12/12, 2025

CGS: From Ashes to Scented Narratives — Inside Seoul’s Immersive Perfume Experience

CGS, the perfume brand by Korean creative director Jee-Seok Cho, unveils an olfactory universe rooted in personal narrative and symbolic storytelling. Its Seoul showroom reframes product discovery as an emotional journey.

The Birth of CGS: A Narrative in Fragrance

Founded in April 2025 by Jee-Seok Cho, a multidisciplinary creative known for visual, fashion and advertising work, CGS introduces perfume as a medium of narrative and emotion. The debut collection — framed around Coexistence — comprises three thematic lines: Flower Study, Bad Dream, and Love & Hate. Each scent contrasts citrus, saffron, and cypress notes with symbolic imagery — from blooming flowers to angels and demons — to evoke transformation, desire, and introspection.

Rather than presenting fragrances as products alone, CGS positions them within conceptual worlds: new beginnings, growth through adversity, and the duality of affection. The bottles and campaign visuals uphold the brand’s surreal yet meticulous aesthetic, signaling CGS’s ambition to blur boundaries between perfumery and art.

Seoul Showroom: A Sensory Narrative Space

In July 2025, CGS opened an offline showroom in Gangnam, Seoul — not as a traditional boutique, but as an immersive storytelling environment. Housed in a white minimal structure that doubles as Cho’s photo studio, the space unfolds across five maze-like rooms where objects and installations reveal the brand’s origin story.

Visitors embark on a sequential journey: first encountering sculptural interpretations of CGS’s birth in the wake of a studio fire, then exploring an archive of Cho’s decade of creative output, and finally discovering prototype bottle experiments and campaign films before arriving at the collection itself. Only at the end are the actual fragrance products — including limited editions and scented candles — presented for experience and purchase.

“By translating the brand’s decade-long creative evolution into a spatial experience, CGS expands the act of discovery into an emotional journey—quietly suggesting new possibilities beyond conventional retail within the global niche fragrance scene.”

Rather than positioning fragrance as an immediate purchase, CGS frames discovery as a gradual process shaped by time, memory, and creative continuity. This approach reflects the brand’s intent to move beyond traditional retail formats and explore how scent can be experienced, remembered, and accumulated.

Details

Brand: CGS

Address: 77-10, TEHERAN-RO 19-GIL, GANGNAM-GU, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

CGS Product

FLOWER STUDY EXTRAIT DE PARFUM 10ML

BAD DREAM EXTRAIT DE PARFUM 10ML

$75

$75

  • Citrus awakens the air as white florals bloom and cypress drifts by. Warm musk, sandalwood, and patchouli ground it, with a soft touch of vanilla lingering through the depth.

  • Alcohol Denat, Fragrance, Water, Butylene Glycol, PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Benzylsalicylate, Limonene, Benzyl Benzoate, Linalool, Citronellol, Geraniol, Citral, Eugenol

  • Exotic spices cut through the dark, as smoky tobacco meets soft rose and iris. Warm tonka bean and vanilla linger, blurring dreams into ecstasy.

  • Alcohol Denat, Fragrance, Water, Butylene Glycol, PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Coumarin, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Benzyl Salicylate, Alpha-Isomethyllonone, Citral

LOVE AND HATE EXTRAIT DE PARFUM 10ML

$75

  • Cool tea tree and pine meet spicy cardamom and coriander, while rose and jasmine add sweet allure. Deep notes of agarwood, incense, patchouli, and musk leave a rich, sensual trail.

  • Alcohol Denat, Fragrance, Water, Butylene Glycol, PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Linalool, Limonene, Citronellol, Geraniol, Citral