Comme des Garçons, Max Richter Fete New Fragrance

MUSICAL NOTES: Comme des Garçons hosted a cocktail Thursday night at Dover Street Market Paris to celebrate the launch of the scent Max Richter 01.

Richter, the German-British composer whose striring compositions have become soundtracks to the runways of the likes of Dior, Fendi, Maison Margiela and Valentino, dipped into fragrance-making for the first time.

“I’ve been wanting to do perfume for decades, and I got to know Adrian,” Richter said, referring to Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons International and chief executive officer of Dover Street Market, next to whom he sat. “Of course I love the work that Comme do, and I felt like their sort of borderless creativity suited my idea.

“Music, even though it’s in a sense a technical language, it is ultimately about feeling,” Richter continued. “As often has been said, you get to a certain point with words, and then music goes beyond that. With a scent, you have a similar situation. You can evoke things that are maybe in a way deeper than words, that hits in a more fundamental way. So this was a very attractive area to explore.”

Richter considers fragrance-making to be like creating music. “He composed the fragrance,” said Joffe.

Starting points were suggestions Richter made about materials and elements that populate his world. His studio is in the woods, and various other types of woods came into play, too.

“Like the wood of a piano soundboard, the wood of a violin,” said Richter. “The rosin you put on a violin bow, graphite from a pencil.”

Similarly to music creation, fragrance creation “is really just a process of following your enthusiasm, your passion,” explained Richter. “It’s a sort of instinctive thing. There’s a feeling of rightness, and you just go toward that.”

He added in the iterative process, one’s homing in on something that they don’t yet know. “I think that’s quite beautiful,” said Richter.

Multidisciplinary artist Yulia Mahr lent one of her photographs to appear on the fragrance’s outer packaging, and her art has been installed in DSM Paris’ central courtyard.

A small book, called “The Hinterland of the Senses,” which was conceived with Luncheon magazine, traces elements of the fragrance’s development, Mahr’s work plus her and Richter’s inspirations.

“Touch, smell, feeling, seeing…then all becomes one,” said Joffe. “Which is what I thought was amazing about this project.”

Max Richter 01, an eau de toilette that retails for 130 euros, is being sold at DSM Paris, Dover Street Parfums Market and Comme des Garçons Paris. It will soon be stocked in all DSM and Comme des Garçons stores and other select retailers globally.