Getting sniffy

So, COMME des GARCONS are about to release a new fragrance on the world. I like the way this company works. I admire their approach and aesthetic. I like that they have always done their own thing, regularly working with artists and musicians to cut against the grain of fashion trends, and I like that they have prevailed as a result.

On the one hand, their enduring minimalist aesthetic seems perfectly apt for this established Japanese fashion label – the typography is always brutally plain, usually with lots of white space. This often goes against the designs themselves which are elaborate, complex affairs. One jacket I have is traditionally tailored, and from every angle (except front on) looks like a regular blue blazer. From the front however there is a large pink stripe running vertically across it. Anyway, I digress, back to things of an olfactory nature…

I have no idea what this expensive (£90 a bottle) new smell will be like but I’m intrigued by what I have read so far. The box of the fragrance, is made of one piece of carton paper, folded in origami style into a beautiful, yet simple, white box and the bottle is made from old glass “rejected and un-used by others”. The fragrance itself is described as “Industrialized flower to go with the glue, an imaginary flower from an unknown civilisation”.

A load of pretentious twaddle? Possibly so, but one I want to unfold and smell for myself.

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