Gustave's favorite perfume is, above all, a symbol of his reputation. With its fancy French-sounding name and its apparently super-powerful scent, L'Air de Panache fits perfectly into the fussy, overblown gentility that envelopes Gustave's way of speaking, dressing, and general demeanor.

Much like M. Gustave can go a little overboard with his fussiness—does anyone really like hearing forty-seven-stanza poems when they eat their soup?—he also goes overboard with his L'Air de Panache. He douses himself in the stuff. As Mustafa tells us, "the scent announced his approach from a great distance and lingered for many minutes after he was gone."

Yikes. This makes M. Gustave sound like a middle-school boy who's just bought his first can of body spray (and who has seen too many spray-this-cologne-and-the-ladeez-will-love-you commercials).

That description also sounds like the definition of a reputation—something that influences our opinions and perception of people both before ("announced his approach") and after ("lingered for many minutes after he was gone") we meet them.

Unfortunately, the whiff of L'Air de Panache helps give Gustave away when Henckels smells it in their abandoned freight car. Like his reputation, the perfume both aids and hinders Gustave's journey through Zubrowka.

Finally, while not of particular symbolic significance, L'Air de Panache plays an important role in the relationship between Gustave and Zero. Zero's forgetting to bring a bottle of his signature scent enrages Gustave, even after Zero helps him escape from prison. No safe house? That's unfortunate. No disguises? Whoops: oversight. No L'Air de Panache?! That's the last straw.

It's because of the lack of his special perfume that Gustave begins his tirade of insults on Zero, which prompts Zero to tell Gustave his story, which in turn makes Gustave beg forgiveness and learn to love Zero as a brother. After they bond, Gustave shares a new bottle of L'Air with Zero, symbolizing their bonding and their brotherhood (and also maybe symbolizing that Zero might be a wee bit stinky).