Quick answers
Life and career
Christian Astuguevieille was born in Paris (France) in 1946. Sensitive early to material and touch, he developed a tactile approach to the world that marked his whole body of work. After studying pedagogy, he ran the children's workshop at the Centre Pompidou, then turned to art direction in perfumery and design.
An artist above all, he became known for his rope-wrapped furniture and objects, drawn from the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi and the art of furoshiki. His first furniture exhibition, in Paris in the late 1980s, drew the attention of collectors and creators, among them the Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garçons.
From that meeting came a long collaboration. From 1994, Christian Astuguevieille took over the olfactive creative direction of Comme des Garçons Parfums, a role he held for more than thirty years, until his death on 13 February 2026.
Creative direction
Astuguevieille's direction became one with a strong idea, developed with Rei Kawakubo from 1994: the anti-perfume. Rather than seduce, the perfume was meant to surprise, sometimes unsettle, by exploring materials that classical perfumery avoided, from tar to religious incense, from mineral notes to raw woods.
True to his practice as an artist, he approached each perfume as a conceptual object, setting the intention before entrusting the writing to guest perfumers. Under his direction the house produced more than ninety compositions, among them the famous thematic series, including the Incense series devoted to the incenses of the world.
The anti-perfume: to surprise rather than seduce, handing guest noses the materials that classical perfumery avoided.
Key characteristics
The house
Comme des Garçons Parfums is the fragrance arm of the Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons, founded by Rei Kawakubo. Christian Astuguevieille led its olfactive creation from 1994, giving the brand an identity as an avant-garde perfumery.
Under his direction, and under Puig license since 2002, the house entrusted its fragrances to leading noses while keeping a rare conceptual coherence. After Christian Astuguevieille's death in 2026, his imprint remains legible across the catalog, from the first eaux de parfum to the thematic series.
Major creations
Under Christian Astuguevieille's direction, the house's fragrances were entrusted to several guest noses. The following are reference compositions.
| Year | Perfume | Perfumer | Olfactive family |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Comme des Garçons Eau de Parfum | Mark Buxton | Spicy woody incense |
| 1998 | CDG 2 | Mark Buxton | Woody incense |
| 2002 | Avignon, Incense series | Bertrand Duchaufour | Religious incense |
| 2002 | Kyoto, Incense series | Bertrand Duchaufour | Japanese incense |
| 2009 | Daphne | Antoine Maisondieu | Spicy floral |
| 2010 | Wonderwood | Antoine Lie | Concentrated woody |
| 2016 | Black Pepper | Antoine Lie | Peppery spicy |
| 2017 | Concrete | Antoine Maisondieu | Mineral woody |