Way back in 2009, my friend A. and I went to see "The September Issue," a documentary film about Vogue magazine and its influential (and infamous) editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. If you'd grabbed me on the way out of the theater and asked me to review the film in one line, I'd have said, "Go for Anna, but stay for Grace." Grace Coddington, creative director of Vogue, was the movie's surprise star — she impressed us with her imagination and her commitment to her work and she reminded us why we're bewitched and inspired by fashion despite ourselves.
Coddington (now Vogue's Creative Director at Large) has just collaborated with Comme des Garçons on a fragrance called Grace by Grace Coddington. This scent was inspired by Coddington's "love of English roses" and its composition includes top notes of bergamot, mint, basil, cardamom and pink pepper; heart notes of Moroccan rose, freesia and peach blossom; and base notes of vetiver, cashmere wood, white musk and amber. It was developed with Comme des Garçons Parfum's Creative Director Christian Astuguevieille, and the cat-shaped bottle was designed by Fabien Baron. (If Brancusi had ever sculpted a cat, it might have ended up looking something like this.)
Roses, cats, fashion magazines...this would have to be a pretty bad perfume for me to dislike it. Fortunately, it's good, in a cheerful and deceptively simple way. Coddington may flaunt her dramatic red mane and dark lipstick, but she apparently loves her roses dewy-fresh. Grace starts off with a herbal-mint top note and then quickly morphs into a squeaky-clean "shampoo floral," whose roses just smell pink and whose other floral and green notes are equally buoyant. The base notes, other than the white musk, are very subtle. Grace feels fairly linear, although it also manages to seem winsome rather than cheap, despite my shampoo comparison.
Grace would appeal to anyone who loves Diptyque Eau Rose or some of the lighter, fruitier offerings from Les Parfums de Rosine. It's a perfect rose fragrance for spring and summer, and I've been spritzing it on with abandon. Despite its transparency, it has surprisingly good tenacity on the skin. I've been applying it in the morning before leaving for work, and just when I think it has faded away, I'll catch a breath of rose wafting from my wrists at odd moments throughout the afternoon.
Grace by Grace Coddington joins Etat Libre d'Orange Like This on my very short list of "favorite celebrity fragrances," because it suits my taste, I respect the celebrity in question, and I can actually imagine her being involved in the process. If you're at all curious, do visit her website for some charming line drawings (more cats!) and the story behind the perfume.
Comme des Garçons Grace by Grace Coddington is available as 50 ($110) and 100 ($145) ml Eau de Toilette. For buying information, see the listing for Comme des Garçons under Perfume Houses (or buy directly from Grace Coddington's website, at the link in the last paragraph).
Does indeed sounds lovely and I can’t wait to get my bottle 😉 I’m really happy that you like it as well..I might not have been that excited, if you hated it 😛
I love the bootle, the little tote it comes in and the package is simple and elegant 🙂
Cats, perfume, magazines and Grace Coddington..what is not to like 😀
Hi! 🙂
The body of the bottle is very weighty and elegant, like you said! The cat is a bit lightweight — I was examining it in Dover Street Market, where I always try to be discreet so that no one will notice how uncool I am, and the cap flew off and out of my hand when I pulled it too hard! So much for that, lol.
I meant, the CAP is a bit lightweight! but very shiny. 😉
Hi 😀
Hahaha…you just made me laugh out loud 😀 I hope that no one noticed that you pulled too hard and the cat flew off 😉
I doubt that any will think you are uncool :*
Hah! Yes. The cat head flew out of my hand, hit the floor, bounced, and ended up rolling over to some fancy sneaker display. I am such a klutz! :0
So the cap is plastic rather than glass? Too bad if so – I’m not particularly fond of plastic caps.
I can’t think of many non-plastic tops, sadly. Even the elegant leather-wrapped Hermessence caps are mostly plastic!
Hanae Mori Butterfly, glass cap.
And Le Labo, Neela Vermeire, and the expensive TDCs are metal. But you pay for it!
CB I Hate Perfumes..nice glass and grind
Aren’t the Tauer caps wood? (I’m away from home for the year with only sample vials I made, but that seems right?)
Yes, it’s plastic, although it looks like metal in the photo.
Cats and roses! Those are two of my favorite things ever! And I do like a good pink rose – I’ve been wearing a lot of Diptyque Eau Rose, lately. Looks like I’ll have to give Grace a try.
I know — we both fall into the same area of that Venn diagram, right?! It’s not a dark or sultry rose, but as a fresh pink rose, it’s miles better than that Dolce & Gabbana atrocity I reviewed a few weeks ago (and many others of that kind).
I like roses but I rarely find a rose fragrance that I like and when I do they tend to be on the dark side. But I love Grace Coddington and cats so I must try this and will probably be tempted to buy it anyway. Part of me hopes it’s so successful that she gives in to the urge to do a flanker that’s less her (and more me) but somehow I can’t see her doing something that’s not true to her – and how many celebrities give you that feeling? She’s unique!
Grace Noire? 😉
Okay. I’m just going to say it. I think it is a little lame that Grace Coddington’s signature fragrance is a fruity rose in a cat bottle. If irony is is intended, it doesn’t work for me and just feels like cop out.
That’s all.
Curious as to how it’s a cop out if she genuinely loves both roses and cats? Seems to me she got precisely what she was after! 🙂
Let me see if I can explain.
I consider Grace Coddington to be a fashion icon. She makes the complicated look so effortless. Fashion, like really great food, takes effort, skill and originality. Alice Waters is a great chef. She loves loves love raw tomatoes with salt. If she were to donate an original recipe to the Library of Congress for all to read and to prepare at home, I think it would be a cop out if she wrote: Find a fresh, picked from the field, tomato. Slice it in half and add salt. Delicious? Yes. But I expect more than $145 salted tomato.
Very well said.
I understand your point but it seems to me that both women are advocating for paired down simplicity. It takes a very discerning, confident person to say: ‘No to all of THAT, just THIS.’
*pared-down
My fear is that the juice isn’t as good as the salted tomato Alice Waters would serve me. A truly great tomato is a rare and wonderful thing.
Good point. My parallel only goes so far… But I guess I was comparing the recipe to the juice, not the fruit to the juice…so to speak 😉 !
I would encourage those who do not see this as fitting Coddington’s image or role in fashion to visit the website for the perfume. (Jessica has liked to it above.)
It is another side of Coddington that is important to her, rather than fitting our image of her. Perfume lovers may be disappointed, but I doubt she is.
Many of us have used fragrance to express various sides of ourselves, I bet! Private sides, public sides, just-for-a-day sides.
It doesn’t seem to fit her image, does it?
I suppose she’s getting back to her own “English rose” roots? Apparently she’s pretty low-drama for someone in her occupation/position…and I’m trying to remember how she dresses, but she’s fairly casual, I think.
I just finished reading her autobiography ‘Grace’ this week and although it was an interesting account of all that she has done, and the people she has met and worked with, there wasn’t much in the way of ‘unpacking’ of the fashion industry, what interests her specifically in fashion etc. So there was a lot of ‘identification’ of things she responded to but no layered analysis or deeper reflection – which I found slightly disappointing. But, that might be a truer reflection of who she is. She might be a busy living and working rather than delving into ‘meaning’ type person? In which case that perfume might make sense. Though I’m with you – in so much that it doesn’t draw me in.
he may already have done so but I wish Raf Simons would do a CDG scent. Based on the documentary Dior and I and his design and art interests, I think it would be great
I enjoyed that documentary, too!
Agree, this too pedestrian, I’d expect something more daring than a cat and a Roses de Chloé kind of perfume.
I love all kinds of roses, dark and light, so I’m looking forward to trying this. But because I already own any number of pretty roses, including Stella and most of the AG roses (in fact all except the relatively recent Pompom), I probably don’t need it. Ever since I read your review I’ve been very tempted by Diptyque Eau Rose, though!
If you own AG Rose Splendide/Petite Cherie/Ce Soir ou Jamais, et al., you probably don’t *need* this — but who am I to say? 😉
I can never get too many rose scents 😉
Know that feeling, though today I talked myself out of Rose of No Man’s Land on the basis of having too many roses (also I like Florabellio and they had a 30 ml bottle for a much more tempting price). 😉
There was an article in the New York Times about Ms. Coddington and her fragrance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/fashion/grace-coddington-perfume-fragrance.html
Would you ever have expected her to have cat pillows on her sofa? 🙂
I took note of her wise choice of ELd’O and hoped the fragrance would be good enough for me to get that adorable bottle, so I’m glad to hear that you liked it!
Hah, I just looked through the slideshow. More cat pillows in image #15, and my mother has had one of those exact same cat pillows since I was a child! Funny.
Fresh roses are usually not my thing, but I’m going to try it anyway – I’ve loved Grace ever since I started reading US Vogue, long time ago. I loved the September Issue, too, although I seem to be one of the few who also really liked Anna in it.
Coddington is very unpretentious in her personal style choices, so a simple scent seems fitting. But let’s see. Smell. Thanks for the review!
I didn’t *dislike* AW in that documentary — I just found myself not caring too much about her one way or another. I know she likes to remain an enigma, but my curiosity about her just faded away to nothing by the end of the movie. I guess she’s a smart businesswoman more than a creative personality, and I’m more intrigued by the latter type?
I’m plotting a rare-for-me shopping trip to Barney’s to see and sniff the Grace perfume. I’m looking forward to it so much and hope it smells nice. Thank you for the review.
After reading Grace Coddington’s memoir (I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommended it to a friend who is also enthralled) it seems to me that this fragrance from Grace is quite fitting. It’s about roses and cats and a no-nonsense approach to enjoying beauty and life. Perhaps if this scent is a success she will go another round with CdG and do something in a different vein, a scent more challenging for the nose, although perhaps I should save my musings for after I’ve smelled this one.
There are so many selling points here . . . for someone who admires fragrance and/or perfume bottles and/or cats and/or roses and/or fashion and/or anything pink and/or Vogue and/or Grace Coddington and/or Comme des Garcons buying a bottle would be gratifying. Or why not buy two? Take a bottle in each size and you’ve got a little perfume kitty vignette for your perfume collection.
I need to check whether my library has a copy of that memoir!
Yes, this perfume checks a few of those boxes for me — and it really is so much better than most of the spring-y rose fragrances I try every. single. May.
I’m a fan of CdG, the wierd and wonderful. Grace Coddington is a fitting choice for this kind of celb. scent, sure do wish they took it in a stranger direction. Loved her in the September Issue, probably the only thing I loved about that film.
What I’ve read about the perfume so far seems to add up to something that’s not for me. I will try it at some point I’m sure though.
Frederic Malle Une Rose, TDC Rose Poivree, Serge Lutens La Fille de Berlin and Rose de nuit.. those are my kind of roses.
All loves for me, with the exception or Une Rose Poivree. But now I have to go try it again, as it’s been a while.
Oops of –
I love SL La Fille de Berlin, and Byredo Rose Noire, and some other spicy or jammy roses! but sometimes I just need a really pretty rose for spring and summer days, too.
Yes, absolutely. I had a great summer with Byredo Rose Noire, still fond of it. Actually bought it in that flagship store in Stockholm, kind of fun. My sister loved it so much that I gave her my bottle eventually. She loved it even more.
I love cats, but I don’t love this bottle. A simple winsome rose, however, is something I’ll always try. I just bought a bottle, discounted, of TDC Kashan Rose and am a little bashful about it. Why? Because it’s so simple and sweet and I’ve been digging more complex things lately. But it smells good and I love the pink juice in TDC’s architectural bottle. Do you have a take on this one?
Oh! I need to try that one. I like a few things from TDC, although I don’t own any. I haven’t been to Barneys in a while…
I have a vague idea of who Grace Coddington is, I suppose, but I know nothing of her personality or tastes. I gather she’s bold and unique, and I can get behind that.
I won’t go out of my way to sniff this, as fresh rose isn’t my *thing.* I like Dyptique Eau Rose just so-so.
Am I the only one who thinks this bottle is like a more elegant Katy Perry fragrance? Didn’t she do a couple of similar cat bottles?
Ugh. I’m forever spelling “Diptyque” wrong.
One of the interviews about this scent did mention the Katy Perry “Purr” bottles, and GC said that she hoped this cat would seem to have a different style — elegant rather than sexy, or something like that.
Then again, Katy Perry wasn’t the first to use a cat bottle — there was one in the 1920s (but more angular and Deco), and even Max Factor had a cat line before our time, not to mention Avon!
And Hello Kitty!
We can’t forget Hello Kitty!!
I’ve so enjoyed reading everyone’s comments – such an interesting discussion this perfume has spawned! I suppose we tend to see ourselves differently than how others might see us. What we think we’re saying with our perfume (we might think the perfume we choose to wear connotes strength) might read entirely differently to somebody else (who might think we stink to high heaven). That’s the beauty of perfume, eh? It’s endlessly fascinating and highly subjective.
I’ll definitely give this one sniff. If only for the cat head alone. 🙂
I agree — a fascinating discussion about our expectations and perceptions! So subjective. And I hope that someone involved with the creation of this fragrance happens to see this page at some point.
Thank you Jessica for your tactful reply to my earlier grumpy post above. 🙂
I think bookgirl and you have it right.
A simple rose has its place…as I love rose…so I may try this though I probably would have written it off. Also, since you put it in the same category as ELdO Like This, I almost have to try it. I really liked that one, though have not gone for the full bottle yet. Through a mistake, I ended up with two samples and I’m through both.