Comme des Garcons @ H&M !?

File that under bizarre fashion news: Commes de Garcons just announced a partnership with Swedish fast-fashion retailer behemoth H&M. I just posted this morning about how CDG seems to be spreading thin with so-many collaborations but this one is surely the strangest I've heard so far. Many top-shelf designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Roberto Cavalli and Stella McCartney have already designed special lines for H&M and even celebs like Madonna and Kate Moss have tried their hand at that too, but Rei Kawakubo? You know, 3-legged pants Rei Kawakubo! I am VERY curious to see what comes out of this one but I will have to wait until November 08 when the range of womenswear, menswear, childrenswear and accessories hit the shelves. She is also developing a new unisex fragrance for the Swedish retailer as well.

Via New York Magazine

Bond No.9's Andy Warhol Union Square

The nice folks at edgy downtown perfumery Bond No.9 are always sending me fun product updates in the mail and I love getting their samples too! Their new Andy Warhol series scent is coming out on March 1st and it's called Union Square. The second of their Warhol collectibles is named for the environs of the two Union Square studios that the artist and his crew successively occupied during 1968-1984—his years of notoriety. It was at these downtown locations Warhol created the Mao paintings, the commissioned portraits of the rich and famous, and his portfolio of 10 Flowers screen prints - same images that adorn it's new bottle.

Let’s start with the scent itself. While most floral fragrances just hint at cool, and vice-versa, this one is an ambi-sexual, daringly balanced mix of sweet and cool. Sometimes the gentle scent of lily of the valley seems about to prevail, looped together with blue freesia, golden amber, and animal musk to enhance its sensuality. At other times, crunchy green-stem notes and white birch wood are poised to turn this scent into one of pure, clean energy. But then the sweetness and the coolness merge, and stay merged.

Available in 100 ml and 50ml flacons, Andy Warhol Union Square will be available at Bond No. 9’s four New York boutiques, through their site and at Saks Fifth Avenue nationwide. Prices range from US$135.00 to US$195.00 depending on size. And for the serious collector who desires the complete Warhol series there is also a portfolio of ten different bottles. They are meant to be viewed as one, as Warhol intended for his Flowers. Suggested retail price: US$1,500.00 for ten 100ml bottles.

Warhol once said “Another way to take up more space is with perfume. I really love wearing perfume!”

Agent Provocateur Window @ Selfridge's London

People on their way to work got an eyeful today when a woman stripped naked in the window of Selfridges - but it was all in the name of art. The model posed nude for an artist to paint her to promote Strip, a fragrance by lingerie label Agent Provocateur.
Passers-by gaped, fumbling for their camera phones, while buses slowed down and passengers swarmed to the windows. But once the artist, who calls himself Jacques le Trompet, finished the painting, the model, Jen, covered up and the curtain was drawn.
Sadly for those with a sudden urge to rush down to Selfridges this afternoon she has now been replaced by a clothed mannequin. It is the latest and most daring window display by the label. A spokeswoman said: "It's part of the tradition for Agent Provocateur. In 2005 we had a live striptease in the window of our Soho branch. The street was rammed."

Via The Daily Mail

Comme des Garçons New Perfume - 888

Comme des Garçons’ new 888 perfume, previewed to editors last week, has been made available just in time for the holiday season thanks to a special temporary preview shop that will only be open through December 8 at 5 Burlington Arcade. The cozy two-story shop features 888, the new scent, as well as branded T-shirts and candles upstairs. Downstairs, meanwhile, will stock rare vintage tees and collector Comme des Garçons perfumes from the past, including Pearly Monster, Over the Moon, and White, all limited-edition scents from the last five years, for £20, or US$41.
While cult collectors of Comme des Garçons will appreciate the out-of-stock finds available, the main attraction will undoubtedly be 888, retailing for £48, or US$99, for 50 ml. The shiny gold bottle, in keeping with the brand’s whimsical visual packaging, is representative of the contents, as created by perfumer Antoine Lie in collaboration with Christian Astuguevieille, Comme des Garçons’ perfume creative director, with topnotes of saffron, pepperwood, coriander, and geranium.
But stock up now—and quickly. After the shop closes this weekend, the product won’t be available until its official launch in March.

Via Fashion Week Daily

Bond No.9 Christmas Edition Perfumes

Wow! Check out Bond No. 9's limited edition Holiday releases! The first one is the bling-elicious black & white Swaroski-encrusted Saks Fifth Avenue perfume, a scent of gardenia, jasmine and vetiver, for US$550.00. The Scent of Peace, also in a limited-edition flacon whose dove-in-flight design is traced in amethyst, white, and opalescent Swarovski crystals. Their stellar perfume is a mix of lily of the valley, grapefruit and black currant (yum!) and retails for US$470.00. At last the ultra-luxe "I Love New York" (no-no, not that VH1 show) in a double-decker sampler box with twelve 50ml flacons representing the Uptown, Midtown and Downtown scent lines from Bond No. 9. This could be the year’s definitive holiday gift – if you can bear to part with it - as at US$1,600 it should go to someone VERY SPECIAL! Maybe yourself!

Go to Bond No. 9 for more info

Chloë For Chloé

For Spring 2008, everyone's chasing the Chloé free-spirited look. Meanwhile, the brand itself is defining the way it wants to smell with a scent that debuts in March. The new Chloé fragrance celebrates the chic and irreverent spirit that's become the house's signature in the '00s. It also celebrates three iconic girls of the moment: the actresses Chloë Sevigny and Clémence Poésy and supermodel Anja Rubik, as captured by Dutch photography team of Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.

The fragrance, developed by Robertet perfumers Michel Almairac and Amandine Marie, combines powdery floral notes with peony and springtime freesia. All of which gives way to a rich and sensual side of the rose with notes derived from the deep interior of the flower. It deftly embodies the Chloé look, which always walks the line between the girlish and the seductively womanly. Look no further than the new ad campaign to see that dynamic in action.

Via V Magazine

Bond No.9 - Andy Warhol's Silver Factory

Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory marks the start of Bond No. 9’s series of Warhol collectibles. Depicted on the bottle’s surface is a graphic image inspired by one of the pop artist’s most recognizable images—a boldly re-colored rendition of the Campbell’s Soup Can. But an Andy Warhol perfume? Well, Warhol once made mention of a company that was “interested in buying [his] aura.” Here it is, in liquid form. Warhol once remarked, “Another way to take up more space is with perfume. I really love wearing perfume.” What’s more, “for an iconic time, perfume is a way to see and be seen,” adds Bond No. 9’s president, Laurice Rahme.

Bond No. 9 is an edgy downtown perfumer, committed to art and design—not just the art of scent-making, but the visual components, too—including bottle and package design. It is all about New York neighborhood scents too. So the inspirations for the Warholian pop perfumes would be based on Andy Warhol’s favorite haunts. First among them? The Silver Factory—also known simply as the Factory. In operation from 1964–1968, Warhol’s original studio, hangout, and club central, located in a nondescript building on East 47th Street, acquired visual uniqueness with its aluminum-foil walls. These walls evoked silver-backed mirrors—emblems of the narcissism that suffused the times. The Silver Factory served as a galvanizing forum for artists, silkscreeners, actors, filmmakers, debutants, activists, hustlers, and misfits—all of whom somehow contributed to the creativity. It was here that Warhol emerged as an avant garde filmmaker, pop art progenitor, and all-around superstar.

Arriving December 1 - US$230, for 3.4oz

Available at Bond No.9

Comme des Garçons Builds Niche Perfume Empire

What do Daphne Guinness and Stephen Jones have in common - apart from their English eccentric style? They are both launching first fragrances under the auspices of Adrian Joffe, who heads up the company of his partner Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons and has developed for her a fragrance empire.
The idea of Joffe as the beauty industry's new prince of perfume sounds unlikely. But, as Joffe says, there is an increasing demand for niche marketing in this area where big does not always seem so beautiful.
The proof is in the steady development of Comme des Garçons fragrances since the early beginnings in 1993. When its Eau de Parfum was launched around the swimming pool at the Ritz, it seemed more like a medicinal congress than a beauty event, as bags of yellow liquid were the decoration of choice.

Instead of the standard $50,000 launch parties that reverberated through the 1990s, Comme des Garçons brought out a different concept each year, with the 1999 series of "Leaves" a hit with customers.
But Comme des Garçons Parfum has remained an individualist and a family affair.
Jones explains that he worked closely with Kawakubo herself on his concept, saying "she's not a perfume person," but that "she is a very good editor."
While Kawakubo has always been labeled an iconoclast, Joffe has broken the mold in a more nuanced way. The Dover Street Market, set up as a London multi-brand store, was dismissed as an aberration in the era of brand retail flagships. But now, with its mix of cool and traditional fashion and accessories - not least from Comme des Garçons' own labels, the store is looking increasingly visionary.

The financial side is also moving ahead, with wholesale figures up 32 percent to $3.5 million for year end to May 2007 and profits rising by 50 percent. The new phase of development will see Comme des Garçons managing its independent names and paying them a royalty. "Our role is like a producer in a movie," says Joffe. "And like a producer, we have to be satisfied with the plot and the text."

Text by Suzy Menkes

Via International Herald Tribune

Armani Attitude

And this year's award for best-looking cologne bottle goes to...

Armani's newest men's scent is called Attitude and comes in a very elegant lighter-shaped flask. Attitude packs a spicy, smooth, and sensual scent that should provide the perfect transition from fruity, summer scents to the musky, heavy scents of winter. US$55.00

I just love this bottle! Très chic et très masculin!

New Gucci Perfume Ad by David Lynch

This is the new Gucci by Gucci perfume ad shot by Hollywood director David Lynch. The surrealist creator of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks adds his kooky views now towards fragrance sales, for Gucci's first ever TV ad. Brazilian supermodel Raquel Zimmerman, along Natasha Poly and Freja Beha Erichsen were the hand picked beauties to star in G by G film and ad campaign. The ad will run in Europe from late October on. But all I can think of is "These girls have no rhythm!", as they sway away out of beat to Blondie's Heart of Glass.

Via Vogue UK