The 1990s were weird for me and my brother. We spent a year in Ireland. And we're not Irish. In the summers I would depart from whatever the fragrance of the year was and purchase a bottle of Tommy by Hilfiger, and from June to September I'd revel in the beautiful sweet-fresh aroma of this wonderful cologne. This review is for the vintage 1990s version of Tommy - I haven't smelled the current version.
Tommy inhabits that strange space in the generic designer realm where all the fresh and sweet chems align and work perfectly. There's a drop of lavender, a touch of citrus, bit of cardamom, a few smidgens of red and green apple, a wonderful woody amber and tonka drydown, with a distinct ozonic accent brushed across everything. This was cargo pants and chest-stripe sweaters, Friends and eight years of Bill Clinton, all bottled up and sold to Americans who needed reminding that they were American.
And I needed that reminder. I never could get used to living in Ireland, although in retrospect I think it rubbed off on me, and I consider it my second home. I was a teenager who felt a bit isolated in a strange countryside, but it was a beautiful place to come of age, and I guess I was lucky to experience it before the trappings of western culture swept in and robbed it of its identity.