Summer 2006 - My first visit to New York City. I was 18, a student, and the world was mine.
I was on the road in the streets of New York with exactly this attitude. Besides a lot of museums, a visit to the UNO (I was a student with the university in NY at that time) and all the other Touri stuff, a visit to the Abercrombie Flagstore on 5th Avenue was inevitable, I would have heard so much about this shop, my expectations were accordingly high.
If you have ever visited NY in summer, you know what it smells like on the streets: the rumours are just a bunch of exhaust fumes, sweat, hot dogs and pretzels, a little salty when a breeze goes through the humid and otherwise standing air, then again a little sweet from all the department stores, suddenly it stinks of sewage again and this cycle runs through the whole stay in the city. Even if you're standing on the Empire State Building or looking at the skyline at Exchange Place in New Jersey (the latter I can only recommend to anyone who looks at NY - the view is unique and it's not touristy, sometimes I'm standing there alone!), you think you can still smell or smell it.
But if you walk up 5th Avenue on the left side towards Central Park, you will inevitably pass Abercrombie and Fitch Flagstore. Admittedly the shop looks rather unimpressive from the outside, but then, on this summer day in New York in May 2006, I suddenly smelled something on the street that my nose had never smelled before. I was literally drawn into this place. There I was, 18, young, quasi chronically broke, in the flagstore of A&F.
I bought myself a t-shirt, two jeans and a hoodie - the budget really didn't give me any more.
Arriving at the hostel in Chelsea I unpacked my booty... there it was again: this smell I had noticed on the street. A freshness, an energy, a kick I'd never smelt before. Sex to wear, I thought to myself.
I was sniffing my clothes the whole time until a fellow student asked me if I had bought Fierce. Did I buy anything? Fierce... this scent, you know, Abercrombie's.
Blue-eyed as I was, I thought the store had simply set up such incense sticks or it had been sprayed with a very unique room spray. But you could buy that?
I saved the rest of the NY stay as much as I could (and we're talking about NY here), so that at the end of the week I could buy the 50 ml bottle from Fierce. I was as proud as Oskar, it was my very first fragrance, my sex to spray on, my sanctuary.
I was so frugal with that scent, I just have to smile when I remember it. On my return flight to Munich I sprayed myself with some of the scent. During boarding I was approached for the first time by a flight attendant - 'Wow, what have you... i mean you... what's your scent?'. It worked.
Back in Munich, I often received compliments at the university for my fragrance... he was also outrageously good!
With a lot of synthetic freshness, the fragrance attracts you, with warm, woody notes it wraps you around your finger and with a gentle yet intrusive sweetness it never lets you go again. Just like I said, sex to spray on.
And my bonus: Even in Munich almost nobody knew this scent.
Fierce became my constant companion... to the university, to my student jobs, to the library, to the gym, to the bar, to the club, to the dates. Fierce was everywhere. And compliments hail from every corner. I think the highlight was a married lady who asked me if I could tell her my scent because she wanted to smell something like that on her husband.
The scent just flashed me every time I put it on, it was just my big childhood sweetheart, I'd say.
But I got older... 31, to be exact!
Today, 13 years later, after a total of 63 (!!!) stays in New York, in a long-term relationship (curiously enough with a flight attendant) and a very grounded lifestyle..... i still love Fierce (and my partner does too).
Just in November we were to Black Friday in NY and the yield consisted of two 200 ml bottles of Fierce.
I don't wear the fragrance as often as I used to, today I have a much wider selection of fragrances. But the fragrance still does something wonderful to me: it takes me back to the New York of 2006, where a young student roamed the streets of Manhattan, owned the world and the whole future was still open. When I apply the scent today, I feel exactly the same again. That's why I wear it mainly on important occasions, somehow it pushes me to expand my own limits, pushes me to grow, gives my self-confidence a certain kick (here in Switzerland we say 's Chriesi ufem Glace', the cherry on the ice, or better: the dot on the i) and sometimes I even think the scent does something with my posture.
I'm still being addressed when I wear this scent. Not so often anymore, yes, of course, everyone knows him by now, but nevertheless, there is always a nice word about Fierce. My partner loves the scent, some colleagues call me Mr. Abercrombie and for me this scent is definitely my personal flagship, maybe even my signature scent.
Clear, durability and sillage are no longer as strong as with a Dior Sauvage EDP or an Ombre Leather from TF, but these fragrances are not time machines that can take me back in time.
Today I'm 31, love this fragrance and if you believe the feedbacks give, the people love the fragrance at me.
Thank you, Fierce - you are my first great love!
