Alexander Skarsgård Vendetta Uomo is an unlikely pairing on paper: a brooding Swede and an Italian fragrance house built on excess and romanticism. But as Skarsgård explained ahead of The Zoe Report‘s coverage of the launch event, the connection runs deeper than a campaign contract, going all the way back to sweaty school gymnasium dances in Sweden.
Skarsgård is fronting Valentino‘s Vendetta Uomo alongside Dakota Johnson. The fragrance is the Italian house’s first major new launch in six years, created by master perfumer Marie Salamagne. Built around ginger, cinnamon liquor, and patchouli, it’s a woody, spicy gourmand, and the campaign film was directed by Romain Gavras. When the launch event was held, it landed in the middle of what The Zoe Report described as an unprecedented heatwave on 9 September, which made Skarsgård’s earlier joke about using the scent in moderation feel even more pertinent.
From a Swedish Gymnasium to Alexander Skarsgård Vendetta Uomo
The original Vendetta, launched in 1991, was part of Skarsgård’s adolescence in a way that few luxury fragrances manage. He wore it to school dances, applying enough, as he puts it, ‘to fumigate the entire gymnasium.’ Now, decades on, fronting the relaunched version, he is sanguine about the full-circle nature of it. ‘Hopefully I’ve learned to use it in moderation this time,’ he says. ‘We’ll see if I succeed with that.’
His admiration for Valentino goes beyond the scent. He remembers watching the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor and being struck by the founder’s work, describing it as ‘innovative, playful, fun, sexy, and romantic.’ Growing up in Sweden’s quieter, more low-key culture, he found something genuinely exciting in that Italian excess. ‘The aesthetic of the Swede is much more scaled-back and reserved, and there’s a level of conformity,’ he says. ‘For me, it’s fun to break out of that a little bit.’
The Island House and a Smell That Beats Any Perfumer
Not every scent that matters to Skarsgård comes in a glass bottle. Asked which smell most powerfully returns him to home, he doesn’t hesitate: mouldy wallpaper.
His great-great-grandfather built a house on an island in southern Sweden, and it remains in the family today. The wallpaper in his childhood bedroom was old and peeling, but his father refused to replace it on nostalgic grounds. ‘It had a very distinct, sweet, mouldy smell,’ Skarsgård says. ‘Every time I smell it now, it brings me back to my childhood. I was falling asleep in my bed, hearing my parents and grandparents playing cards in the living room with the door slightly open, and just smelling the walls.’
The wallpaper has since been recreated, though the original still lines his old bedroom. ‘Every summer I go there. I give it a good sniff.’ Mould, for the record, is not among Vendetta Uomo’s listed notes.
Red Carpet Rules, Rewritten by Drag Queens
Skarsgård’s approach to dressing for press has become increasingly his own. During the tour for Pillion, he wore a vintage ‘bootlicker’ tee, leather trousers, and biker boots in Cannes, then arrived at a Zurich photocall in a shirt printed with dildos, lube, and paper towels. His reasoning is practical enough: ‘If you do a long press tour, if you’re going to do 40 stops in two months, there can be a certain monotony to it. Why not have some fun with it rather than alternating between a black and a grey suit?’
The person who opened that door for him? The drag queens of San Francisco, without hesitation. At the The Diary of a Teenage Girl premiere at the Castro Theatre, local drag queens were hosting the event while co-star Bel Powley and director Marielle Heller arrived in what Skarsgård describes as ‘these amazing outfits.’ He had brought a suit, found it suddenly ‘so sad and boring,’ and asked to join in. ‘I got a full four-hour glam and a Farrah Fawcett look,’ he says. ‘It made me realize that there are actually options, even for men. You can have fun on the red carpet.’
A version of this story originally appeared in British GQ.
