Stop air and noise pollution in malls. Whether you remember Drakkar Noir as a bad cologne or a bad Danish dance duo from the '80s, either way A&F pumps out way too much of it from its doorways.
— Chris Riemenschneider on why you should not ask for anything from Abercrombie & Fitch for Christmas, in Please, please, please don't ask for these at the Star Tribune. Many thanks to Emily for the link!
A columnist on shopping recently criticized A & F for their extreme perfume- and music-pumping. His take is that both are intended to keep the older generation out of the stores. The reason? Not just to keep the store’s feel as “rebellious cool.” Mom is the one who would point out to her teenager that the clothes are unoriginal, shoddy, overpriced takes on trends that are already everywhere at many price points. This is not the kind of person they want in the store.
Interesting theory!
The CEO’s mother used to get him a bottle of this every year for a Christmas gift and he didn’t have the heart to tell her he stopped wearing it his senior year of high school. He used to leave it in the common bath area or laundry area in college in the hopes someone would take it or leave it behind in our closet when we moved from flat to flat since he didn’t want to just throw it out. Finally, he happened to casually mention that he had become fond of Obsession for men after I bought him some the summer we began dating and that has happily taken Drakkar Noir’s place. 😉 Lucky for me, I was never bombarded with the stuff and while it’s really generic, it isn’t intolerable. I rather like Midsummer’s Night, the black candle from Yankee, which he says smells a good deal like DN and would prefer I not burn when he’s around. 😀
That’s so sweet she kept giving it to him every year though!
Yeah, it was cute in a way and makes sense for me from the parent point of view. Hence why I couldn’t ever throw them out, either. It only recently occured to me we could always take them to a thrift shop or Good Will shop so someone else could enjoy them.
She also packed school lunches for him his entire school career while he lived at home, even though he told her he usually went out for them starting in junior high. It was really kind of cute save for the money she could have saved if he’d been able to let her know she *really* didn’t need to go to all the trouble. She was a very nurturing mother and loved tradition.
She always got me really lovely perfume and bath products, too, which I thought was really nice given she knows my love for them. So we’re her annual supplier of EL’s Beautiful so she never runs out since it’s her signature perfume, and we just have to assume she hasn’t gotten tired of it as the CEO did with DN.
Aw. A nicer mother than I am, that’s for sure!
I kind of liked Drakkar Noir too, but it does seem sort of stuck in its time period.
Our mall has NO Abercrombie & Fitch!!
You’re not missing much.
I think I was gloating a little bit.
…a lot…. 😉
Ya. Over my head, not hard to do 😉
Hey, Drakkar Noir was the stuff of high school romance in the 80s… either that or Canoe, lol! Let’s not disparage an oldie but almost goodie. I’d rather wear DN than some of the drek coming out these days…. And yes, A&F is garbage in general.
Old Spice was big in my day…and I still love it.
Old Spice is such a comfort scent to me. It’s what my grandfather and much loved late father-in-law wore, but I don’t necessarily equate it with older gentlemen. It’s warm, familiar and instantly recognizable and makes me think of a casually confident yet impeccably groomed man. I think I’d love it on someone my own age or younger just as much as on the demographic with whom it is most frequently associated.
My father wore it, so it’s off limits to my husband (and too weird on me). But it smells wonderful.
I have a bottle of after-shave (the store didn’t have cologne and I was desperate – lol). I like to put it on at bedtime.
Nobody in my life ever wore Old Spice, so I don’t have any fatherly or grandfatherly associations. I “discovered” it myself when looking for the perfect spicy carnation, and I love it. I often wear it to work and get many compliments on it. When I ask them what they think it is, NOBODY guesses Old Spice. Maybe it smells differently on me than on Grandpa, or maybe they just can’t imagine a woman wearing it – though it was originally a woman’s perfume. I think they just subtracted a little rose and put a ship on the bottle.
My DH is a Drakkar Noir addict. It has taken me 20 years of extreme patience to get him to stop applying it too “liberally”. Aye Carrumba! But when he applies correctly, he still smells dreamy to me like he did the 1st nite I met him. Okay altogether now… AWWWWW 😀
Yes, yes it is. I have fond memories of Drakkar Noir, and precious ones of Polo Green. *sigh* I saw him at our 25th HS Reunion, and he still makes my heart skip a beat. Loved him since eighth grade…. He must have said something along those lines to his wife because she made sure he never even said so much as hello to me.
I’ve been married almost fifteen years now, three kids, and I’ve tried both of those colognes on my husband but it just isn’t the same. He smells yummy in Fueilles de Tabac, and even better in Dans tes Bras to the point that he was shooing me off of him after testing a little bit of my precious sample on him.
I live about 300 feet from the London shop (queues around the block on Saturday and Sunday) and an very close to writing to the local council about the fragrance habits- I can smell it in my bedroom, which, as you can imagine, is not a fragrance free environment….
Oh my.
I’m totally unfamiliar with A&F fragrance (ours faces a street and I don’t think it pumps scent onto the sidewalk). I’m not saying I mind being unfamiliar with it.
I haven’t smelled Drakkar in years, but used to love it. Now I’m craving a vial for nostalgia’s sake. I wonder if it smells that same. I also loved YSL Jazz from around that period.
I’ve actually heard that some of them are really nice. The store itself is so overly scented that I can’t make myself go in and try them.
My husband and I like to watch the “changing of the guys” who stand around outside the doors look cool. I guess they make you want to go in and get some stuff to look cool, too. We call them Chad, Chad 2.0, etc. The Chads have never been nice to me, when clearly I am somebody’s mother who is going to go in and spend some money. Luckily, older (step) kids went to a magnet high school with a very smart, artistic, alternative crowd, so they were so over A&F by ninth grade they were under it. See, I’m cool, too. At least the SAs at Saks think so! They greet me with hugs and kisses when I arrive. Unlike the Chads.
Julia, I love it! The Chads. And I love that your kids are independent enough to be “over it.”
YSL Jazz was very nice! I remember liking the packaging, too.
I still love Drakkar Noir – it’s what my hubby wore when we met (and still wears most of the time, to be honest). I’m working on getting him to try new things – the problem is that if he sees *me* wear it (as I am wont to do), he won’t try it.
As always, I think it’s the people who wore too much of it that ruined it for everyone. I still like it, too.
It’s so bad that I hold my nose as I pass by. Then again, I’m not their target customer, so I’m sure they don’t care. I pray for them to crash and burn anyway.
Yeah, they don’t care if they annoy me either, although my son will very soon be in the right target group.
In my club-hopping days, it seemed like every man wore DN or Private Stock. Robin- I too like the smell of old spice on a man. An oldie, but a goodie, says my husband.
Turns out I like OS on me too 🙂
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on me. Amouage Dia Man does though.Probably because I like leather to begin with.
I unfortunately attended an all boys private school. There were gangs there too. The POLO gang, the Dakkar Noir gang, but also the Azzaro gang, the natural skunky scent gang and of course, the patchouli-to-hide-the-illegal-scent gang. I’ve never been able to go near thoses since (I was quite the rebel–I wore Chanel pour Monsieur) so no DK for me.
As for A&F, I can deal with the music, but I really have to fight the urge to go in there one day with a gas mask and a flashligh (turn on the lights already!!!)
I take it there was no Chanel gang, LOL?
LOL!
A Gang of One
I think your description of “gangs” is pretty amusing. I myself have come across some of the individuals you describe, even to this day. I don’t remember any perfume girl gangs when I was in school.
We had the Poison Gang, who were “rebels” with Daddy’s money and black eyeliner, the Lauren gang, who were preppy, student council types, and the hideous Giorgio Beverly Hills gang who were sluts.
Nothing against black eyeliner, though. I am a child of the 80’s and I still love it. With a restrained hand.
Heh.
We had the Tommy Girl gang – the popular, overly preppy crowd. The Cool Water gang – the sporty ones. The Chanel gang – feeling too cool for school with 20-something boyfriends and their parents’ money. The Oilily gang – the “cute” type. The boys were uniformly in Axe.