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If ever there was time for nostalgia, it’s 2020. The year that brought us social distancing, Zoom fatigue, and doom scrolling has left many feeling out of sorts. As much as we’re all trying to adjust to the new normal, it’s comforting to think back to a time before every hug came with added worries and the concept of travel wasn’t reserved for daydreams. Everyone tackles their longing for the past differently. Some people reconnect with old friends; others rewatch favorite sitcom episodes until they can recite the dialogue; I sift through drawers and scour the internet searching for old perfume.
Ever since New York’s stay in place order began in March, my head has been filled with thoughts of fragrances past. I’ve always loved perfume, but under ordinary circumstances, I’m focused on what’s new, discovering a line I’d never heard of or the latest release from a beloved perfumer. Now my preoccupation is odor-evoked memories distinctly from the 90s and early 00s. Growing up during the Clinton administration and obsessively interested in fashion and beauty, I followed launches and kept up with what were, to my mind, revolutionary trends. The moment I catch a whiff of citrus, I’m reminded of CK One, Calvin Klein’s unisex juggernaut, which was released in 1994 and immediately challenged old ideas about gender and grooming. I can still recall the double-page ads that featured it-models like Kate Moss and Jenny Schmizu in gritty shades of grey and the scented strips I’d tear from magazines and rub into my wrists until the paper crumbled.
Amongst my friends, the vibe was considerably girlier. I still have flashbacks to the sugary pungency of the Victoria’s Secret body sprays we collectively hoarded in junior high. The dollars we diligently saved from our allowances were blown in a frenzied haze of fruity floral, but the thrill of walking out of the VS store with our pink and white striped bags felt liberating, like in that moment we were adults. Likewise, the candied depth—and cutesy bottle—of Thierry Mugler’s Angel was an almost unattainable goal. Released in 1992, the scent was the first gourmand or foodie fragrance to hit the market. A luxury item and the kind of enveloping, sexy concoction that few parents at that time would feel comfortable purchasing for their preteen, we sniffed its vanilla and patchouli aroma repeatedly on mall testers, dreaming of the moment we’d be sophisticated enough to wear it.
Fragrance loyalty is a concept I’ve yet to embrace, so there were dozens of scents that made their way onto my radar during my youth; each came with its own memory. Freshman year of high school meant loving the chypre sparkle of Chanel’s Cristalle only to switch to Armani’s peony and pineapple-laced Acqua di Gio. I discovered Madonna wore Robert Piguet’s classic, Fracas, and promptly doused myself in tuberose. Even my classmates’ preferences stick in my mind; I will never think of Estee Lauder’s Pleasures without smiling to myself about my close friend Rocio and the cloud of white lilies that accompanied them wherever they went.
Lately, all of that feels worth remembering and repurchasing. My late-night online shopping has involved scooping up scents I thought I’d left in the past. Many have been reformulated, discontinued, or forgotten, but that hasn’t stopped me from attempting to track them down. Some of the purchases have been successful—Cristalle still smells precisely as I remembered it—others less so. Despite my valiant efforts, the body sprays of my youth induce a headache the moment I spray them on. Finding new, similar favorites has been hit or miss too: many of the things that made these fragrances special to me can’t be duplicated. High school only happens once, and too much time spent trying to recreate that energy can be at best futile, at worst, sad.
It was comforting to learn that the connection between perfumes and periods of time wasn’t just a quirk I’d developed. The signature scent of a particular decade is linked directly to developments within the fragrance industry. “There are two essential scents created at the beginning of the nineties, and they launched significant olfactive trends,” says Kilian fragrances founder and creative director Killian Hennessy. On the phone from Paris, Hennessy talked me through the art of perfumery and its intersection with science. “The first advance was Angel from Thierry Mugler, where they used a raw material called ethyl maltol, and that’s the sweet note,” he said. “It’s in Angel, Flowerbomb, and every sweet perfume on the market. It was revolutionary then, and if you look at the market today, you’ll see that [category] is alive and well.” A quick peek at the current best-selling perfumes at Sephora revealed a number of fragrances featuring notes straight out of a cookbook. (Hennessy’s own line specializes in EDPs that range from the coconut milk sweetness of Moonlight in Love to the boozy Black Phantom.)
The lightweight transparency of Acqua di Gio and Pleasures also stemmed from technological advancements. “The other note that is symbolic of the 90s is calone; it’s the marine note used in Escape from Calvin Klein and Issey Miyake, which were created in 1990 and ’91. That aquatic element led to the entire 90s perfume style, which was very serene.” Of course, all that serenity through chemistry came with a downside: hundreds of releases that smelled nearly identical. “After a while, it became so easy to create a transparent fragrance because you had access to all these notes. You add a little bit of peach or pineapple, a little bit of rose, and basically you get every other perfume that came after,” he explained. “For 15 years, the market was oversaturated with transparent florals. Big brands had a hard time breaking from those olfactive structures. The reason why smaller perfumers were able to make an impact so quickly [in the early 2000s] was that consumers were tired of smelling either a sweet copy of Angel or a transparent perfume that was a copy of Pleasures.”
Learning more about the scientific achievements that led to both categories’ ubiquity was eye-opening, but perfume can mean so much more than what’s in the bottle. For Hennessy, the connection between scent and memory runs deep—especially now. “When the future is uncertain, you turn to the past,” he says. “You want to relive those beautiful moments—we’ve all had them—and when you reminisce you know it’s going to be good.” At present, Hennessy is channeling his need for nostalgia into the creation of cologne made using techniques from the 1800s. The concept satisfies his inner history buff, but thoughts of his 90s childhood have played a role in his work. When creating Love Don’t Be Shy, his confection-inspired gourmand, he and perfumer Calice Becker looked to the ultimate sweet treat. “I wanted to create something so delicious and yummy it would make someone want to bite your neck, but I also wanted to move away from the Angel archetype,” he says. “One day [Calice] was making marshmallows for her kids using her grandmother’s recipe. She sent me the note and I just loved it, it was exactly what I was looking for. We all had marshmallows when we were kids and it just brings back so many beautiful memories.” No wonder it’s rumored to be Rihanna’s favorite perfume.
Since chatting with Hennessy, it’s been easier to merge my adult tastes with old-school whimsy. I don’t need to get into an eBay bidding war over the last bottle of a discontinued designer fragrance; there’s plenty of good stuff that’s easier to get ahold of. In Tom Ford’s newly launched Bitter Peach, I’ve found the saccharine pleasures of Angel’s patchouli and fruit combo reenergized with the addition of blood orange and boozy cognac. The unisex concept introduced by CK One kickstarted a movement and these days perfumes are no longer confined to ideas about gender. Initio Parfums Privés' Rehab, another fashion-forward creation beloved by men and women alike, is the latest to win my affections. The polar opposite of CK's freshness it skews woody with a hint of tobacco addictive as its name suggests. Neither concoction is a dupe or replica of an existing scent, but they allude to the past in ways that feel modern.
The lure of Love Spell has been harder to sate. While the real deal Victoria’s Secret body spray no longer appeals to me, I haven’t been able to find anything that offers me the same level of fantasy. Killian’s Love Don’t Be Shy with its Rihanna associations comes close. Still, its irreverent marshmallow quality puts it into a separate (and more inventive) category, one that makes me enjoy it for its own merits. While it’s impossible to Google search for a perfume that makes you feel like you’re Adriana Lima, I’m still keeping an eye out. Who knows, maybe 2020's nostalgia obsession will lead to a daring new fragrance that keeps us talking for decades.
