The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
My Sir arrived in 2018 from Luca Maffei, the Italian nose behind several of Rocco Barocco's more considered male compositions. The name carries the intimacy of direct address, Sir, not gentleman, not boss, while the brief appears to have been something like: compose an aromatic masculine that earns its freshness rather than simply wearing it. Maffei reached for rhubarb, an ingredient most masculine fragrances sidestep entirely, choosing instead to build around it rather than around it. The result is a fragrance that opens like a statement and finishes like a conversation.
Rhubarb does something unusual in a fragrance pyramid: it creates an acidic green presence that sits between the citrus top and the herbal heart, stretching the opening phase rather than letting it dissolve. Most masculine fragrances treat green notes as transitional, lavender arrives, herbs arrive, the freshness winds down. My Sir inverts this. The rhubarb keeps the citrus honest, refusing to let it soften into pleasant nothing. Meanwhile, the black amber in the base is unusual in its restraint: warm, yes, but not heavy, not sweet. It keeps the drydown grounded without pulling the fragrance into territory that reads as night-only or formal. This is patchouli behaving well.
The evolution
The opening hits fast, bergamot and grapefruit in full brightness, ginger arriving within seconds to add spice without fire. The rhubarb is the tell: tart, garden-green, slightly bitter in the way fresh stalks are. It gives the citrus something to push against. Within 20 minutes, the heart takes over. Lavender and geranium arrive together, softening the acidity while black pepper introduces a dry spice that was waiting underneath the whole time. The transition is seamless, you don't notice it happening, you just realize one day you're in the drydown. And there the patchouli and black amber stay, doing the slow work of holding the composition together for hours. By the end, what lingers is warm, earthy, and clean in a way that has nothing to do with soap.
Cultural impact
My Sir occupies a specific corner of masculine perfumery: aromatic and spicy but refusing the heavy, sillage-driven conventions of the category. Wearers describe it as the fragrance of someone who walks into a room and doesn't need to announce themselves. The rhubarb note is the dividing line, some find it unexpectedly brilliant, others find it initially jarring before it grows on them. What holds across both reactions is the drydown, which consistently earns mention as the reason they'd buy it again.
