Brooklyn by Bond No 9: Perfume Review

I am no expert on Brooklyn the borough, apart from a vague notion of it being a Russian Diaspora neighborhood, so I will just choose to rely on Bond No 9's cultural, demographic and real estate experts in their description of Brooklyn as a home to "a new generation of artistic émigrés". Apparently, "this is where the artists and musicians choose to move. It’s home to graffiti-ists [thus the bottle], gaffers, and key grips, to web designers and aspiring editors. This is where fashion stylists live. New York-bound hip-and-cool Seattle-ites prefer to move to Brooklyn; smart Stockholmers book their hotel rooms here."( from the press release) Is Brooklyn the perfume hip-and-cool enough to evoke the artistic and happening borough? Perhaps in a sense that it is not classically masculine nor reminiscent of any older perfume, apart from, vaguely, Bond No 9's own fairly recent West Broadway. This kind of unisexy, understated, non-macho masculinity is the fashion of the moment, so in that sense, I suppose, the scent is in fact trendy. I said it before and I will say it again, I do like a lot this non-obvious, quiet, shall I say, "sensitive" masculine tendency. I also like when scents for men utilize traditionally feminine notes, like fruits, which I for some reason keep smelling in the top notes of Brooklyn. I would swear there are apples here...or rather, given the fizzy juniper note and sparkly grapefruit, some kind of apple cocktail. And boozy scents are invariably a hit with me. As are leathery one; and Brooklyn has that in spades in its base. Dry, spicy leather amplified by the woody-leathery guaiac note. I would not go anywhere near as far as Bond No. 9 people and claim that Brooklyn is "on the cutting-edge of perfumery". There is cutting edge, there is Brooklyn and there are many stops on the 5 express train separating the two. But it is a handsome, elegant, versatile and very wearable (for both genders) fragrance. Available in March at Bond No. 9’s boutiques and Saks, $145.00-$220.00.