It was the ultimate anti-1980s, anti-Boomer scent, a riposte to the showy perfumes of the “Dynasty” and Wall Street years, including Calvin Klein’s own best-selling Obsession.

With a bright, citrusy beginning that segued into sweetness and then faded into muskier clarity, it smelled like teen spirit. It was the perfect sensory expression of a generation that grew up at the tail-end of the illusion that was the American dream, without the self-satisfied ambitions of their striving parents, alienated from gold chains, shoulder pads and “Miami Vice” pastels, ambivalent about the concept of … well, pretty much everything.

— Read more about CK One at It Smelled Like Gen X Spirit at The New York Times.