Abercrombie Just Quietly Brought Back a Millennial-Favorite Scent
There was a time not too long ago when Millennials used to head to the mall to restock on their signature scents. And for many teenage shoppers who were coming of age in the early 2000s, the main destination for cologne and perfume was Abercrombie & Fitch.
Whether it was the brand’s signature scent, Cologne 41, or Woods (RIP), there was something for everyone—which inevitably led to heartache when the brand discontinued most of their iconic fragrances during the tumultuous decade and a half of brand decline that followed.
But two decades later, the retailer has become fashionable anew. And now, Abercrombie is digging into its nostalgic roots and quietly bringing back its Millennial-favorite scent, Fierce.
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Fierce fragrance is making a comeback at Abercrombie.
Even if you don’t think you remember Fierce during its original heyday, there’s a very good chance you do if you ever set foot in (or even walked by) an Abercrombie store.
As a former employee of the store during the mid-2000s, your intrepid reporter was personally tasked with spraying copious amounts of the unisex fragrance throughout the store at hourly intervals, making the scent literally impossible to miss while perusing t-shirts and deeply distressed jeans.
But if you’re one of the many who wouldn’t leave the house without a spritz, you might want to dust off that iPod, fire up some Fall Out Boy or Hoobstank, and head down to your nearest Abercrombie for a stroll down memory lane.
Over the last few years, the retailer has very silently brought Fierce back into its inventory after discontinuing it in 2017, per Business Insider. The unisex fragrance is now available on the company’s website for $67.20 for a 3.4-ounce bottle or $110.40 for a 6.7-ounce bottle.
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Former fans are excited by the return.
While the current bottle design doesn’t conspicuously feature the nude male torso that it did in the past, it is still causing a stir among longtime fans. In a recent post to Reddit, one shopper who says they consider themselves an “elder Millennial” says they were thrilled to find the fragrance they first discovered in 2004 back available for sale online.
“It’s a great fragrance,” one Redditor wrote in reply. “Very similar to Mountblanc Legend. Clean and masculine.”
In a separate post to the r/Fragrance subreddit, another person gushed about the scent and ranked it among their top picks of all time. “It just smells good,” they write. “It’s not the nostalgia: Of all the generic designer fragrances, this one stands out. I think it’s heavily underrated, even though there seems to be an increase in popularity again.”
Even though some were quick to point out that it has a bit of a negative connotation with mid-aughts culture, it still stands out as a quality fragrance.
“At one point, it was entirely associated with teen mall shopping, loud music, and headaches, but as a Millennial, trust me when I say that it evokes a ton of nostalgia when someone smells it unexpectedly,” one person wrote in a reply.
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Abercrombie is back in a big way.
Abercrombie’s downfall began a decade and a half ago with problematic messaging on its t-shirts and racy advertising, and culminated with criminal charges against its long-running CEO, Mike Jeffries. But new leadership has managed to revive the once-faltering brand over the past decade, making the Millennial destination hip once again with younger audiences.
Sales data show the company is burgeoning once again, with revenues of $1.3 billion, surpassing Wall Street expectations of the retailer, Investing.com reports. Its third-quarter earnings also beat forecasts, bringing in $2.36 per share versus the expected $2.20. Investment firm Jeffries increased its fourth-quarter outlook for the brand based on positive holiday shopping season results.