The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Renaissance Man didn't arrive from nowhere. It came from a question: what does rebirth smell like? Chris Collins designed this fragrance as part of the Renaissance collection, a line built around the idea of constant becoming, the perpetual evolution of humankind translated into scent. Perfumer Laure Santantoni worked from that brief, translating the concept of human renewal into a composition that opens cold and aquatic, then resolves into something warm, grounded, and distinctly human. Marine notes, ginger, honey, tobacco, leather, each element maps to a different phase of that story. The result is a fragrance that doesn't just smell good. It argues something.
The structure is what makes it work. Marine and tobacco sit at opposite ends of the fragrance spectrum, one cool, mineral, almost clinical; the other warm, animalic, tactile. Renaissance Man forces them into conversation. The ginger in the opening isn't just spice, it's a bridge, something clean and sharp that keeps the marine from going flat while prepping the skin for the honey that follows. That honey isn't sweet in the gourmand sense. It's wild honey, amber-dark, with a slightly resinous edge that reads more botanical than dessert.
The evolution
The opening is cold. Not cool, cold. Sea spray and ginger hit first, almost clinical in their clarity, with pink pepper adding a lift that keeps the bergamot from becoming just another citrus top note. Then the honey arrives, and everything shifts. It doesn't replace the marine, it grows beneath it, creating a tension between the aquatic and the sweet that is genuinely unusual. Sage and cedar arrive together, adding warmth and a slight resinous edge that starts to pull the fragrance away from its initial coldness. The drydown is where Renaissance Man earns its name. Tobacco and leather take over slowly, not overwhelming the honey but eventually replacing it, with sandalwood and tonka bean softening the edges enough to keep the whole thing from going harsh. The tobacco lingers closest to the skin for hours. On fabric, it can last into the next day.
Cultural impact
Renaissance Man arrived in 2017, a period when the marine-tobacco combination felt genuinely fresh at mainstream fragrance counters. The scent draws inevitable comparisons to heritage pieces like Yatagan, yet it carves out its own contemporary identity through the interplay of aquatic and tobacco elements. This tension between innovation and homage marked Renaissance Man as a fragrance for someone seeking character over conformity. The fragrance invites discovery rather than offering another safe, predictable option.
