Contradiction Calvin Klein perfume – a fragrance for women 1997

It’s something that generally stays in the back corners of my fragrance closet as it’s not something I reach for often. It was the Fragrantica Readers’ Choice Awards that brought it back to my attention. See, I was really amused by how confused some people seem to be by the “Most Futuristic” category. It seems like people are just using it as an extra platform to push their favorites instead of really giving credit to epoch-making fragrances that have brought something new to the table and have introduced either new ingredients, notes, combinations or changed something in how the target audience is spoken to.

This is, however, the category that to my nose defines Contradiction. I first experienced Contradiction via a sample between the pages of some fancy architecture or interiors magazine in the early 2000s. I kept rubbing my wrist on that weird perfumed strip, amazed by a fragrance that was for my nose a completely new experience. And because it wasn’t available around me at the time I only got a full bottle of it just a few years ago, after happening across it by accident. And even today it still gives me this peculiar feeling.

Contradiction, released in 1997, somehow manages to encapsulate something that is very 90s in essence, but instead of leaving it at that it puts forth a vision of a fragrance for the following millennium. The composition is somehow at once floral, metallic, musky and aquatic. It is dominated by eucalyptus without making it smell like eucalyptus, instead giving other components such as the lily, peony, sandalwood and musk an eucalyptus treatment which is what creates that cold, metallic feel. As it dries down the sandalwood, musk and tonka soften that initial cold blast, but in a very pleasant way. It definitely develops, but not into a different fragrance and the original characteristics are still retained.

I looked up the combination of the most dominat notes to see how common it is. If I search by only the two main notes, eucalyptus and lily, the entire fragrantica database only comes up with 10 matches, those 10 also including masculine-targeted fragrances. Each added note slashes that number further.

This fragrance is to my nose a true unisex scent and could be very hard to place in a blind test. Looking back at the advertising campaign (with Christy Turlington and Justin Chambers), it was way ahead of the often very scantily clad mainstream. Both the male- and female-targeted fragrances were advertised by models dressed in contemporary suits, shot in black and white, emphasizing the cool and minimalistic feel of the fragrance with sleek metallic backgrounds. Even the perfume bottles are far more similar to each other than most releases that have separate fragrances for women and men.

We constantly have more releases to choose from, and it might not be our first pick very often, but I want to give credit where it’s due. Contradiction is still unique and still looking ahead. It’s very much a composition speaking about our contemporary aspirations and visions of the future.