mardi 25 octobre 2011

Comme des Garçons: Industrial Flower



(Pour lire en français, cliquez)

Rei Kawakubo doesn’t like flowers. At least, not in a bottle. Which is why you’d be hard-pressed to find florals in the nearly 60-strong Comme des Garçons Parfums oeuvre, apart from Champaca and Daphne (the latter, tailor-made to Ms. Guinness’s tastes, doesn’t really count). 

But an artificial flower? A flower made out of packing tape? “A fragrance that couldn’t exist in a bottle that shouldn’t exist” sounded just about right for the designer who has introduced provocative dyssymetry in fashion and has always courted the beauty of the accident. “Who has the right to decide what should be rejected?” states the press release. Hence the misshapen, blobby bottle, modelled after rejects from glass factories, made out of purposely cheap, bubble-shot glass; a monster that can’t even stand upright, presented in a humble white cardboard box.


Displaying the beauty of the accident, of the ugly bits sticking out, of modern man-made smells, has long been part of Comme des Garçon Parfums’ aesthetic stance, epitomized by Odeur 53, Odeur 71 and the Synthetic series. In fact, the house’s creative director Christian Astuguevieille is prone to asking the perfumers he works with to mess up too-pretty formulas; to strip bare “defects” in raw materials that are usually covered up.

Being the project manager in charge of the Comme account at Givaudan must be a hoot. You’re asked by Astuguevieille to work on stuff like the smell of a squished ping-pong ball, a pebble or a supermarket cashier with her lipstick askew. At any moment, there are between fifteen and twenty ideas under development, from which to draw for new compositions. Perfumers are “cast” according to their interests and affinities with the concepts. In the case of the slightly confusingly named “Comme des Garçons”, the brief landed on Antoine Lie’s desk. After the senior perfumer left Givaudan for new ventures, the composition was worked on by his frequent partner-in-scent Antoine Maisondieu. 

The result is truly a hybrid between a flower and an industrial product, cross-bred so that molecules that are actually present in flowers produce synthetic effects. The maturation period of the oil (the time in which the raw materials continue their chemical reactions) was actually reduced to two weeks so that the rough bits would stand out more vividly. Thus, the faintly metallic, almost blood-like facets of aldehydes are left raw-edged in the opening notes, an effect reinforced by geranium and rose oxides (the latter is what gave Calandre and Rive Gauche their odd, diesel-fume modernity).
Similarly, paracresol, already present in many flowers (jasmine, narcissus, lilac…) can be used to produce leathery-rubbery-medicinal effects. Safraléine, also used for leather effects, and styrax, not only a major player in leather accords but also, Octavian Coifan tells me, once used in lilac accords, further enhance the burnt, industrial character of the composition.

The floral note itself is a hybrid of humble French flowers that haven’t been featured much recently in perfumery: lilac, sweet pea, hawthorn. However, they weren’t picked because despite their current triteness, they have as much of “a right to exist” as the misshapen bottle, but for their potential affinities with the smells of tape and glue (the latter conjured by the almond-y facets of lilac, for instance). Still, interestingly, this also makes Comme des Garçons a powerfully diffusive floral scent with rich white floral, anisic and rosy aspects, borne by a blend of powdery musks (including the Givaudan captive Silvanone).

Splicing this ample, almost retro bouquet with a vividly realistic brown tape note drags into radically modern territory.Yet for all its weirdness, the vodka-clear Comme des Garçons is exhilaratingly wearable, if you’re the type who wouldn’t shirk from spraying Yves Rocher’s Pur Délice de Lilas over Bulgari Black, as I’ve been known to do.
This is CdG Parfums doing what they do best, introducing a lick of humour and a hefty dose of subversion into the conventional codes of perfumery.

17 commentaires:

  1. Thank you for the wonderful review Denise! I have been an avid CDG fan from the start but the past few releases have been so-and-so. Your review makes it sound much like Parfumerie Generale's Pschyotrope which I have and love. However in Pschyotrope, it's rubbery anesthetic (as opposed to tape) and jasmine (as opposed to lily). Is it anywhere similar (if you have tried Pschyotrope that is)?

    PS: I have layered CDG's own Lily over Tea and came up with Pschyotrope! Weird huh?!

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  2. I can't wait to try this, I am a huge fan of CdG fragrances (favorite is Synthetic series Tar). Do you know when this will be released?

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  3. Abdulla, I've only tried Psychotrope a couple of times and don't have it on hand, but in my mind's nose, they are not similar. That said, I'm going to the boutique that stocks PG tomorrow. I'll re-smell and put in another comment!

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  4. Carrie, I love Tar too. I think this is coming out pretty soon now, some time in early November.

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  5. I love that poor little scruffy bottle in it's boring little box. It's kind of endearing, isn't it? But Safraleine is Kryptonite to me, so I won't be giving this a sniff!
    -Marla

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  6. Marla, I know, it's got a kind of ugliest-pup-in-the-litter thing about it, doesn't it? Yet in person it's also quite beautiful in its mutant way, lovely to hold and an easy grip because of the dents.

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  7. Sounds like my early ceramics pieces! I do use them for coffee....
    -Marla

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  8. Sounds like mine. But I decided at age 10 that I was perhaps not cut out to be a craftswoman...

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  9. Thanks Denise! Looking forward to it :)

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  10. I am trying to figure out in my head what Pur désir de lilas on top of Black would smell like; it sounds quite a powerful combination.
    Thanks for another excellent review!

    Barbara

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  11. Barbara, it's not quite a balanced combination (still haven't mastered the proportion of spritzes) but it somehow makes sense.

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  12. This sounds like it's right up my street. And I love how you describe it as humorous and subverted.

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  13. Liam, yes, I definitely think you'd enjoy this. There isn't enough humour in perfume!

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  14. Exactly, a balance between both ends of the spectrum. However, I can't think of another funny perfume! Does funny exist in smell?

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  15. Liam, have you smelled the Humiecki and Graef? A couple are pretty side-splitting. And, maybe it's just me, but M/MInk (Byredo) and Absolue pour le Soir (Francis K.) made me giggle. I'm not sure it was an intended effect in the case of the latter. But there was just so much pong in that bottle!

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  16. Denyse, I haven't even heard of Humiecki and Graef until you mentioned it. A look through their site however is in the same vein as CdG am I right? Subverted and unconventional. Liking the look of them so far.

    As for M/MINK. I'm absolutely in love with M/M and the idea of a collaboration with them and Byredo sounds like a match made in heaven. Still must order a sample soon.

    As for funnies in fragrance, perhaps absurd smells is the trigger, or punch-line in a fragrance composition?

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  17. Liam, I think it's sometimes a too-muchness, something overtly synthetic or some over-the-top animalic note... Go figure!

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