Vintage Friday: Say Hello With A Perfume You’ll Still Love In 20 Years

It’s World Hello Day plus World Television Day, so here’s my provocation: if your perfume wouldn’t survive a rerun, why is it on your skin? I said hello with vintage Diorissimo - a lily-of-the-valley bell that still rings clear, even if time has polished its edges. The opening is a green shimmer, the heart a dewy muguet-jasmine duet, and the drydown soft as silk stockings. Mine has shed some sparkle and gained a tender hum. I’m not mad at it. I wear perfume to live with it, not to archive it.

If you don’t have a favorite vintage, choose a classic you’ll love two decades from now. Predicting longevity is part instinct, part structure. Bones matter - balance, quality of materials, and a point of view you can’t scroll past.

A few forever-leaning picks:

• Guerlain Mitsouko - the chypre that taught peach how to smolder. Oakmoss whispers, not shouts, but the tension holds.
• Chanel No. 19 - green iris in steel-toe ballet flats. Elegant, unsentimental, unforgettable.
• YSL Rive Gauche - aldehydic glitter in a blue can. It smells like clean shirts and rebellion.
• Guerlain Shalimar - vanilla smoke over lemon zest. If romance had bass notes, this would be them.
• Balmain Vent Vert - a leafy snap that still feels thrillingly modern if you find the older stuff.

Birthdays today make perfect scent pairings: a witty spritz for Voltaire - try bracing cologne like 4711 when brainy charm is required. A surreal wink for René Magritte - not a pipe, but the tobacco veil of Caron Tabac Blond. A tenor line for Coleman Hawkins - honeyed and resonant like Shalimar in extrait. For novelists Elizabeth George Speare and Marilyn French, the formidable polish of No. 19 or the thoughtful curve of Dior Diorella.

A small PSA for the vintage-curious: expect variation. Reformulations tame oakmoss, vintage concentrates mellow, and batches tell their own stories. Don’t chase myth alone - chase how it feels on your skin on an ordinary Friday.

Back to my Diorissimo. It still smells like a door opening to spring, even in late November. If a hello can be fragrant, it should be this bright and this certain.