Next month, Comme des Garçons will launch their second fragrance in collaboration with Monocle magazine, Scent Two: Laurel. Scent One: Hinoki, launched in 2008.
Inspired by a trip to the Bekaa Valley…
Comme des Garcons Dover Street Market ~ fragrance review
Comme des Garçons’ new Dover Street Market fragrance is named for Rei Kawakubo’s London store of the same name. It’s the brand’s first fragrance this year if you don’t count the collaborative efforts with Daphne Guinness and Artek, but it doesn’t feel like a major launch — it’s had relatively little publicity, and as it turns out, it may or may not be the same fragrance as the limited edition scent they did for H&M last year, released in new packaging.1
Dover Street Market is supposed to be a “modern twist on a classic woody fragrance”; the opening is a strong, spicy blend of incense and citrus…
Comme des Garcons + Daphne Guinness Daphne ~ fragrance review
For me this will be the winter of Comme des Garçons Daphne Eau de Parfum. Within half an hour of a dab from a sample tube, I was at my computer ordering a bottle, budget be damned. Its warmth, complexity, and femme fatale vibe were irresistible. At the same time, I think hordes of perfume enthusiasts will detest Daphne. Its sweet thickness might drive comparisons to marshmallow fluff and talcum powder. But I’m smitten.
Perfumer Antoine Lie created Daphne using notes of bitter orange, incense, saffron, rose centifolia, Tunisian jasmine, tuberose, iris, patchouli, oud, amber, and vanilla. Essentially, Daphne is an oriental scent featuring tuberose with all the baroque fixings. It’s named for Daphne Guinness, a British celebrity who seems to have earned her fame mainly through eccentric chic and a prominent family.
Daphne opens with bitter orange and tuberose…
Comme des Garcons + Artek Standard ~ new fragrance
Finnish design firm Artek will launch Standard, a new fragrance created in collaboration with Comme des Garçons:
This project was conceived in the pleasant atmosphere of the first Artek and COMME des GARÇONS collaboration in 2007 at CDG’s Dover Street Market and Aoyama stores. The result is a unique product for Artek…
Dreamily licking D cell batteries
I guarantee you that no fragrance designers at Coty are sitting around, dreamily licking D cell batteries and saying: “Hey! Let’s make a perfume that smells like an asteroid hitting a manicure parlor.” You want white lace and peach blossoms, indulge in a bottle of Jessica Simpson’s Fancy Love. Odeur 53 is not for those who need to be universally liked.
— From Fashion Up There Where the Air Is Thin, an article about the Comme des Garçons fashion line, at the New York Times.