Avignon was launched in 2002 as part of Comme des Garçons Series 3 Incense collection. The collection includes five fragrances, each representing a spiritual teaching. Avignon represents Catholicism.

Avignon was inspired by the Palais des Papes, one of the largest and most important examples of medieval Gothic architecture in Europe. The Palais was a fortress, palace, and residence of the Popes from 1309 to 1377, when Avignon replaced Rome as the seat of the Papacy until 1791.

Avignon opens with nose-tingling aldehydes that introduce a note of Roman chamomile that’s softly floral, camphourous and lemony. It’s fresh and luminous, with resinous facets that link to notes of balsamic-spicy, elemi, earthy, piney, smoky frankincense and balsamic, slightly spicy and slightly smoky myrrh. It’s a resin bomb for sure, but the balsamy aspects of the resins give Avignon a cool, dank quality. As it progresses, vanilla gives it a soft, creamy sweetness that balances the resins and bonds with a note of sweet, smoky, herbaceous patchouli that adds richness to Avignon. Patchouli has a woody edge that calls forward a note of smooth, velvety rosewood. Ambrette seed, warm, sweet and musky, completes the fragrance.

Avignon is the smell of Gothic cathedrals and papal palaces with high, airy ceilings, cold stone walls and pillars, polished wooden pews and holy relics that have absorbed the odours of ceremony and ritual - burning candles, smoking censers - for centuries.

It blooms beautifully on warm skin and gently wafts and swirls around the wearer for hours before drying down to an intimate skin scent, that’s instantly recognizable as the scent of a church. 

Notes: Roman chamomile, cistus oil, elemi, incense, vanilla, patchouli, rosewood, ambrette seeds.