Comme des Garçons turned scent collabs into an art form

Comme des Garçons Parfums launched its latest collaboration last month: a fragrance created with artist Meg Webster and the Dia Art Foundation, the New York-based contemporary art institution known for its long-duration Minimalist and Conceptualist commissions. The scent and its packaging were developed with Webster, whose sculptural work frequently incorporates natural materials — earth, sand, and salt — translating her artistic language into the medium of fragrance. For most beauty brands, an art-world collaboration is a marketing exercise. For Comme des Garçons, it is simply how the brand has always operated. Over three decades, the house has collaborated with publishers, composers, artists, designers, and cultural institutions — projects that feel less like brand partnerships and more like the result of a creative conversation among like-minded thinkers. At a moment when collaborations have become one of the beauty industry’s most deployed marketing tools, it is worth examining what drives the house’s creative approach — and what the rest of the industry might learn from it. A perfume that works like a medicine and behaves like a drug When Comme des Garçons launched its first perfume in 1994, it rejected the conventions that defined luxury fragrance. In Dino Simonett’s book Comme des Garçons Parfums 1994–2025, Adrian Joffe, CEO of Comme des Garçons International and Dover Street Market, said: “It all started in 1994. Going into the perfume business was not something Rei Kawakubo had ever envisaged. When we guaranteed that we would not need to compromise any core values of Comme des Garçons, by making a perfume that we never smelt before, by telling a story around what was unique and unconventional, by transgressing industry norms about advertising and packaging, she agreed. In the end it was just another way of expressing our values.” Even from a formulation standpoint, the approach was different — described, in the brand’s own words, as “a totally new language.” This was not romance or seduction — the focus of most fragrance at the time, and still today. It was a mission statement designed to question and challenge. The bottle, designed by Rei Kawakubo, resembled a smooth pebble lying on its side — a quiet challenge to traditional retail display norms. That philosophy extended to the scents themselves. Rather than conventional florals or gourmand compositions, the house explored abstract ideas: the smell of a photocopier after a day’s work, high mountain air, the atmosphere of a theater. These experiments would later become known as the brand’s “anti-perfumes.” Collaboration without a calendar As the brand grew, Comme des Garçons began approaching collaboration differently from the large conglomerates. Many partnerships follow a familiar formula: market research, audience targeting, carefully orchestrated launch calendars. The house chose a different path. Rather than planning collaborations years in advance, the house allowed them to emerge organically. Some years it released none at all. Others, several appeared unexpectedly. The only requirement is a connection. As Joffe said: “You cannot define what exactly tells you there is something meaningful to explore. You just know it. It is often just a feeling, an emotion, some electricity.” This intuitive approach has produced one of the most eclectic collaboration portfolios in fragrance. That openness has also shaped the breadth of its collaborators. The first came in 2008 with Tyler Brûlé’s Monocle magazine, inspired by the hinoki wood baths of Kyoto’s Tawaraya Ryokan. The partnership began casually. Nearly two decades later, the partnership has produced multiple fragrances. Collaborators since have spanned fashion designers such as Hussein Chalayan; artists and institutions including the Serpentine Gallery and the Andy Warhol Foundation; composer Max Richter; and design companies such as Finnish furniture brand Artek. Translating creative worlds into fragrance Unlike traditional perfume development, where scent notes drive the concept, Comme des Garçons collaborations begin with environments or ideas. Much of this experimental language was shaped by Christian Astuguevieille, the house’s creative director for more than three decades, who helped define its olfactory identity from the beginning. He died in Paris on February 13, 2026, marking the loss of one of fragrance’s most original creative minds. Astuguevieille described these exchanges as opportunities to introduce unusual materials or reinterpret familiar ones in unexpected ways. “During meetings with creatives to develop a new fragrance,” he said, “the idea is to discover and listen closely to their desires, their perfume references, and to better understand their universe.” In this process, collaborators articulate the narrative; the Comme des Garçons team translates it into scent. The result is a fragrance that functions less like a conventional beauty product and more like a cultural artifact. The origins of the Meg Webster collaboration trace back a decade, when Dia and Comme des Garçons first worked together. CDG supported Dia’s publication of Walter De Maria: The Lightning Field, for which Dover Street Market hosted a launch event. The two remained in close contact until the right moment presented itself — a conversation that reignited roughly two years ago. “As I thought about this project,” Webster said, “I was drawn to the bodily experience of the natural world — soil underfoot, light moving through the trees, an eagle passing overhead, the smell of earth and forest air. Working with fragrance opened up a different register for me, something elemental, evocative, and temporary, applied directly to the flesh, which could serve as a reminder to look up and around, and to embrace these sensations in our day-to-day lives.” Collaboration as creative ecosystem Comme des Garçons collaborations carry that credibility because they emerge from relationships rather than marketing logic. Rather than leveraging a collaborator’s audience, the brand invites partners to extend their creative universe into scent. Many collaborations also grow out of the broader Comme des Garçons ecosystem. Through Dover Street Market and its Brand Development program, the house works closely with emerging designers and creative partners, supporting independent brands while encouraging experimentation. This environment fosters what Joffe describes as a widening cultural community. “We each have our own culture,” he said, “but when two or more cultures come together, the chance of a positive exchange, a deepening of an understanding, a sharing of a knowledge, an explanation of a difference, can occur, thereby making the community better, wider, safer and wiser.” For Joffe, the most compelling aspect of collaboration is unpredictability. “You see a photo of a tree and feel something. You see a photo of a horse and feel something else. You see a photo of a horse and a tree together and you feel something else again, maybe something bigger or deeper, certainly not just the two feelings added together,” he said. “It’s the possibility of accident that makes it interesting and worthwhile pursuing. If all goes wrong, of course it is possible that one feels less than the sum of its parts. It is not as easy as just putting two things together.” In a category increasingly driven by trend forecasting and market analytics, that openness to creative accident remains rare. Over three decades, the house has built a fragrance universe that sits somewhere between art, design, and olfactory experimentation. In a beauty industry increasingly governed by strategy decks and collaboration playbooks, Comme des Garçons continues to prove that the most compelling ideas emerge not from planning, but from curiosity. When asked who he would still like to collaborate with, Joffe said,”'We would love to work with an architect and a nuclear physicist and someone who has always lived in a giant forest. Can you imagine that?” It is precisely that instinct that makes what comes next worth watching. Comme des Garçons collaborations Monocle Hinoki Stephen Jones Artek Standard Daphne Monocle Laurel Undercover Holygrace Undercover Holygraphie Hussein Chalayan Airborne Monocle Sugi Wisteria Hysteria By Stephen Jones Pharrell Williams' Girl Serpentine Grace Coddington Andy Warhol You're In Vogue 125 Monocle Yoyogi ERL Sunscreen Stüssy Laguna Beach Mirror by KAWS Monocle Syros Max Richter 01 Vaquera Classique Perdu Dia x Meg Webster

Comme des Garçons turned scent collabs into an art form

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Comme des Garçons turned scent collabs into an art form

China’s luxury interlude that never really was