Comme des Garçons Parfums Ships a Vetiver

May 15. Comme des Garçons Parfums released To Vetiver, a single-material fragrance built by Antoine Maisondieu. The angle is reduction: vetiver root, vetiver oil, vetiver absolute. Three stages of the same thing, layered. No florals, no citrus top, no woody base to soften it. Just the grass.

Vetiver shows up in the Bhagavad Gita. The root has been carried across trade routes for millennia, burned in temples, woven into mats, distilled into oil. Maisondieu's read is to strip it down to the material itself and see what holds. The result smells green, earthy, slightly medicinal. Closer to vetiver as incense than vetiver as a supporting note in a cologne.

The structure is spare. Maisondieu used three extraction methods on the same root stock: steam distillation for the fresh top, CO2 extraction for the mid, alcohol maceration for the dry-down. The idea is to move through the plant's life cycle in a single wear. It reads linear, almost austere. No sweetness, no musk to round it out. Vetiver purists will recognize the discipline. Casual wearers might find it too green.

CdG Parfums has done this before: Avignon was all incense, Kyoto was all temple wood. To Vetiver fits the pattern. The house treats fragrance like an object study, not a wearable accessory. This one isolates a single material and asks the wearer to meet it halfway.

Retail is $180 for 100ml. Available now through Dover Street Market and the CdG site. The bottle is the standard CdG Parfums clear glass with a minimal label. No special edition, no limited run. Just another material study crossing the desk.