Vaquera’s debut fragrance “Classique Perdu” smells like thrift store treasures and forgotten dreams – and that’s exactly the point
Tomorrow marks a peculiar moment in the fragrance world: Vaquera, the irreverent New York fashion label known for turning fashion week into performance art, is launching their first perfume. But this isn’t your typical celebrity fragrance cash grab or luxury brand extension. “Classique Perdu” – literally “Lost Classic” – is a fragrance that’s been designed to feel like something you’ve already forgotten.
Clearance Sale Chic Meets High Concept
Working with Comme des Garçons Parfums, Vaquera has created something that deliberately subverts every perfume launch convention. Instead of gleaming bottles and pristine packaging, Classique Perdu arrives cushioned in cheap packing peanuts, housed in a simple transparent box covered with clearance stickers that scream “discount bin special.”
It’s perfume as conceptual art, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from a brand that once sent models down the runway in literal trash bags and has made a career out of questioning fashion’s obsession with luxury and status.
Smells Like Teen Spirit (and Permanent Markers)
The scent itself is built around a fascinatingly specific type of nostalgia. Rather than evoking glamorous memories, Classique Perdu draws inspiration from the mundane moments that somehow stick in your brain: the chemical sweetness of a childhood car’s air conditioning, the airy scent of freshly dried hair after a shower, and the metallic shimmer of a summer fountain.
Most intriguingly, it’s inspired by “the scent of perfume ads in 90s fashion magazines” – that particular combination of glossy paper, ink, and the phantom traces of fragrances that were never quite there to begin with. It’s memory layered on top of memory, a fragrance about the idea of fragrance.
The “Wait, What’s in This?” Breakdown
Created by perfumer Suzy Le Helley under the direction of Christian Astuguevieille (Comme des Garçons Parfums’ creative director), Classique Perdu opens with an unconventional quartet: lavandin, tomato leaf, a “permanent marker accord,” and blackcurrant berries. Yes, you read that right – permanent marker. Because nothing says nostalgic like the faint chemical tang of school supplies.
The heart reveals clary sage, iris, and something called “solar rose” (which sounds like what roses would smell like on Mars), before settling into a base of styrax resin, sandalwood, suede accord, and evernyl – a synthetic that’s often used to replace the now-restricted oakmoss in modern fragrances.
The Unlikely Power Couple
This collaboration makes perfect sense when you consider the players involved. Vaquera, helmed by creative directors Bryn Taubensee and Patrice DiCaprio, has spent years gleefully puncturing fashion’s pompous balloon. They’re the brand that turned a pizza delivery into a fashion moment and regularly treats runway shows like avant-garde theater.
Comme des Garçons, meanwhile, has been the fragrance world’s most consistent rule-breaker since 1994. Their perfumes have included scents inspired by garage smells, industrial tar, and even molecules designed to smell like nothing at all. When Adrian Joffe, CEO of Comme des Garçons International, says he was “shocked” by the title “Classique Perdu” before realizing “it made perfect sense,” you know we’re in for something different.
From Fashion School to Fragrance Fame
Vaquera’s journey to fragrance began through the Dover Street Market Paris Brand Development program, which has become something of a finishing school for avant-garde fashion labels. The relationship with Comme des Garçons grew organically from there, with the perfume launching first at Comme des Garçons Paris, Dover Street Market Paris and London, and Dover Street Parfums Market.
The $85 price tag for 30ml positions it squarely in the niche fragrance market – not cheap, but not outrageous either. It’s accessible luxury with a wink, perfectly calibrated for the brand’s audience of fashion insiders and fragrance collectors who appreciate the conceptual joke as much as the actual scent.
The Art of Selling Forgotten Dreams
What’s brilliant about Classique Perdu is how it turns the entire fragrance marketing playbook inside out. Instead of promising to make you irresistible or transport you to exotic locations, it offers something much stranger: the feeling of rediscovering something you’d forgotten you’d lost.
The packaging reinforces this narrative. Those clearance stickers aren’t just aesthetic choices – they’re telling a story about value, about hidden gems waiting to be discovered by people who know how to look. It’s the fragrance equivalent of finding a designer piece at a thrift store, complete with the little thrill of feeling like you’ve gotten away with something.
Why This Actually Matters (Beyond the Hype)
Vaquera’s entry into perfume represents something larger happening in the fragrance world. As luxury brands churn out increasingly similar celebrity scents and flankers, there’s growing appetite for fragrances that tell more interesting stories. Consumers, especially younger ones, are drawn to brands that acknowledge the absurdity of the beauty industry while still creating genuinely beautiful products.
The permanent marker accord alone is likely to generate more conversation than most traditional floral launches manage in their entire lifetime. It’s the kind of detail that makes perfume nerds lose their minds and casual wearers do double takes.
What’s Next for Fashion’s Fragrance Rebels?
When Joffe jokes about what might come next – “L’Éternité Retrouvée?” (Found Eternity) – you can almost see the wheels turning. If Classique Perdu succeeds, it could open the door for even more experimental collaborations between fashion’s enfants terribles and perfume’s most adventurous houses.
The fragrance launches September 30th at select Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market locations, with wider distribution following in late October. Whether it smells good in the traditional sense might be beside the point – sometimes the most interesting fragrances are the ones that make you think as much as they make you smell good.
In a world where most new fragrances blend into an indistinguishable mass of vanilla and white musk, Classique Perdu offers something genuinely different: the olfactory equivalent of finding a love letter in a library book, or discovering a perfect song on a scratched CD you bought for fifty cents. It’s not just a fragrance about memory – it’s a fragrance that might actually create memories worth keeping.
