It was a haphazard first meeting in 1992 between Christian Astuguevieille and Rei Kawakubo at the back office of Comme des Garçons’ Parisian outpost (the former had simply popped in to pick up a list of local recommendations for Tokyo) that would begin the fantastical journey of Comme des Garçons Parfums. Then and there, Kawakubo invited the artist and perfumer, who learned the art of fragrance at Molinard, to create an installation for her Tokyo store. “During the opening dinner, we started talking about perfumes. The next day, we scheduled a meeting to continue the conversation because Rei wanted to launch perfumes,” he recalls, “She wanted to know if I was interested. I said yes. And that’s how it all started.”
From the very beginning, the consensus was to do things differently – “with our own imagination, our own way of doing things, our own identity.” “We moved forward with the idea of perfume like a medicine, like a drug. Something that you can’t resist,” Astuguevieille reflects. If the perfumer oversaw the conceptualisation of their first scent, the unusual reclining pebble-shaped bottle was the work of Kawakubo.
After the first perfumes, Astuguevieille began to create them in series – the Leaf series, the Red series – before announcing his intention “to make an anti-perfume, the opposite of a perfume.” “Rei wasn’t overly surprised,” he laughs, “she simply said, ‘Go for it.’” The resulting Odeur 53 would be the first perfume ever assembled from entirely synthetic molecules, cloning oddities like “the smell of laundry dried in the wind, little celluloid dolls, the freshness of oxygen.”
30 years and innumerable, ground-breaking fragrances later, Comme des Garçons Parfums is celebrating its anniversary with a new tome, published by Simonett & Baer, revisiting the iconic perfumes and their accompanying campaigns. But, as Astuguevieille playfully reminds us, the project “is infinity. And infinity in creation is fascinating.”
To mark the occasion, we spoke with seven devotees – Richard Burbridge, Sophie Bew, Sarah Andelman, Emily Dinsdale, Imruh Asha, Olympia Scarry and Emma Davidson – about how they first happened on the scents and why they remain, to this day, such steadfast fans.
Richard Burbridge, Photographer
“I presume [I discovered CDG Parfums] during a frequent visit to the Comme store on Wooster Street. I often left the store with a small token. And CDG2 Man was this. I almost certainly purchased it based on the appearance – the revolutionary new approach to the bottle and the vacuum packaging. Like many of the clothes I have worn from Comme, I grew into it. It then became my uniform and part of who I am.
“I would not have thought to wear the perfume to attract or to feel virile as most other brands attempt. I would have worn it to feel comfort. I remember it smelt like a skin to me; leathery, woody and not the usual ingredients that define a perfume. Often, I sprayed it randomly and not only on my skin, but also on clothes.
“I also don’t think I displayed it like a trophy. I loved the radical design, the colour, the type. But I kept it in a medicine cabinet. I stuck with CDG2 Man and it expanded to shower gel and candles. Then I switched to Incense Kyoto. No reason, I just did. Comme offered more and more editions, so I got the message that loyalty to one scent was not their mantra. I wear it at the start of the day, after a shower, and at the end of the day. It has never occurred to me to put it on in the middle of the day. CDG2 Man felt like it lasted and did not require replenishing.
“I’ve photographed many campaigns and bottles for other brands, but the connection is not quite the same. I’ve always felt that Comme allows me an individuality that doesn’t exist elsewhere.”
Sophie Bew, Editor of AnOther Magazine
“My introduction to CDG Parfum was through the Olfactory: Series 6 Synthetic collection from 2004, designed to play on the use of man-made chemical ingredients in perfume inspired by naturals. My favourites were Tar, described as ‘grilled cigarettes teamed with town gas and bergamot’ – it has an alluringly hollow effect, like static electricity, which I’ve enjoyed ever since. There’s also Soda which, on first spritz, smells like a cheap Panda Pop but dries down to a chic, peppery hum.
“Just like the label’s fashion, the scents are always rebellious, unexpected and appealing. I remember trying the inky Incense Kyoto in the Kyoto CDG store, and while the perfume is too dark for me to wear, I fell in love with the idea of it and like to smell it often – it's a conceptual masterpiece.
“My favourite is ERL Sunscreen – a collaboration with Californian designer Eli Russell Linnetz. I love a suncreamy scent and there are so many on the market, but while this one has notes of the obvious creamy heliotrope, salty skin and coconut, it also has the plasticky weirdness of pool toys and a delectable chlorine accent. The twist is what makes it addictive. I wear it in the summer – not just on holiday but also to the office. In my head, it goes well with white and has a preppy but slightly kitsch feel.”
“I spray myself just before getting dressed. Each day, it can be a different one, depending of the mood, the weather, where I am, and what I will wear … There are no rules … ” – Sarah Andelman
Sarah Andelman, Curator and Founder of Just an Idea
“When it came out, in 1994, I used to go weekly to the CDG shop on rue Etienne Marcel, so maybe that was where I discovered the perfumes. I was absolutely amazed by both the shape of the bottle and the scent – so unique. I decided to wear it immediately. Since the first original scent, each CDG perfume has been so special. They open new ways of thinking what a perfume should be.
“We opened Colette in 1997 and carried CDG Parfums from the beginning to the end, introducing all the special concepts like Odeur 53, the Synthetic Series, etc. I’ve been wearing the original Eau de Parfum, then White and the CDG 2. I’ve been wearing a lot of the Series like Comme des Garçons Series 1 Leaves: Lily, Incense Kyoto, and the Monocle Scent One Hinoki (Pharrell asked me what I was wearing and collaborated after with CDG for his own first perfume – with the bottle designed by KAWS and we did a limited edition for Colette). I tried ZERO and Wonderoud but I always come back to the original.
“I spray myself just before getting dressed. Each day, it can be a different one, depending of the mood, the weather, where I am, and what I will wear … There are no rules … ”
Emily Dinsdale, Art & Photography Editor of Dazed and Contributing Editor of AnOthermag.com
“I first came across Comme fragrances at the perfume department in Liberty when I was in my very early 20s. I hardly had any money and I didn’t really know much about luxury but I particularly coveted perfume. I’ve always been really susceptible to scents and I was particularly drawn to Comme – it just embodied something so glamorous to me.
“I love the concepts behind each Comme fragrance. Some of them – like Concrete or Copper – are really elemental, while others intrigue me in a different way, invoking glamorous locations like Kyoto or Avignon. I also love the beautiful minimalist bottles of their Incense Series – they always feel like objects I want to possess.
“One really important thing for me is the unisex nature of the fragrances. Everything about CDG perfumes feels like an antidote to the comically gendered branding we all encounter with so many perfumes or aftershaves.
“Ever since I first doused myself in it at Liberty, I’ve always been totally enchanted by Incense Avignon for its heavy, churchy smell-like pure Catholic mass. I’m not Catholic but I suppose Incense Avignon reminds me of the romance, drama and grandiosity of beautiful churches I‘ve visited and the rituals enacted there which, as an outsider, always seem arcane and beguiling. I also love Wonderoud. It’s just delicious – woody and heavy but sweet. It smells rare and precious but it’s also really wearable and suits so many occasions. It’s a scent that is so dense with mystery and history and secrecy, I suppose it feels a bit like I’m casting a spell on myself.”
“[Wonderoud] a scent that is so dense with mystery and history and secrecy, I suppose it feels a bit like I’m casting a spell on myself” – Emily Dinsdale
Imruh Asha, Stylist, Fashion Director of Dazed and Co-Founder of Zomer
“My friend from Amsterdam was wearing a CDG Parfum just before we went to London for the first time in 2011. Then we passed by Dover Street Market and fell in love with the fragrances.
“I love that a lot of them have an oud- or wood-like smell. It feels a bit more alternative than the other menswear fragrances. I feel elevated, a bit alternative, fresh, and a bit different then the regular smell.
“I started with Wonderwood but found it a bit too intense after a couple years. Then I went into the CDG2 Series. I have worn the silver one, CDG 2, but especially the brown see-through bottle, CDG2 Man. I have also worn the official Comme des Garçons Eau de Parfum.
“Now, I am wearing Monocle Scent: Hinoki for special occasions as it is quite strong (and the bottle is small so I don't want to waste it on random moments). For everyday, I am wearing the Artek Standard: its a square-ish grey cement-like bottle. You wouldn’t expect the smell to be so fresh which is quite interesting.”
Olympia Scarry, Artist
“I remember my gallerist at the time, Gea Politi from I Conduits gallery, introduced me to Wonderoud in Milan – and I wore it for the opening of my first solo show in 2009. That scent brings back that particular moment in microscopic fissures: the temperature of the loft or gallery I was sleeping and installing the work in, the lighting, the space, all the details that may fade, if not for the miracle of scent and that make up a landscape.
“As an artist, I often think conceptually, and I find that Comme des Garçons perfumes lead very much in that vein. For example, a bottled scent of a photocopy machine, or of an architectural space. Very much like Bruce Nauman’s casting of the empty space under a chair.
“I’m now wearing CDG 2, the silver mirrored bottle. It’s a complex scent and I love the form and reflection of the bottle. I wear it from dusk till dawn.”
“As an artist, I often think conceptually, and I find that Comme des Garçons perfumes lead very much in that vein. For example, a bottled scent of a photocopy machine, or of an architectural space. Very much like Bruce Nauman’s casting of the empty space under a chair”
Emma Davidson, Fashion Features Director of Dazed
“I’d always sniff the bottles when I visited Dover Street Market, but the first one I really wanted to get my hands on was Floriental, when it was launched back in 2015. Both my best friend and I bought a bottle which usually would be a no-no – you want your scent to be unique to you. We lived together at the time and the flat used to stink of it – I was slightly more sparing with my sprays, but you’d walk into his room to find him using about half the bottle in one go and practically be asphyxiated.
“They’re so unlike anything else out there. I mean, the whole concepts behind the fragrances are just so unusual – want to smell like concrete? Rei will take care of it. Floriental isn’t the most unique on first sniff actually, but as it settles it has this weird, artificial quality which sounds so wrong but smells so right.
“I’ve always been drawn to very heady, powdery florals and woody, slightly ‘dirty’ scents – which oftentimes smell like something your granny would wear. To me, they evoke a seductive, femme fatale type figure – I can imagine her fastening her stockings, throwing on a chic little coat (a classic trench maybe, or a big fur), spritzing herself with something like Floriental and heading out into the night for a dry martini in a clandestine little drinking spot. Sadly, I’m far too chaotic to be her, but with these kinds of scents at least I feel slightly sophisticated and sexy.“
Comme des Garçons Parfums 1994-2025. A Book by Dino Simonett is out now and available exclusively at Comme des Garçons Faubourg Saint Honoré and Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris.
