Comme des Garçons

Founded in 1969 by designer Rei Kawakubo, fashion house Comme des Garçons has always been known for its avant garde style, its clothing being more akin to artistic concept than simple fashion. Finding success outside Kawakubo’s native Japan in the 1980s, the following decade Comme des Garçons expanded into producing fragrances, with Comme des Garçons Parfums. The first eponymous fragrance was launched in 1994 and created by Mark Buxton, who went on to design several more.

Kawakubo has stated that she is not a fan of fragrance herself and, freed from an attachment to traditional ideas about perfumery, Comme des Garçons’ fragrances are striking and original, and almost entirely unisex. A range of numbered series, with themes such as ‘red’ and ‘synthetic’ only serve to emphasise the uncompromising modernity of the house.