Azzaro Wanted

Loris Azzaro opened his first workshop in Paris in 1965 and his boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in 1967, dressing women in beaded and chainmail evening pieces that photographed better than almost anything else of the period. He died in 2003. The house he left behind rests heavily on one fragrance, Azzaro pour Homme from 1978, a lavender-anise fougere that is still a reference for how a French masculine should be built. Everything Azzaro has released since has had to live next to it.

Wanted, from 2016, took a different route: rather than reworking the fougere, it built a bright woody-spicy scent around citrus and cardamom in a bottle shaped like a small barrel. The house's own description is direct, naming explosive lemon, energising cardamom and vetiver, and Azzaro credits no perfumer for it.

Fuller listings run lemon, ginger, lavender and mint at the top; apple, Guatemalan cardamom, juniper and geranium at the heart; and tonka bean, amberwood and Haitian vetiver in the base. In wear, the opening is genuinely sharp, a lemon-and-ginger snap with a cool mint edge, and it is the most attention-getting part of the fragrance. Cardamom carries the middle, green and slightly soapy, with juniper adding a dry gin-like lift. The base is where it becomes a modern designer scent rather than a classical one: amberwood and tonka give it a smooth, faintly sweet warmth, and vetiver keeps a thread of earthiness underneath.

This is a warm-weather and daytime fragrance and it is genuinely good in heat. A Highveld summer morning is where it makes most sense, and it holds up better than most citrus openings when the temperature climbs.

Performance is moderate for the eau de toilette. Six to eight hours is typical, with the loud phase concentrated in the first two and a close, ambery dry-down after that. Three sprays is not excessive. Wanted has since grown into a family including a stronger eau de parfum and the separate Most Wanted line, so if you like the accord but want more from it, those exist. The original eau de toilette remains in production and has no significant reformulation history.