Being myself a Comme Des Garcons aficionado, I don't deny that the news about this collaboration with Pharrell Williams left me a bit surprised. Yes, CDG delivered a bunch of *fancy* streetwear-inspired collections in the past (especially in their *Play* line) but, for the most part, I think their aesthetic is very distant from diamond rings / earrings and revised ranger's hats. I'm surely missing something here because there must be something else beside, um, mere commercial purposes that links these two entities but, when I think about Comme Des Garcons, what immediately comes to mind is their unmistakeable drop-crotch pants or their most avant-garde / punk-ish designs. I can't help it. Bascially because that's what I always liked about the brand. I can honestly live without their doodle-style red-hearts logos.
With that said, the fragrance is nothing more than a decent spicy woody concoction with floral facets. It opens with a leafy / green violet note paired to pepper. A smooth and kind of milky accord provide a fig-like vibe and some entertaining juxtapositions between transparent notes and opaque ones. The fragrance then turns into a darker synth woody / incensey drydown that dangerously borders into plastic-y woodyamber territories. That's it.
It's nice and, depending on your tolerance to woodyambers, it's also pleasant to wear but, while feeling *smarter* than most celebuscents available on the market, it really adds NOTHING to the Comme Des Garcons roster. In other words I would say it's a trite CDG and a good celebuscent but given that my interest towards this fragrance was mainly because of the CDG's involvement, I'll have to stick to the *trite* aspect of it.
All in all I would suggest this to either Comme Des Garcons novices or to the brand's completists. People who don't have a special fondness towards the brand and are simply into *interesting* fragrances, might want to look somewhere else.
Given Kaws' involvement in the design of the bottle, this might become a collector's item pretty soon.
Rating: 6.5/10
