Should I get Knize 10

As Alphonse Allais put it, "As time passes, one
meets fewer and fewer people who knew Napo-
leon." Knize Ten, like the sole veteran of the
Grande Armée who lived long enough to be
photographed, must feel terribly lonely these days,
for it is the only survivor of the androgynous,
reckless, dandified twenties leathers. Its elder by
five years, Tabac Blond (1919), recently died a
death at the hands of IFRA regulations and Caron
perfumer Richard Fraysse, and if you look around
there are no pre-WWII leathers left standing:
Kobako, Shocking and no doubt many others, all
gone. (Cuir de Russie does not count in this
context, because it is primarily a stupendous iris
floral with a leather accent.) Knize Ten was
composed by François Coty and Vincent Roubert,
respectively the man who invented all of
perfumery and the man who did Iris Gris. For a
long period Ten was out of stock, the firm did not
know when it would come back, etc. and I feared
the worst. I cannot vouch for the exact resem-
blance of today's formula to the original. What I
can say is (a) it smells wonderful, with all the
proper requisites of a leather, including smoky
and amber notes firmly in place, (b) contains a
splendid strawberry top note, which, by a classic
piece of perfumery misdirection, kisses you on
the lips just as you focus on the dry, dark
background, (c) goes on forever in a completely
civilized manner, and (d) does not cost the earth.
Let me put it simply: everyone should own this
perfume, because there is only one like it.