David Beckham
David Beckham
82 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The gin tonic accord detonates immediately—lime zest and botanical galbanum create an almost aggressively fresh opening, like walking into a high-end men's grooming department. The lime is tart, the galbanum slightly vegetative, and together they establish a crisp, almost sterile aesthetic that feels more about projection of refinement than sensual pleasure.
As the citrus volatility settles, cypress and mint emerge with surgical precision, extending the fresh accord but introducing a subtle herbaceous coolness. The nutmeg adds a pinch of warmth and spice, preventing the composition from becoming entirely one-dimensional, though the synthetic undertones become increasingly apparent—the scent takes on a faintly plastic quality that undermines its aspirations to naturalness.
The amber, cedar, and vetiver base never quite materialises as a proper foundation; instead, the fragrance seems to evaporate rather than evolve, leaving behind a faint woodiness and traces of that persistent mint-cypress accord. What remains is a ghost of the opening—fresh, cool, but increasingly wispy until it disappears almost entirely from the skin, leaving barely a trace of its existence.
David Beckham Classic arrives as a peculiar study in restraint—a fragrance that promises sophistication but delivers something far more tentative. Aurélien Guichard has constructed what feels like a carefully edited minimalist composition, one that prioritises clarity over presence. The lime and gin tonic accord forms the spine here, and it's genuinely arresting in its first moments: there's a crystalline dryness reminiscent of a well-made martini, with galbanum adding that green, slightly astringent edge that prevents the citrus from becoming merely bright. It's the olfactory equivalent of a pressed designer shirt—immaculate but somehow sterile.
The heart reveals cypress and mint threading through a whisper of nutmeg, creating a composition that sits somewhere between a barber shop and a woodland stroll. The mint doesn't clash with the citrus-gin opening; rather, it extends the fresh accord, maintaining that crisp, almost clinical quality. There's a spicy undercurrent from the nutmeg that prevents monotony, though the synthetic accords (64% of the overall character) lend an artificial sheen that occasionally reads as plastic rather than polished.
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3.5/5 (231)