Yacht Club Gift Set

Coconut over cedar and amber, in a presentation box: Scalpers Yacht Club Gift Set is the one to reach for when the one you are buying for wears fragrance in July rather than December. The composition is built around contrast. Cardamom, pink pepper and lemon start it off sharp and aromatic, the cardamom cool and green, the pink pepper prickly, the lemon brief and bright. Then coconut arrives and changes the temperature entirely, creamy without being sweet, cut with vetiver and sandalwood so it keeps a dry, slightly grassy spine rather than melting into something tropical.

Inside are the 125ml Eau de Parfum, a 15ml luxury spray and a men's wallet. Indonesian patchouli, atlas cedar and amber finish it. Patchouli gives the earth, cedar the dry splinter, amber the resinous glow, and between them they give the scent its staying power on a hot day, which is when most light fragrances give up. Emilie Coppermann and Pierre-Constantin Guéros are credited with the composition, and nine materials is a lean count for something this rounded. Given as a set it reads as a holiday present or a summer birthday rather than a Christmas one, and that specificity is useful: it tells the recipient you thought about when they would actually wear it. It is unisex enough in feel to be given either way, and light enough that nobody will find it imposing at a table outdoors or on a crowded deck in the sun.

Scalpers comes from Seville and has been trading since 2007. It started with suits, shirts and accessories carrying the embroidered skull that still marks the brand, expanded into collections for women and children, and added homeware in 2021. Its fragrance range is developed under licence by Perfumes y Diseno.