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  • 26-DEC-2024 | Excerpt from J. Peterman’s “1903” Ad

26-DEC-2024 | Excerpt from J. Peterman’s “1903” Ad

Author

Dan Bogachek
December 26, 2024

Excerpt from J. Peterman’s “1903” Ad

1903.

I was browsing in a Paris antique shop one winter afternoon when a fitted leather train case caught my eye.

It contained silver-handled brushes, boot hooks, a straight razor, several silver-stoppered glass bottles.

One bottle was different. Encased in yew-wood, with a handwritten date: 1903.

Inside the bottle, there was still the faint aroma of a gentleman’s cologne. Custom-made for a rich traveler a century ago.

Curiosity was eating at me. I bought the case and sent the bottle to a laboratory for analysis. They broke down the residue by gas chromatography. Identified its fingerprint through spectrophotometry.

The report: and “old woody fougére.” Clean citrus notes, bergamot, “green notes.” The middle notes: clary sage, cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum… elemi, tabac, frankincense.

The detective work was impressive. So is the thing itself. Women like the way it smells on a man. Like a symphony that begins loudly, then soon slides into subtle, entangling developments that grow on them.

Or so I’ve been told. 🏁

  • Nothing beats a story. And all the details in this one only add to the mystery of the cologne and make it one-of-a-kind.

  • Sex sells: “women like the way it smells on a man” and “then soon slides into subtle, entangling developments that grow on them.” Word play/double meaning, sexy or not, packs a big punch.

  • Note the variety. Long sentences for scene painting, short sentences to punctuate or move the plot forward. Complete ideas >> complete sentences.

Structure:
Once upon a time (“I was browsing in a Paris antique shop…”) → call to adventure (“one bottle was different”) → down the rabbit hole (“curiosity was eating at me”) → the interesting details, while selling you on the experience itself (“the report…”) → cultivate desire (“the detective work…”) → too cool for school pull-back.

“Or so I’ve been told”: yep, it’s toeing the line and borderline camp — but benefit of the doubt scores this as self-aware and coquettish rather than pretentious. It’s up to interpretation.

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].