Comme des Garçons Parfums’ TO VETIVER pulls from ingredients catalogued in the Bhagavad Gita and Mesopotamian tablets.

Comme des Garçons Parfums has a new fragrance, TO VETIVER, and it lands at Dover Street Market for $188. The scent reads as a love letter to one ingredient, what Comme des Garçons calls an olfactory tribute.

The oil gets pulled from the roots of the grass, and perfumer Antoine Maisondieu lets it carry the weight of the composition. Around it, black pepper and white thyme open with a sharp crackle. Amber and opoponax push warmth back in, the resin half of the equation that historically showed up in incense and ritual smoke. Musk and myrrh round it out.

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Myrrh surfaces in Mesopotamian tablets from Akkadia and Sumeria, and vetiver gets named in the Bhagavad Gita. Comme des Garçons leans into that pedigree, framing the launch as a tribute to ingredients that have been in circulation for thousands of years. The brand’s own line on it: “To Vetiver is an exhilaration of echoes of an exalted journey along time immemorial and time to come. The offering incorporates many fragrances that have been around for thousands of years. Antiquity nourishes the future.”

The fragrance comes from a long-running obsession on the part of Christian Astuguevieille, Creative Director of Comme des Garçons Parfums, who has been devoted to vetiver for the long haul.

Translucent red glass with an internal glow plays directly against the earthy, root-pulled center of the juice. The name runs vertically in stacked black type, broken across two lines as TO VETI VER, the kind of typographic call that reads as Rei Kawakubo’s house.