So we all know Calvin Klein’s CK One, yes? It launched in 1994, and I am sure I am not the only woman who smelled it, thought it smelled sort of like men’s cologne, and found to my surprise that I liked wearing something that smelled sort of like men’s cologne.¹ (Men especially, do comment and tell us what it smelled like to you!) When I reviewed it back in 2006, I duly thanked Calvin Klein for helping me to figure out, eventually, that I could not only wear unisex fragrances, but I could wear whatever I wanted — hello, Eau Sauvage.

CK One took the youth market by storm. Not to downplay the achievement, but of course that was infinitely easier in 1994 — it was not so hard to capture consumer attention when there were only around 100 new fragrances a year, and when most media consumption was from a limited number of traditional platforms.² Calvin Klein followed up with CK Be in 1996, and then a bazillionty flankers…

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