Rei Kawakubo’s favourite tree inspires new Comme des Garçons perfume

Though there are more than 75 perfumes under the Comme des Garçons brand, their latest release, codenamed Dot, is only the fifth to have been developed and launched in-house rather than under licence to the Spanish perfume giant Puig. Dot is inspired by one of Rei Kawakubo’s favourite scents: the fragrance of Japanese osmanthus, a small evergreen tree whose small white flowers have a wonderful peach-like scent. 

It was created by Lucas Sieuzac, until recently the senior perfumer at the German flavour and fragrance company Symrise, who has used osmanthus absolute to recreate the smell of the flowers, with green notes and ambery woods to reference the leaves and bark of the tree, and touches of bitter orange, pepper and incense-like olibanum as well. 

Dot is a light, attractive, sweet and fruity scent, which comes in an intentionally shelf-unfriendly black glass bottle which neither stands nor sits, decorated with Kawakubo’s signature polka dots.