Karl Lagerfeld Perfumes & Colognes

One bottle: the 1978 original, the fragrance the man himself wore before he became the silhouette everybody recognises.

Before the ponytail and the black gloves

By the time most people knew Karl Lagerfeld he was a costume of his own design — white ponytail, dark glasses, fingerless gloves, high collar. That version arrived in the 1990s. The Lagerfeld who put his name on this bottle was a working designer in his forties who had already spent a decade at Chloé and had just begun the Fendi relationship that lasted the rest of his life. Chanel came later, in 1983.

He was also a serious collector — of eighteenth-century furniture, of photographs, and of books, tens of thousands of them. That habit of mind shows in the fragrance more than the fashion does.

Lagerfeld Classic

Released in 1978 and built in the manner of the period: a spiced woody oriental with tobacco, patchouli and a good deal of resin underneath. Warm, dark and dressed — the sort of thing worn with a jacket, not a t-shirt.

It is now one of the great bargains in fragrance, because the market moved to fresh and sweet and left the 1970s orientals sitting at prices that no longer reflect what they are. That is the same reason a shelf of these old bottles is worth reading carefully.

When to wear it

Cold weather, evening, and someone who does not mind smelling like an adult. It is not remotely current, and that is precisely its appeal.

You will find it in men’s cologne. If this era interests you, Aramis and Azzaro are the other survivors we stock.