The disappointments among scents marketed to men are greater than the number of atoms in the universe. Masculines (the industry term) are generally defined by the vast creativity, beauty, elegance and innovation that have NOT been put into them. Those qualities are usually reserved for feminines, though men who know scent just wear what’s great and ignore the gender distinctions. Marketers be damned.

Armani owes its dominance of the masculine scent market to a wildly successful formula: the olfactory version of weaving silk into a Kevlar vest, light armor having always been Armani’s genius. Armani does not produce perfumes. It produces machines. This is not a negative per se. However, the problem with it is exemplified by Attitude . This scent was created by Alberto Morillas, Annick Meriardo and Olivier Cresp, each an artist possessed of genuine creativity, but marching here in lock step, they have manufactured the smell of a male model photographed through a polarized lens. The man inside is sealed off, untouchable, armored.