Brit Homme

Burberry launched Brit Homme in 2004. The Brit line had existed since the previous year in its feminine version, and the house gave it its masculine counterpart without delay. The juice is signed by Antoine Maisondieu, a perfumer born in Grasse, trained at the Roure school after studying law.

The juice and the campaign accompanying it were conceived together, and released the same year. Christopher Bailey, the house's creative director, held both ends: the bottle, the advertising image, and the brief given to the perfumer.

Two men, two trades, a persistent confusion

Several online inventories credit Bailey with creating the perfume itself. No source confirms this. Bailey commissions, arbitrates and signs off on the image; he does not compose. The nose behind the juice is Maisondieu, and the perfumer's records of creations bear this out unambiguously.

Maisondieu was working at Givaudan at the time. He is also credited, in the same period, with another notable masculine signature, Armani Black, which became Armani Code. The two juices were released a year apart and each won a professional award.

He returned to Burberry two years later for London pour Homme, and again for the 2010 limited edition. Three of the house's masculines therefore bear the same hand, which explains a family resemblance that enthusiasts often note from one bottle to another.

A 1968 Aston Martin as the sole staging

For the launch, Bailey brought in photographer Mario Testino and art director Fabien Baron. The poster went to Hugh Dancy, an English actor little known at the time, chosen for an air of nonchalance far more than for fame.

The image shows him seated in front of a 1968 Aston Martin, in a thin-striped Burberry suit. The press kit states that he evokes the rock stars of the 1970s. No musician is named there, and the house has cited none since.

Kate Moss joined Dancy in the following visuals, again under Testino's lens. Dancy held the role until 2007. In 2009, the campaign changed face with model Tom Guinness, this time photographed by David Sims, for a rougher image.

A masculine rose, seven years ahead of the trend

The olfactory stance is riskier than the image. In 2004, rose was practically absent from masculine mass-market perfumery. Burberry made it the center of a juice intended for the men's counters, without disguising it.

The house had just followed an entirely different course with Touch pour Homme, built on violet. Brit abandoned that path for a powdery rose and dry spices, and shifted the brand toward a markedly more classic dandyism.

The gamble went unnoticed at the time. It took on meaning ten years later, when masculine roses conquered niche perfumery. Brit Homme now reads as a forerunner, which explains part of its longevity on the shelf.

Two names, a single reference

The perfume was called Brit For Men at launch. The house renamed it Brit For Him in the mid-2010s, without announcing any change to the formula. Both names refer to the product sold under the same reference.

Sources dating this renaming do not agree: some place it in 2014, others in 2016. No official communication settles the matter, and the discrepancy is presented as such rather than corrected by guesswork.

The Brit line has since expanded, with feminine variations, Brit Rhythm in 2013 and several limited editions. The 2004 masculine remains the starting point for all its variations for men.