Clinton got elected.
Boyz II Men, Whitney Houston, and Vanessa Williams topped the charts.
And grand perfumier and fragrance house Coty launched Gravity for men.
Gravity by Coty
1992
The Goods
Gravity still has an active fanbase 21 years in the future, but like many specific fragrances breaking free from the ordinary it has its detractors. As far as I'm concerned, Gravity deserves a place in honorable fragrance history along with the greats. Why? It's hard to explain. You had to be there. Much in the way the few insiders from back in the day knew the real Kurt Cobain in his Seattle halcyon days before Nirvana's success, you had to be there.
With a basic dying-days-of-the-yuppie note combination of leather and white pepper creating the scent foundation, Gravity doesn't feel like anything special upon first sampling. The finish and middle notes however, create a deceptively complex foreshadowing of the fragrance future. Now, before you get annoyed and shake your head, I do ramble on about the 1990s in fragrance to an excessive degree. But you had to be there. Let's go back.
Gravity was the very first fragrance I owned (I still have it on my collection shelf), which was given as a gift to me at all of age 6 or 7 to mark some occasion in which I was supposed to appear formally. (A lot of pressure for a kid in the relatively middle of nowhere). Mind you, as a FANCY boy, I was no stranger to the concept of scents. In fact, as a toddler I sniffed and smelled everything to the point of looking like an adorable, precious crack baby getting his fix. This desire to smell things that smelled good was so strong I used various soap items as toys, especially the smaller bars halfway between a normal bath bar and a hotel sized soap, along with real toys because I preferred everything smell just so. In light of this Gravity didn't seem like anything unexpected. What made it a momentous occasion for me, however, was that this this was supposed to be something that I owned outright, as opposed to the barfening array of early to mid 20th century concoctions like Old Spice, English Leather, and any number of colorful potions and flankers put out by our lovely local Avon lady that various relatives on my mom's side had worn over the years. I didn't like any of them, really. If anything I was apathetic. But when I first smelled Gravity everything in my little head exploded. The nuances screamed time that moved forward, rather than time that stood still.
Argent's Fragrance Theatre
This new review feature will be the monologue or dialogue of a character I imagine who would use the particular fragrance in review, and it would be his favorite. Let the joyful thespanism and comedy commence! *Ahem*
"Hey! Stop looking at me. I don't know what the big idea is but you're making me feel really uncomfortable. No. I don't have it. I'll try to get it. Yeah yeah. The copier sucks. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I said maybe OK? Maybe. Uh-huh. Yeah. They're calling it Windows 95. Isn't that stupid? Okay. Yeah. No. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man, super funny. NOT! I'm out."
Conclusion
While Gravity can be on the light lasting side and have the elements of a basic all-purpose fragrance, its subtleties defined, for me anyways, the before and the after of fragrance. The harmony of the classic masculine aromas and the sweet, sharp ornamental notes really put it at the forefront of the style of its time.
Rank It Up!
5 of 7 Sprays
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