Clive Christian — No. 1 15th Year Anniversary Men
Essence
This is a 2014 limited edition marking 15 years since Clive Christian relaunched the former Crown Perfumery as his own ultra-luxury vanity house and released No. 1 - a perfume so expensively pitched that Guinness World Records named it the most expensive commercially available perfume, citing a typical price of £1,317 (then $2,355) for 30ml.
Scent Profile
Because dedicated documentation of this edition is almost nonexistent (see Reception), the scent must be understood through the No. 1 for Men DNA it intensifies, plus the single review that addresses the anniversary extrait directly. That review, by critic Varanis Ridari, describes it as “a grand, expensive smelling aldehydic chypre in the style of Chanel No. 5 extrait, Joy, or Amouage Gold Man, with sparkly lemon champagne aldehydes on top of florals on top of a rich creamy mix of iris, sandalwood, and musk. The distinguishing move, in his account, is the citrus: where most perfumes of this style let “a bit of lemon and bergamot do the heavy lifting,” No. 1 “surrounds them with a full-on fruit basket of oranges, tangerines, and possibly a hint of grapefruit,” while the florals “center on jasmine and carnation. His shorthand: imagine Amouage Gold Man “with the poop removed and the frankincense toned down to make room for more upfront citrus and florals.
Performance
Extreme, in the way that very high oil concentrations are. Of the concentrated limited format, Varanis Ridari writes that “wear time for the pure parfum concentrated limited is basically until you bleach it off a shirt collar or scrub it off your skin with a coarse brush, because the stuff is pretty much all oil. He adds the important caveat that such density actually suppresses projection - “such density greatly impacts projection so if that’s your goal, go with the eau de parfum instead” - while the sillage “can be suffocating. So: enormous longevity, intimate-to-suffocating projection depending on application, not a room-filling broadcaster despite the price.
Wearing Context
Formal, cool-weather, evening. The standard No. 1 is already widely described as too sweet and powdery for heat, best kept to evening or cooler situations and pairing with elegant attire; the anniversary’s higher concentration pushes it further into that corner. Realistically, though, the wearing context for this specific object is “almost never” - a 500-piece collector’s bottle priced around $1,500 is a display and occasion piece, not a daily wear.
Comparisons & DNA
The lineage Varanis Ridari draws is the key one: this sits in the lineage of the great aldehydic floral-orientals - Chanel No. 5 extrait, Patou Joy, and especially Amouage Gold Man, which it most resembles minus the animalic and incense weight. Other wearers of the base No. 1 independently invoke the same family, comparing it to Jean Patou Pour Homme and Jean Desprez Versailles pour Homme, and repeatedly to Amouage Gold (“smells like a more accessible version of Amouage Gold”). The composition is attributed to Givaudan perfumer Patricia Choux.
Reception
The defining fact about this edition’s reception is its absence. Across,, and there are essentially no wearers reviews specific to the 15th Anniversary men’s edition - the page is a stub with no review text, the and listings carry no reviews, and all substantive discussion lives on the regular No. 1 for Men (2001) page. The one review that explicitly names and describes the anniversary extrait is Varanis Ridari’s on, and he rates it “quite good. Reception of the underlying No.
Versions & Reformulation
This edition is itself a “version” - a concentration-boosted, limited reissue of No. 1 for Men in anniversary packaging. The base No. 1 for Men (2001) exists in standard EDP and a Pure Parfum, plus a long line of commemorative bottlings (the 2005 Imperial Majesty with a 5-carat diamond, the 2006 illustrated bottles, 500 gold Queen’s Jubilee bottles, the 2013 Imperial Coronation, and numerous “Twist” flankers altering top notes).
Acquisition Notes
A genuine collectible, valued more as object than wearable. US pricing was $1,500 for the 47ml, pre-orderable at Neiman Marcus (the European launch was quoted at €1,200 / £750, in a bottle variously listed as 47-50ml), available from June 2014. The white-lacquered, gold-crowned bottle and individual numbering are the identifiers. Because the juice is so close to standard No.
Notable Facts & Lore
- Clive Christian’s No.
- 1 line is inseparable from its “world’s most expensive perfume” marketing - the Guinness World Records citation, bottles with 5-carat diamonds, and crystal flacons running into five figures.
- The house was built on the bones of the historic Crown Perfumery, which Clive Christian (a furniture and interior designer, awarded an OBE in 2012) acquired and rebranded, a move that remains a sore point for perfume historians who note the old Crown catalog was discontinued in the process.
- The anniversary edition’s existence is itself “lore” more than fragrance: it is one in a long sequence of commemorative repackagings of a single perfume “of my heart,” as Christian calls No.
- 1 - and, as the near-total absence of reviews shows, far more bought-and-shelved than worn.