The story of Jacomo
Jacomo was born in the 1970s in a small laboratory near Paris. The house came from neither fashion nor jewellery. It made perfume and nothing else. Silences came out in 1978. It was a quiet, mossy green chypre, at odds with the powerhouse scents arriving at the same time. Jacomo de Jacomo followed in 1980 for men, in a blue-grey bottle credited to Philippe de Givenchy. It became a warm, recognisable woody scent of the 1980s. Parfum Rare came in 1985, then Paradox in the late 1990s. Silences was relaunched in 2004 with new packaging. The brand is low-profile today, but its two classics have kept a loyal following.
An olfactory signature
Jacomo makes classic, well-built perfume with no interest in trends. Silences is the more delicate of the two. It opens on a bitter green galbanum note, then moves to cool flowers and a mossy base. The name says it all: a perfume that whispers. Jacomo de Jacomo is its opposite. It is a spicy, warm woody oriental for men that projects well. Both belong to their era and make no attempt to hide it. Both have been reformulated, like almost every scent of that generation.
Which Jacomo perfume to choose?
Silences is for lovers of old-school green chypres, a family that is getting harder to find. It suits spring and the office in two sprays. Jacomo de Jacomo will please men who miss the woody scents of the eighties. Wear it in autumn or winter and go easy, as it lasts. Both are cheap, so testing costs little. If you like Silences, try Chanel No 19, which has more iris and a bigger price. For Jacomo de Jacomo, compare it with Chanel Antaeus, which is more leathery.