Fierce Icon Abercrombie & Fitch 2015

Recently, I was - for the first time in years and of course solely out of anthropological interest - in a store of Abercrombie & Fitch. At first glance, everything seemed unchanged: the murals with the bare athletic bodies in the stairwell, the dark wood interior, the sparsely illuminated merchandise - and finally the waves of the inevitable Fierce wafting onto the street, perhaps the most iconic signature of the brand with the moose. What was missing were the scantily clad boys at the entrance, with whom one could take photos in the past - and the customers. It was quite empty in there, and even the disco beats were less thumping than I remembered. Abercrombie & Fitch is - despite various attempts to counteract this - so out that one would need to invent a new word for it.

In the midst of this surreal yet familiar scene - it was hardly ten years ago that the in-crowd in New York, London, and Tokyo lined up before the temples of coolness and artificial scarcity - a scene that seemed almost touching in its emptiness, Fierce Icon, Abercrombie's new fragrance, presented itself. Regardless of my current - undoubtedly 'influenced' by too much engagement with perfume - judgment of it, Fierce - the real, true one - is in its way a monolith in its class: not necessarily loved or even respected, yet recognized by nearly everyone who has once caught a whiff of it. And there was a time many years ago when I liked it, which is why it still evokes a sense of nostalgia and almost a bit of melancholy in me.

Fierce Icon, its 2015 bastard, lacks this foundational credit and therefore reveals its entire, metallic artificially sweet drugstore splendor completely unprotected and unmercifully. Black pepper, bergamot, and leatherwood (the somewhat cooler-sounding English name for Tasmanian false elm) are mentioned as its fragrance ingredients - described by Abercrombie & Fitch as 'unique, refined, warm, and seductive' with 'bold and masculine attitude.' It pains me a bit to state that even refinement, warmth, seduction, or boldness are only laboriously discernible. Masculinity could still be debated, but uniqueness - guys, come on! - few attributes are less applicable to this almost painfully trivial and interchangeable student fragrance, whose footprints of the not uncontroversial Fierce are so large that one literally believes to hear the echo of much smaller feet in its worn hollow.

Conclusion, in the words of the immortal Wolfgang Petry:
'That's madness - why are you sending me to hell? (Hell! Hell! Hell!)
You leave my soul freezing cold!'