, geranium from Grasse France
Base: Indian tobacco, amber, Indian Sandalwood, Singapore patchouli, oak moss from Yugoslavia
The condensed version…
Head: mandarin, tarragon, laurel (bay leaf)
Heart: sage, lavender, geranium
Base: tobacco, amber, sandalwood, patchouli, oak moss
The ingredients used are all top notch. I’ve smelled this before a really long time ago or something like this, somewhere. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out why this aroma is so familiar. I’ll catch wafts and wisps of it occasionally in the sillage. As soon as I catch it for a brief moment to dissect where in the world have I experienced this ‘feeling’ before, it disappears from my nose. I must’ve been a kid because as soon as I smelled this that little bell in my head went ‘ding’.
The perfume is ridiculously awesome. The Mysore sandalwood seriously bumps this mysterious elixir to the next level. Patchouli is the dominant note. Very classy and dressy/creamy like but dark and smooth while always easily wearable. Gres Monsieur definitely has gentlemanly sillage. There’s this deepness to this that’s so hard to explain but so pleasurable. It smells like dark fuzzy purple. Somehow in its sillage there resembles almost what a manly fabric softener smells of. It’s difficult to discern specific notes as the blending is superb but the overall effect is that of freshly laundered clothing that was softened with some seriously awesome smelling fabric softener. I am not one for scented laundry products but somehow Gres Monsieur creates this illusion in its sillage and it really does smell super cool. Entirely unique to a degree.
This is definitely patchouli focused with lavander and amber as supporting roles. There’s a woody back drop of intoxicating, creamy Indian sandalwood, a hint of tobacco and oak moss but the star of the show is a patchouli/lavender/amber/geranium/sage foursome blended so tightly and neatly that I can’t even begin to explain how cool this smells. This is definitely a killer perfume.
There’s a tad of OG Azzaro Pour Homme and Balmain’s Ebene floating around in Gres Monsieur which is not a bad thing at all. Gres Monsieur though is very unusual in character to set it apart from anything else from the 80’s. This perfume is quite elegant and wears beautifully with nothing dated at all where the dry down is to die for. It is not stuffy and actually quite casual in feel. The sillage on this is phenomenal with lasting power we’ll into the next day. I rate this within the top 10 best vintage 80’s perfumes for Men, it’s that good.

The problem with this approach though, is it's a safe bet that leads to a short-term success story that will be forgotten once the also-rans run their course, as both Un Homme and Grès Monsieur ultimately did. Newcomer Aramis Tuscany per Uomo (1984) would prove the true challenger to the Azzaro title belt, and would continue boxing with it until its own demise at the hands of the Estée Lauder folding the Aramis name back into the main brand portfolio and retiring it as a separate house. The truth is most people smelling Grès Monsieur now will just see another lemony aromatic fougère of vague familiarity, one the likeness of which has scented dozens of men's grooming and haircare products throughout the decades, and will probably call it "old-smelling" if they don't value that context. It's not to say Grès Monsieur isn't good, as there is just a cozy comfort to the overall design of the stuff, just not enough good to make it worth all the pearl-clutching I see people doing. You get a lemon and anise opening with a bit of aldehydes, minus the dimetol and dihydromyrcenol soapiness that defines Azzaro. In exchange for that high-tech sophistication we see cinnamon, cardamom, pine, and carnation enter the mix, things neither Azzaro nor Un Homme have in abundance. Geranium, lavender, and patchouli form a core that is then laid upon a background of oakmoss, tonka, a pinch of leather, and some labdanum. This is more fougère than chypre of course, while the later Homme de Grès by Parfums Grès (1996) would be this same exercise in reverse, showcasing a chypre structure with the occasional flick of fougère aromatics. Performance in comparison to other early 80's masculines may seem flaccid in the projection department, although I think Grès Monsieur is equally long-lasting to most of the era's heavyweights.
You have to really understand the history of house Grès to get where this came from, as the brand was in severe commercial decline by then. Painter and sculptor Germaine Émilie Krebs had originally formed La Maison Alix in 1932, dressing people like Greta Garbo and using the pen name Alix Barton until the German occupation of France in 1940 made using any names alluding to her Jewish heritage dangerous. By 1942, the "Madame Grès" name was born, formed of a partial anagram representing the first name of fellow painter and husband Serge Czerefkov. Madame Grès became the new label of her house, although she would be shut down by the Nazi's for failing to comply with their requests to make uniforms a la Hugo Boss; but she'd resurface mid-century with flowing dresses and the aforementioned perfume, Cabochard de Grès. By the 1980's, "Madame Grès" herself was in her 80's, living in a tiny apartment paid for by her haute couture peers, and only kept relevant by the very same; as designers like Hubert de Givenchy still ordered bespoke pieces from her, that she was still making by hand up until her death in 1993. Meanwhile, Grès the house was sold to Japanese firm Yagi Tsusho Limited, who never achieved any real success with the house and effectively only administered its further decline with various other creative directors until it finally shuttered in 2012. Unlike Coco Chanel, Krebs was not shrewd in her business dealings, and never saw the same profits from her perfume. This is the world Grès Monsieur was born into, and its basic-but-dependable construction shows the risk-adverse nature that defined nearly every masculine fragrance they ever made, save maybe Homme de Grès, which was highly anachronistic for its time. Thumbs up
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The opening in my vintage, while inevitably oxidized, still retains most of its citric essence, the bergamot still seems a bit zesty and pithy despite all these years (who knows how this bottle had been stored), and there is this herbal accord that is almost reminiscent of spearmint or cornmint. It's this touch of herbal sweetness that merges with the cinnamon and carnation, that makes Monsieur so alluring. It also is another one of those fragrances that hits deep in the hippocampus: where have I smelled this before? At what time? Was it years and years ago, and my childhood mind somehow stored its imprint for all these years? Whenever I experience this, it feels baffling and bittersweet.
What is most stirring is when this all melds into a hazy, woolly ether of oakmoss with a dash of tonka bean, smelling much like the way the aromatic ferns of the Northeast US as dappled sun enters through the tall pines, a resinous ambery glow, a Zen drydown. Even as an old (who knows exactly how old?) vintage, there is this naturalism that is so seldom present in the tidal wave of modern releases that desperately cling on to fables but fall short of expectations. The desire for authenticity today is often sullied by pretense, and the end product is outlandishly adorned to distract from the reductive, derivative, soulless scent that has immediate diminishing returns in true value. I know it sounds like the same cynical, curmudgeonly discontent with the present and a romanticized vision of the past, but I truly think that with progress there is regress, it's all in flux. And with fragrance, we could all stand to reach back and reflect on whence we came, and where we need to go moving forward.
Forward I go, wearing Monsieur on a cool September morning, feeling hopeful and inspired.



I think the juice in the plastic-tube had been sitting there for too long, 'cause after a couple of 'trial-sprays' the fragrance had completely changed and the off-note was now a beautiful spearmint that, in cahoots with lavender, moss, carnation, cinnamon, bergamot and amber, now relayed a simple but intoxicating fresh green and warm aromatic fragrance. A new fav of mine. Great stuff, man.