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New: Comme des Garcons LUXE

post #1 of 26
8/7/07 at 6:35pm
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  • nqt
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The new perfumes from CdG, LUXE series with two perfumes Patchouli and Champaca.

It's a whole new Comme's concept in perfumes: luxury - using rare and high quality ingredients. I mean CdG never accentuated the quality of the ingredients before, but unusual concepts. These also have kind of spiritual feelings, not that seriousand religious like the Incense series, though. The fragrances come in two types of bottles, semi hand made. The juices have high concentration (20%) - higher than EdP. The smells develope nicely on skin, more like a perfume than the EdT or EdP - they are strong but gentle at the same time. If you use perfumes, not EdTs or EdPs, you will know what I mean:-) They are also expensive - 200 euro for bigger botles if I remember right.

The Champaca is like a real flower, reminds me of ylang - ylang, but I don't find the note on the list. Notes are:
Head: white pepper, angelica, cardamon
Heart: champaca, bird pepper, tuberose
Base: white musk, iris wood.

The Patchouli is bitter, earthy, coffee, very very good:-) not that sweet as Wood Coffee, but not that strong and dark as Serge Lutens's Arabie. Notes are:
Head: white pepper, fenugreek, lovege (have no idea what are the later two)
Heart: oak extract, opoponax, patchouli
Base: cedar, vanilla, sandalwood, vetyver.

Comme is planning a whole series of luxurious perfumes!

I wanted to post this before when I was back from Paris and fresh with the news:-)

Picture:
http://blogsorbeta.blox.pl/2007/07/N...mpaca-The.html

Btw, Prada has released new boutique scents this year: no 8-10, oppopanax, benjoin, myrrh. Anyone tried them?
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post #2 of 26
8/8/07 at 4:34am
GREAT news! Thanks a lot for the heads up on this one. Now I'll be waiting for Jasmine and Iris from CdG
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post #3 of 26
8/8/07 at 6:18am
The patchouli sounds OK, but this series doesn't get me too excited. The bottles look bad to me and the concept seems like a step back. After the lousy Sweet Series and the Guerilla Series, Comme des Garçons is in peril of losing my interest. I'm not saying that everything they do needs to be completely avant garde, but there are so many different directions that they could go with the series that would be much more fascinating.

Plus, I kind of like the notion of simultaneously releasing five scents as a series (though Sherbet had three).

I will give LUXE a chance though.
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post #4 of 26
8/8/07 at 6:50am
Good news - a new scent from CdG always perks up my ears.

Champaca flower is featured prominently in Guerilla 1, so to me this sounds a little repetitive, but perhaps it will be different. Patchouli sounds really nice (sort of like Cafe Noir by Ava Luxe).

I don't like the name, 'Luxe' - it sounds very handbag. But then, of course, I didn't really like the word 'Play' either, and I bought that scent blind.
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post #5 of 26
8/8/07 at 7:16am
Many thanks, Nqth! All we CdG fans can always count on you to bring the freshest news.
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post #6 of 26
8/8/07 at 10:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by nqt View Post

Notes are:
Head: white pepper, fenugreek, lovege (have no idea what are the later two)
Heart: oak extract, opoponax, patchouli
Base: cedar, vanilla, sandalwood, vetyver.

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) is a popular spice in Indian food and lovage (Levisticum officinale) is a powerful herb used especially to spice up soups and sauces (do you know "Maggi" liquid spice - that's lovage. Lovage smells a good deal like immortelle and fenugreek is foody, curry-like, which makes this a total turn off for me, as it sounds like it may end up smelling along the lines of Eau Noire, which I hated for turning me into a walking spicerack.
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post #7 of 26
8/8/07 at 12:05pm
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  • nqt
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^ many thanks for explainations. I really like the rich earthyness of Patch (which doesn't smell patch to me at all:-)

The Champaca is quite different than the G1. kind of better made:-), and smooth, more white-flowery.

You are wlecome Tig:-)

I hate the name LUXE, but the bottles doesn't really look lux and it's a big plus:-)
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post #8 of 26
8/8/07 at 1:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by the_good_life View Post

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) is a popular spice in Indian food and lovage (Levisticum officinale) is a powerful herb used especially to spice up soups and sauces (do you know "Maggi" liquid spice - that's lovage. Lovage smells a good deal like immortelle and fenugreek is foody, curry-like, which makes this a total turn off for me, as it sounds like it may end up smelling along the lines of Eau Noire, which I hated for turning me into a walking spicerack.

I smelled fenugreek for the first time in Santal Blanc by Serge Lutens - strange note, that's for sure. I didn't consider SB a FBW scent, but Eau Noire by Dior I love. So maybe...


Quote:
Originally Posted by nqt View Post

The Champaca is quite different than the G1. kind of better made:-), and smooth, more white-flowery.

Wonderful - I always felt that the champaca flower in G1 was odd, 'meaty' and a little too intense...a smoother champaca note sounds perfect. Goodie!
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post #9 of 26
8/8/07 at 1:32pm
I did actually quite enjoy the Sweet Series, but since then there hasn`t been anything interesting and I really do wonder what is the strategy in there. I mean, the "avant-garde" & "hey-we-are-something-different" theme can`t be too self-important, but I sure would like to see something more crazy coming from this house.

Hmm....Just thinking about it, CdG`s Animalic Series makes my mouth water. Looking forward to it.
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post #10 of 26
8/8/07 at 3:10pm
I forgot to mention that one of the bottles looks like an outfit that Bjork might wear. How wonky! No?
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post #11 of 26
8/8/07 at 3:54pm
WARNING: A RAVE FOLLOWS:

Maybe the Luxe series should be renamed the Greed Series

"Luxe", that such a bourgeois buzzword, and, sorry, but at $200.00 a bottle, I don't see any of the characteristic CdG self-irony here. You would have to sell the bottle at about $35.00 to qualify for irony. $200.00 qualifies one for conformity and rapacity.

It seems CdG is following the rat race rather than running it's own race like it has always--until now--admirably done.

It's another shameless scramble for the absurdly inflated top-shelf releases every one and their mother is trying to get in on.

How can one justify a price tag of around $200.00 for a small bottle? Even Chanel offers its Exclusifs series in 200ml bottles and for less than $200.00. No fragrance actually costs anything even close to $30.00 to manufacture, especially a small bottle, regardless of what goes into it. Given that CdG does little to no advertising, it's hard to justify the $200.00 dollar prices tag except by unabashed greed.

They began selling out, for me at least, when they created the banal Sweet Series and priced it at a hardly justifiable USD$80.00 for a 50ml bottle given the uninspired pedestrian nature of all of the fragrances in that series. Most mainstream foody fragrance releases do a much better job of representing and actualizing the gourmand possibilities of fragrances than anything in the Sweet Series. Measured against other CdG releases, the Sweet Series is a joke, which is what I first thought it was until I saw the price tag.

I've been trying to sell two bottles from that series for at less than half price for over a 6 months now and nobody's buying. Not surprising since it's never sold well at any time. In fact, an upscale gift store in my city that has a very impressive range of niche fragrances in stock can't keep the Incense Series (and the earlier GdG series) on the shelf--they sell on average 10 bottles of Kyoto a week, but they never sold more than 10 bottles of the Sweet Series the entire year they had it in the store. Oh! most of those Sweet Series bottles were sold at less than half price, which still qualifies them as overpriced IMO. In fact, after this post, I am going to go and reduce the price of the said bottles in my sales list even more.

Now $68.00 for a 50ml bottle of Kyoto or for any of the Incense Series, sure, I'll pay that gladly for what is an inspired, original series that's not over priced considering the quality and uniqueness of each of the fragrances in that series. Put any bottle of the Sweet Series next to a bottle of say Avignon, and you'll know exactly what I am talking about.

But, hey, to each his own. People will still pay $200.00 for a bottle of the Greed series and that's fine, but I won't. I'll wait and get it for at least half price on eBay when many of those people will turn around and resell the very fragrance they paid $200.00 for when and if they realize that there is little to no real correlation between price and deep aesthetic satisfaction. The deep aesthetic satisfaction comes from the artistic and technical mastery and integrity that goes into creating the fragrance, not to mention the vision behind the fragrance that actualizes it as a creation, and we would be fooling ourselves to think that just because CdG is playing with the big boys now that a price sticker of $200.00 guarantees aesthetic satisfaction. I am not holding my breath, and I remain increasingly skeptical with each new CdG release especially in light of the direction I see CdG heading.

Oh, a case in point, and in case one didn't notice, it seems that the CdG Cologne series--at least the Vettiveru in that series--will no longer be available in those absurdly generous 500ml bottles. It can now, it seelms, only be bought in a 125ml bottle. Overnight, Luckyscent.com is now selling the Vettiveru--in a 125ml bottle--at $46.00 a bottle. The 500ml bottle used to sell for $82.00. Milliliter for milliliter, that's an increase of 225%. In the medieval period, such greed would have got you excommunicated. This "development" puts the $200.00 bottles of the Greed series in context I think; doesn't it? Luxe greed, indeed.

scentemental



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post #12 of 26
8/8/07 at 7:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scentemental View Post

WARNING: A RAVE FOLLOWS:

Maybe the Luxe series should be renamed the Greed Series



I agree.

Also, there seems to be a trend with L'Artisan down the same annoying path. Sure, Dzongkha and Fou d'Absinthe are recent releases, but it seems like most of the recent tendencies of L'Artisan are not of the creative caliber we've come to expect. Instead of more madcap masterpieces like Dzing and Mechant Loup, we get limited edition( overpriced) "high quality ingredient" EDT's that are heavy on one note like orange blossoms or another. Fine, but it's taking the fun out of it.

You go get ten random ideas for a new Comme des Garçons Series from ten random basenoters, and I'll guarantee you'll get a hundred ideas that sound better than what Comme des Garçons is currently doing, and I also promise they'll fly off the store shelves (at least as fast as any CdG is capable).

No offense to anyone, but I'm getting bored with all the "tea room" wussiness that is starting to come out from some of these once cutting edge fragrance houses. I think Comme des Garçons is hitting menopause...
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post #13 of 26
8/8/07 at 7:11pm
Ha ha, I had a blast reading scentemental's post.

Unfortunately the observations are quite accurate
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post #14 of 26
8/8/07 at 7:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scentemental View Post


Maybe the Luxe series should be renamed the Greed Series

Indeed.
I fully agree with your view.
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post #15 of 26
8/8/07 at 7:39pm
Thanks for the info....This sounds very exciting.
Gary
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post #16 of 26
8/9/07 at 4:30am
Thread Starter 
  • nqt
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Oh come on. I'd call them greedy if they kept doing Avigon and Kyoto - alikes.

They are trying to do sth different. I always wanted "precious" single notes from them. Agree that the price is so very high, which put them into the luxurious level. I think they are competing new rivals, which is a good, but quite a risky move.

Maybe they think they cannot do more on the quirkyness right now.

The stock is depend on the shop. the 500 ml botles are still on sale.
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post #17 of 26
8/9/07 at 4:42am
If they'd actually called it Greed, at least a bit of the old humor would have shone through. And they could have put it in Creed look-a-like bottles (and be sued to hell by Olivier - but imagine the PR )
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post #18 of 26
8/9/07 at 5:27am
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No, I think it is not that kind if humor that they have:-)

BTW why ppl accepting Creed and Chanel selling their $ scents, but not somebody else? It's all about how good the scents are , no?
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post #19 of 26
8/9/07 at 1:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nqt View Post

BTW why ppl accepting Creed and Chanel selling their $ scents, but not somebody else? It's all about how good the scents are , no?

Well, I have a bunch of Creeds and I'm a huge Creed fanatic and I was thinking this myself (because I'm also a huge Comme des Garçons fanatic). I think there's a huge difference in charging $100 for a scent and charging $200 for one.

I've bought most of my Creeds for around $100 a bottle. The only one I paid retail for was Virgin Island Water, which no matter how much I like it, that price is ridiculous. But that's the whole Creed "game" and a person is smart, they can still build an arsenal of Creeds without breaking the bank. But like Scentemental said, no matter what they're putting in the bottles, the costs are still nothing even close to $30, let alone $200. Hey, we all know this and don't mid shelling out $100 bucks for a fragrance, but when someone decides to double the price for no good reason, it sounds a little greedy.

It's like that Escentric Molecules fragrance "Molecule 01"-- It's nothing but iso- e super. i even got a sample of it to compare to my bottle of iso -e super. It's the same. And they're charging $135 dollars for it? hahahaha. Well, I'm not gonna buy it.

If Comme des Garçons came out with this LUXE series and charged $100 instead of $200, I'd have no complaints (other than it's still kind of a boring concept to me). I do want to try the Patchouli and see if I like it.

It just seems like Comme des Garçons "jumped the shark" with the Sweet Series.
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post #20 of 26
8/9/07 at 6:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scentemental View Post

WARNING: A RAVE FOLLOWS:

don't all perfume houses "overcharge"?

Cdg's clothing are totally off priced...so i guess their fragrances are too...
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post #21 of 26
8/9/07 at 7:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by squirrelmilk View Post

don't all perfume houses "overcharge"?

Cdg's clothing are totally off priced...so i guess their fragrances are too...

Yes, of course they do, but some more than others and some which produced quality products like Chanel, actually in terms of sheer quality are better value. The Exclusifs series cost $175.00 for a 200ml bottle. That's designer prices for Luxe fragrances. In fact the Exclusifs series cost no more than Chanel's regular women's fragrances.

Milliliter for milliliter Czech & Speake fragrances are incredible value for money when compared to other houses given their originality and quality, so yes, while all perfumes houses overcharge some overcharge a lot more than others.

But the whole argument about whether $200.00 is overcharging or not is fruitless, in the end, because people are willing to pay that much, and as I said in my earlier post, I don't have any problems with that.

Mine is a larger argument about where inspiration comes from and where it should come from. What remains to be seen is just how good the CdG Luxe series will be. Like I said, I am not holding my breath. I am huge CdG fan. At one stage, I owned 25 different CdG fragrances, and have tried and am familiar with all of them. I don't think this Luxe series bodes well for the house, but, hey, I am willing to be proven wrong, and if they do produce a fragrance that is so outstandingly good, hell, I'll even pay $200.00 for a small bottle, but not before I've haunted eBay and the Basenotes Marketplace for a cheaper bottle.

scentemental


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post #22 of 26
10/4/07 at 1:54am
  • GGA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nqt View Post

The new perfumes from CdG, LUXE series with two perfumes Patchouli and Champaca.

It's a whole new Comme's concept in perfumes: luxury - using rare and high quality ingredients. I mean CdG never accentuated the quality of the ingredients before, but unusual concepts. These also have kind of spiritual feelings, not that seriousand religious like the Incense series, though. The fragrances come in two types of bottles, semi hand made. The juices have high concentration (20%) - higher than EdP. The smells develope nicely on skin, more like a perfume than the EdT or EdP - they are strong but gentle at the same time. If you use perfumes, not EdTs or EdPs, you will know what I mean:-) They are also expensive - 200 euro for bigger botles if I remember right.

The Champaca is like a real flower, reminds me of ylang - ylang, but I don't find the note on the list. Notes are:
Head: white pepper, angelica, cardamon
Heart: champaca, bird pepper, tuberose
Base: white musk, iris wood.

The Patchouli is bitter, earthy, coffee, very very good:-) not that sweet as Wood Coffee, but not that strong and dark as Serge Lutens's Arabie. Notes are:
Head: white pepper, fenugreek, lovege (have no idea what are the later two)
Heart: oak extract, opoponax, patchouli
Base: cedar, vanilla, sandalwood, vetyver.


Is any e-store selling these scents? Info would be much appreciated!

Cheers,
-Tero-
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post #23 of 26
10/4/07 at 5:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGA View Post

Is any e-store selling these scents? Info would be much appreciated!

Cheers,
-Tero-

I'm not really sure, but probably the patchouli could be more unisex, althought the champaca would remind me the guerilla 1 that i quite like too.
You know how Comme des Garçons are,you never know till try!.
Very expensive though for a 45ml flacon.
You can buy them by pre-order online for 190.

http://www.purs-sens.com/p622/Comme_...duct_info.html

http://www.purs-sens.com/p623/Comme_...13a1c 7cd1fc6

there are the links.
Hope that helps
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post #24 of 26
10/4/07 at 8:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by scentemental View Post


Mine is a larger argument about where inspiration comes from and where it should come from. What remains to be seen is just how good the CdG Luxe series will be. Like I said, I am not holding my breath. I am huge CdG fan. At one stage, I owned 25 different CdG fragrances, and have tried and am familiar with all of them. I don't think this Luxe series bodes well for the house...


I'm less concerned about the greed factor and more concerned with what this means for the house. It looks to me like they're alienating their core market: counter-culture/postmodern/cynical-in-an-aloof-and-humorous-way young people. This move will seriously damage their credibility to this base regardless of how good the actual scents are. These people aren't dumb; they'll see what's going on in a second. It just feels so un-CdG, trying to be all fancy and serious. This is the kind of thing that the previous releases stood against. I'm no CdG expert, but that's just the sense I got from the house.

That said, I'd still like to smell the patchouli, but there's no way I'd buy it. I'm more excited about the Prada boutique spice releases mentioned in the first post. I wonder when they'll make their way to the states?
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post #25 of 26
10/4/07 at 9:31am
Octavian of 1000 Fragrances just updated about the Luxe series: http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/2...s-garcons.html
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post #26 of 26
10/4/07 at 10:19am
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Thanks for the info shifts and madridbatabidd. I just found out that Colette carries them both

-T-
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