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Comme des Garcons Luxe series, Champaca ~ fragrance review (and rant)

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Comme des Garcons Champaca perfume

I’m not a big trend watcher, but if you’re paying any attention at all, it is hard not to notice the number of fragrance houses jumping on the “luxury” (e.g., expensive, exclusive, limited distribution) bandwagon this year. We started with the Chanel Les Exclusifs, which are now looking more and more like a bargain at $175 a pop. Then we had, well, let’s see how many can I list — Tom Ford Private Blend, MDCI, Yu by Mane, Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia, By Kilian, Guerlain Quand Vient La Pluie, Thierry Mugler Angel La Part des Anges (and the upcoming Thierry Mugler Miroir Miroir). I’m sure I missed a few. L’Artisan (the Harvest series), Hermès (the Hermessences), Giorgio Armani (Armani Privé), and Givenchy (Les Millésimes de Givenchy) got started earlier, and all have new releases this year.

Creating a luxury product that purports to emphasize quality and integrity over mass market appeal seems a natural way to stand out from the pack at a time when the market is virtually flooded with product. But when the market gets flooded with luxury, what then? And when you’ve smelled enough “luxury product” to know that the ambitious pricing is often all that sets it apart from its competition, well, it is hard not to be cynical about “luxury”…

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We're not Procter & Gamble…

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What do Daphne Guinness and Stephen Jones have in common - apart from their English eccentric style? They are both launching first fragrances under the auspices of Adrian Joffe, who heads up the company of his partner Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons and has developed for her a fragrance empire.

The idea of Joffe as the beauty industry's new prince of perfume sounds unlikely. But, as Joffe says, there is an increasing demand for niche marketing in this area where big does not always seem so beautiful.

— from Comme des Garçons builds niche perfume empire, in yesterday's International Herald Tribune.

Comme des Garcons Odeur 53 ~ fragrance review

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Comme des Garcons Odeur 53 fragrance

…it comes from `noses’ at the laboratory of International Flavour and Fragrance, and was commissioned by Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garcons, who is launching it to an unsuspecting public on 11 May.

As a concept, it redefines the whole idea of modern perfume, and the smell is unique too, which is rare. The IFF describes it as `53 abstract notions evoking images, creating your own air around you,’ and `a memory of a smell’, and after spritzing it around it does seems more akin to a breath of fresh air than an actual smell. This is because it has been made by chemically recreating 53 inorganic smells, such as sand dunes, fire energy, washing drying in the wind, burnt rubber and the freshness of oxygen, using a method which takes nothing from nature, and thus is truly environmentally friendly. (via The Independent, 5/6/1998)

Comme des Garçons launched Odeur 53 in 1998. I will leave it to the folks at the Fragranced Products Information Network to rule on the “environmentally friendly” claim, but Odeur 53 continues with the irreverent approach to perfumery established by its predecessors in the line…

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Comme des Garcons Play ~ fragrance review

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Comme des Garcons Play fragrance

I’m not good at making “best of” lists. As soon as I put one thing on a list, I remember something else I should have included, and narrowing down is not an easy task (I’ve been working on a post called “100 Fragrances Every Perfumista Should Try” for over six months now). But Comme des Garçons would surely make a list of my favorite perfume houses, and when they release something new, I want to smell it.

Play, their latest release, looked promising. The concept for the Play line of clothing, introduced in 2003, is supposed to be “design by not designing”, a good fit with the subversive ethos of the brand, and the logo on the Play fragrance bottle, designed by Filip Pagowski, is appropriately simple but fun.

The Play fragrance itself was developed by perfumer Aurelien Guichard, another good sign. The notes — bitter orange, black pepper, lime, saffron, thyme, sage, sea notes, oak moss, patchouli and musk — didn’t sound particularly unusual (or playful), but that doesn’t mean much…

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