After Monocle, Stephen Jones and Daphne Guinness, Comme des Garçons partners up with the cult Finnish design company Artek, founded by Alvar Aalto, to launch a fragrance with a distinctly Boreal flavor. Comme des Garçons’ trademark “anti-perfume” notes – in this case, a hint of metallic tang bolstering the lemon-ginger opening – blended with two seldom-used materials gathered in the Great North: Finnish Labrador Tea (also known as Indian Tea), extracted from a fir-smelling evergreen shrub, and twinflower, an almond-tinged blossom from the honeysuckle family. The overall effect, however, is unmistakably Comme des Garçons: a medicinal-woody scent, vibrant with the combustible, pencil-shaving fumes of cedar and a cold, almost incense-like effect. Highly diffusive, totally distinctive and as elegantly pared-down as Alvar Aalto’s iconic Mid-century Modern designs. You can’t get edgier than that.

STANDARD basenotes :

• Fennel
• Ginger
• Lemon
• Saffron
• Cedar wood
• Musk