Tom Ford Black Orchid

Black Orchid was Tom Ford's opening statement. It launched in 2006, the first fragrance to carry his own name after he left Gucci, and it made no attempt whatsoever to be likeable. Ford's own description of it is a luxe, alluring potion of black orchids, spice and dark accords, which considerably undersells how strange the thing smells on first contact.

The house publishes a full pyramid. Black truffle, ylang ylang, bergamot and bitter orange open it; a black orchid accord, black plum and rum absolute form the heart; patchouli and vanilla carry the base. The truffle is what makes it divisive, an earthy and almost savoury note in the first ten minutes that reads to some people as damp soil and to others as expensive. Beneath it the plum is soaked in rum, giving the fragrance a boozy, fruit-in-syrup quality, and the drydown is thick with dark patchouli and vanilla. It is a fragrance with no daytime manners at all, and it was never intended to have any.

Ford introduced the Private Blend line the following year, and Black Orchid technically sits outside it, but the attitude was established here: fragrance as a fashion object, priced and packaged like one, sold with no particular interest in whether it flatters a room. Nearly twenty years on it remains a bestseller for the house and has generated its own concentrations, including a parfum and a darker Black Orchid Reserve Parfum.

Wear it at night, in cold weather, to dinner, or anywhere the lighting is low. Men and women wear it in roughly equal numbers whatever the packaging implies. A Cape winter evening is close to ideal conditions; on a hot, humid night it can become airless, and one spray fewer than you think is usually the right call.

Performance is the easy part. Expect ten hours or more, heavy projection for the first three, and a scent that lingers in a car and on a jacket for days afterwards. Be aware that a fragrance this old has necessarily been reformulated along the way to keep pace with ingredient restrictions, and long-term wearers will tell you the truffle note has softened since the early bottles. The current version is still unmistakably itself, but it is not a museum piece and should not be bought as one.