Introducing Vogue's First Perfume—A Collaboration With Comme des Garçons - Vogue.com

On a mild March day, between shows during Paris Fashion Week, Comme des Garçons Parfums creative director Christian Astuguevieille is seated behind a long table, just up a winding flight of stairs at the fashion label’s Place Vendôme headquarters. Arms crossed, in his signature horn-rimmed glasses and a wool suit, the French perfumer has assembled 20 different fragrance testers in front of him, divided into three groups. “This is a first draft,” he says, by way of a translator seated to his left, gesturing to the slim vials brimming with olfactory promise. “Comments are welcome.”

A few months earlier, Vogue Beauty Director Celia Ellenberg had sent Astuguevieille a list of fragrance notes. None necessarily went together, and yet each had a special place in Vogue’s storied history, which has been dotted by unexpected scented touchstones and recently unearthed by Archive Editor Laird Borrelli-Persson. Among them: the aldehydes so signature to Chanel No.5, a favorite of Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour; the peonies from photographer Irving Penn’s iconic series in the magazine’s December 1968 issue; the sweet scent of the glossy paper that the publication’s pages are printed on every month; aquatic notes that mimic the smell of the salty air at the docks along South Street Seaport, where Vogue assistants once waited for designer sketches to arrive in New York from Paris; whiskey and a peanut butter sandwich, the preferred lunch of former Vogue editor in chief Diana Vreeland.

After more than a century of publication, and in celebration of a milestone 125th anniversary, Vogue was making a perfume—which debuts today—with help from Rei Kawakabo’s cultish fashion and fragrance label, known for idiosyncratic scent collaborations that have paired Pharrell Williams with the scent of white pepper and vetiver; Daphne Guinness with incense and oud; milliner Stephen Jones with white wisteria and musk; and Grace Coddington with Moroccan rose, white musk, and peach blossom.

Florals, it was decided, would ground Vogue’s first-ever perfume, and Astuguevieille had created variations based on three petaled pillars: peony tinged with leather, reminiscent of the gloves legendary fashion director Babs Simpson insisted her team wear at the office in the 1960s; tuberose—the heart of Fracas, Robert Piquet’s classic eau de parfum, which every Vogue editor wore in the 1950s—offset in varying degrees by an essence of glossy paper, bourbon, and the tobacco that permeated the couture salons of yesteryear; and lily of the valley, the fresh-cut springtime bloom that the magazine’s founding publisher, Condé Nast, kept in his dressing room.

Thanks in large part to the way Astuguevieille showcased the delicate note with a nuanced backdrop, there was something undeniably appealing about the lily of the valley iterations. The addition of an innovative, synthetic “instant camera” note recalled decades of on-set test shoots and provided a thrilling zing when first sprayed; tobacco and leather notes balanced the freshness so the blend never verged on powdery or cloying; a dash of ink, an homage to Condé Nast’s original printing press in Greenwich, Connecticut, made for a final punctuative touch. Astuguevieille picked up a sample of “Ink Lily 4W,” as it was labeled, and sprayed it liberally on his pulse points.

Flash-forward, back in New York City: Vogue’s beauty department deliberated further on these bottles, and a number of other samples that would arrive over the course of the next two months—including tweaks to the tobacco note in “Tuberose Tabac 4B”; less bourbon in the cheekily named “Tuberose Papíer Glassé 4C.” But “Ink Lily 4W,” which would become Vogue 125, remained at the forefront. It boasts a “freshly washed chemise” effect, in the words of Senior Beauty Editor Laura Regensdorf.

Housed in a sleek and highly giftable lacquered red bottle designed by Vogue Art Director Aurélie Pellissier-Roman, the fragrance manages to feel both utterly modern and timeless, a quality that—no coincidence—guides every one of the magazine’s pages each month.

Vogue 125, $150, available at Dover Street Market in New York and online.

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