Consider me won over. When I first began to explore Comme Des Garçons’ new Concrete – housed in a suitably industrial-looking, scratch-prone version of the familiar pebble bottle – I couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit let down. Its opening excited me: a grey, humid, liquid-splattered-on-powder evocation of the ubiquitous building material. And its sweet facet provided a welcome contrast, like berries squashed against granite. But then it all seemed to turn rather pedestrian. Was the promising start leading to nothing more than a tame vanilla? Was the sandalwood mentioned in the press notes going to appear as a mere suggestion of synthetic dryness? Was the triumph of last year’s Blackpepper not to be repeated?
Pushing my worries to one side, I continued to smell it and wear it, as is my duty. And then it hit me: pedestrian is the point. After all, what is the material most often beneath our feet when we’re being pedestrians? As a feature of our modern landscapes, concrete is both irredeemably ugly and largely invisible. Indeed, I dare say that most of the time, we don’t even notice its presence. It rams its way into our consciousness only when permitted to take a somewhat unusual form. The rest of the time it’s just… well, the stuff over which we walk.
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anything about the scent itself?
Hi Anon,
I covered the main points of the scent (the humid aspect, the sandalwood, the berry facet, the sweetness, the floral note) in the first and third paras.
Are you familiar with Charenton Macerations' Asphalt Rainbow? If yes, can you maybe compare them? I'm curious because I really like Asphalt Rainbow.
Neva, actually, no, I'm not familiar with that one. I'll have to keep an eye out for it 🙂