Imagination

Imagination follows Louis Vuitton's 2021 men's release, a soapy citrus built by master perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud as a cleaned-up, brightened revisit of his own 1990s work for Bulgari. Pearl Fragrances keeps the sparkling citron-bergamot-orange opening that reviewers describe as sunlight on rippling water, and it's genuinely the closest part of this dupe to the original - bright, zesty and immediate. The ginger-cinnamon heart is present but quieter than in the real thing, and the black tea note that gives Louis Vuitton's version its distinctive, slightly smoky complexity is thinned into something closer to plain woody musk. The original's real trick is its huge ambroxan base, which reviewers credit with impressive longevity and a close-to-skin elegance that lasts most of a day; here, that base fades within a couple of hours, leaving a pleasant but much shorter-lived citrus-woody impression. Good for a fresh morning spray, less so for all-day wear.