This is a scent I’ve been wearing since the early 90s. The first fragrance I can remember. A scent polo dress shirts I’ve known since childhood. The original powerhouse formulation would fill the whole room.
I feel limited wearing this as a lot of people I come into contact with don’t like it. Friends that have smelled it often have a face of disgust and say that it smells like a grandpa, or that it is strong, but I rarely have experienced someone actually liking it. Best way I can describe it is that it smells like money. Seriously, the old style paper notes, imagine a fat roll of money and sniff it. Not the performance monster it was but still lasts for days on end on clothes. My uncle had had this as his signature scent for over 30 years.
I first smelled this on my friend who wore a Chaps Ralph Lauren brown leather jacket. It is burned in my memory as having a relation to leather, yet the green notes of pine seem to dominate this wonderful scent. You need to be an old school manly man to wear this. I actually find the smell offensive, and I don’t like it, which is exactly the desired effect I think.
Life is too short not to smell this great. However, I’m youngish so my experience has been positive since most of my peers don’t remember or weren’t around for the 70s or 80s and haven’t smelled this. If anything this cologne gets the most positive reaction from younger women out of all my colognes. Not exactly “sexy” positive, but “unique” positive, in a good way. Classic but in a working class way. My father used to wear this a lot to work.
Considering the overall profile of this scent, I’d recommend it for formal or semi formal occasions, day and night, spring, fall and winter. But, I have difficulties getting over the “green swamp opening” and that’s the reason I can only give it a “like” instead of a “love”. Fragrantica® Trends is a relative value that shows the interest of Fragrantica members in this fragrance over time. In 2004, the Polo Fashion School was established, in which company executives work with inner-city youth to offer insights into the fashion business. The company entered the European market, and went international, in 1981 with the opening of the first freestanding store in New Bond Street in the West End of London, England. Lauren opened his first flagship in the Rhinelander mansion, on Madison Avenue and 72nd Street in New York City in 1986.
On June 12, 1997, the company becomes a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1977, Diane Keaton and Woody Allen wore Lauren’s clothes in the Oscar-winning Polo Ralph Lauren t shirt film, Annie Hall. Lauren started The Ralph Lauren Corporation in 1967 with men’s ties. At 28 years-old, Lauren worked for the tie manufacturer Beau Brummell.
Like dozens and dozens of men my age, this scent was what got me into men’s fragrance. My relationship to Polo Ralph Lauren might be summed up as “love the sin, hate the sinner”. To me, this perfume symbolizes the masculine ideal of the lower-upper-middle class suburban man of the 80s. He is that guy who was the first on his street to get a Macintosh home computer . He bought a small sailing boat at some point .
Mature scent, it would not suit high school anymore. Just got my bottle yesterday, it is a current formulation. When I opened the box the smell was resonating from the package, I was very pleased. I sprayed it on lightly and it was close to what I recalled. Very green, woody, spicy and fresh. You can sense this old masterpiece influenced many scents by Amouage, nasomatto and others.