Dia Art Foundation and Comme des Garçons Parfums Designed a Fragrance with Artist Meg Webster

To know the earthworks of New York–based artist Meg Webster is to understand the composition of her collaborative fragrance with Dia Art Foundation and Comme des Garçons Parfums. Housed within a pyramidal polished silver box and a minimal ovoid glass bottle, vegetal notes of geranium, carrot seed, mushroom, and tree moss are complemented by sandalwood and patchouli. This aromatic composition—devised by Webster alongside late Comme des Garçons perfumer, creative director, and artist Christian Astuguevieille, and perfumer Emilie Coppermann—recalls the artist’s salt, soil, and sand sculptural interventions.

Dia is no stranger to scent as art. There’s no aromatic profile as memorable as that of Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room—which was installed in 1977 and became a permanent Dia Art Foundation installation in 1980. At Dia Chelsea in 2023, artist Delcy Morelos’ two large-scale soil installations exuded notes of cinnamon and clove. Scent is also essential to Webster’s sculptural work, according to Jessica Morgan, Director of Dia Art Foundation. “For the last two years, visitors to Dia Beacon have experienced the fragrance of beeswax, moss, and earth in our galleries dedicated to Webster,” she says.

“As I thought about this project, I was drawn to the bodily experience of the natural world—soil underfoot, light moving through the trees, an eagle passing overhead, the smell of earth and forest air,” Webster adds. “Working with fragrance opened up a different register for me, something elemental, evocative, and temporary, applied directly to the flesh, which could serve as a reminder to look up and around, and to embrace these sensations in our day-to-day lives.”

Webster also collaborated on the box and bottle design, both of which feature the pictogram [ ] which references a diagrammatic element from one of her early sculptures. It’s a nod to enclosed spaces that activate engagement with a sculptural environment. To coincide with the fragrance’s release—which is rolling out exclusively at select Comme des Garçons shops, as well as Dover Street Market New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tokyo—the pioneering fashion house has installed a sculpture by Webster at its West 22nd Street boutique, directly across from Dia’s Chelsea outpost. A percentage of proceeds from [ ] Dia x Meg Webster fragrance sales will support Dia’s programs, including its long-term installations, commissions of new projects, publications, public lectures and readings, educational initiatives, and more.