Acqua di Parma (Acqua di Parma, 1916)

Often have I idly wondered: what, exactly, did an 18th century German smell like? I can hazard a guess: a combination of Liverwurst, Lebkuchen, Lederhosen and elaborately-greased whiskers. For some reason, the Italian Giovanni Maria Farina found himself in the German city of Köln in 1709, and apparently found the odour of the inhabitants so noxious that he had to invent Eau de Cologne to cover it up. The resulting light citrussy-herbal concoction turned out to be one of the most influential scents in the whole history of perfume.

Farina's Eau de Cologne was not original. Hungarians had hogged the market in the Middle Ages with their Eau d'Hongrie, a similar herbal fragrance with citric elements. Most Italian states had a profumeria churning out bottles of the same sort of thing, notably the Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which is still going strong today. Farina's genius, then, was principally in bringing sensory civilisation to soothe the savage Hun, and in turning the unlikely town of Köln into a world-famous producer of nice smells.

Farina's invention was widely imitated, but not perfected for more than two centuries. In the middle of the First World War, an unknown group of Parmense noses created the fragrance that would henceforth define the highpoint of Eaux de Cologne. With excellent chutzpah, they renamed it: Acqua di Parma. Both the Germans and the French could consider themselves to have been flicked the Vs.

Many great colognes are still available - among them, the S. Maria Novella one, and the authentic Kölnischwasser 4711. But Acqua di Parma bests the lot of them. Something about its minutely perfected combination of notes is more cosmopolitan and more seductive than anything comparable. And, crucially, it lasts much longer. A burst of fresh lemon to start is followed by a clever blend which manages to capture a sexy, laid-back, interwar complexity. The fresh middle notes of rose, lavender, rosemary and verbena don't dip too far into femininity to put off the men. And the woody base notes of vetiver, cedar and sandalwood don't veer too far into masculinity to put off the women.

Lots of the most sexy and stylish people of the twentieth century noticed how very, very good this was. Among the wearers of Acqua di Parma were Cary Grant and David Niven, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner; also Audrey Hepburn, but I don't like her so we'll draw a veil over that. The specific genius of AdP resides in the fact that it is equally sexy on a man or a woman (and, no doubt, on an intersexual). It makes everyone who wears it seem more sophisticated, richer, better-read, more widely travelled and better in bed.

I buy a bottle of this stuff every summer, and every time I spray it on I feel like I'm in a fast car being driven by a tall, dark, chiselled-featured young novelist around the Mediterreanean in the 1930s, on our way to get married in Monte Carlo just before he goes off to volunteer for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, in which he will have a hero's death when he leads Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and a group of wild-eyed socialist peasants to stop a Nazi division from burning down an orphanage by wrestling them to the ground with his bare hands... mmm... yeah.

Be wary of the perils on your journey. The shop assistant will probably try to persuade you to buy one of AdP's alternative smells: the dodgy Lavanda, the nose-itching Iris Nobile, or one of the horrific Blu Mediterraneo collection, all of which smell like over-iced cake that has been left out in the Tuscan sun for too long. Don't be diverted. You can have the Colonia Assoluta if you really must, but you will regret any attempt to improve on the original. Because it has now been three hundred years since Farina's marketing coup, and nobody's done it better. Acqua di Parma is perfect.

Green Irish Tweed (Creed, 1985, Olivier Creed)

Lemon, verbena, iris, violet leaves, mysore sandalwood and ambergris

In many ways 1985 was a bleak year. The Rainbow Warrior was mined by French secret service agents, André Kertész, Orson Welles, Marc Chagall and Dian Fossey all died and Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits and Level 42's World Machine were both unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. Another modern menace, the mobile telephone also debuted in this benighted year whilst button-down collars and skinny ties ran rampant. It seems like a year that would best be beaten to death, buried and forgotten, never to be disinterred, even by the most culturally curious anthropologist.

The man wearing the button down collar and the skinny tie in 1985 is now approaching 50 and a respected banker with a golf club membership, a suit from M and S's Autograph range and drives a 2005 BMW 525i. He wears Davidoff's Cool Water as he sees it as a classic masculine fragrance that won't get commented upon by his golfing chums but will appease his family whose complaints about the infrequent splashing of Fabergé's Brut about his person have led him to go up market. As he screams down this dual carriageway of my imagination cursing the other motorists in their smaller, cheaper cars who don't yield the road to him as quickly as they ought he is suddenly aware of a vehicle serenely motoring down a small country road that runs parallel to the newer, more concrete bypass he favours. Well hell and damnation if it isn't Cary Grant. Cary Grant in a Bristol 411. Cary Grant in a Bristol 411 driving from the highlands of Scotland to Monte Carlo - pressing on, but not in a hurry.

And that is what defines Green Irish Tweed. It has effortless class. It has panache. It does for those who delight in perfume what seeing a Huntsman suit in the midst of a sea of Topman does for connoisseurs of fine tailoring. It is a perfume for people who appreciate detailing and quality in all things. Those who complain that it is no different from Davidoff's Cool Water are akin to those who do not notice silk linings, 4 button cuffs that are actually functioning cuffs, the delicate flare at the sleeve or the sculptural waisting of a jacket to improve its silhouette. These are subtle differences to be sure, but they are all important and separate the sublime from the merely acceptable.

Green Irish Tweed, along with so many Creed fragrances, has distinct notes of sandalwood and oakmoss. There is a definite scent of actual oak, a green sappy oak, that remains throughout the day. The sandalwood becomes more muted as the day wears on. The lemon, verbena and the floral ingredients combine to produce an almost incense like atmosphere under the oak whilst the ambergris provides a deep earthy scent that lasts throughout. The sensation of wearing Green Irish Tweed is that of wandering through a fir forest after a deluge. There is a sense of freshness to it, but it is not the astringent cleanliness that many more synthetic fragrances offer. One is still profoundly aware of nature's involvement in this smell, it is not some modernist, ersatz simulacrum of her. As the day wears on the foliage dries and, to continue the arboreal analogy, the forest reverts to a faintly dusty, fertile soil, leaf mulch and earthy scent that is calming, promotes quiet contemplation and yet makes one want to plunge one's fingers into the rich top soil and run it between ones fingers just for the sensation of rich fecundity and pure sensual pleasure. Perhaps 1985 wasn't a complete write-off after all?

As our banker returns to his detached mock Tudor house with its garden decking and carport, Cary has rounded the Mirabeau, pulled up in front of the Grand Hotel, emerged to the popping of the cooling Chrysler V8, smoothed his suit, taken a seat at the bar, ordered a very dry martini with a twist, and given the spiv in the dinner jacket with the suspicious bulge at the armpit to his left, who has just ordered a martini made with, God forbid, vodka "shaken, not stirred", a deservedly withering look.