Skip to content

Bob Slattery

Bob Slattery, also known as Robert Slattery, is the perfumer credited with Obsession for Men, launched by Calvin Klein in 1986, a year after Obsession, its women’s counterpart. Elena Vosnaki of Perfume Shrine notes that no other creation is attributed to him; she describes his fragrance as a tension between the mandarin top note and the warm amber base, lifted by nutmeg and cinnamon.

The perfumer behind Obsession for Men

Bob Slattery, also known as Robert Slattery, is the perfumer credited with Obsession for Men, launched by Calvin Klein in 1986. The men’s version arrived a year after Obsession, the house’s women’s fragrance released in 1985. Elena Vosnaki of Perfume Shrine noted in 2018 that no other creation is attributed to him.

A spicy oriental from the 1980s

Elena Vosnaki places the two Obsessions in 1980s America: brash fragrances, heirs to the warmth of the French orientals, at a time when the success of Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium was still fresh in everyone’s memory.

According to her, Ann Gottlieb, creative director of Calvin Klein fragrances, had asked for a sexy scent with a raw edge. She sees Bob Slattery achieving it through the tension between dependable materials: mandarin at the top, warm amber at the base, nutmeg and cinnamon for bite.

Elena Vosnaki finds the current formula diluted, stripped of the density that gave the original its character; she still finds in it a journey back to the late 1980s.

Creations by Bob Slattery