Additional Videos

The beauty contest

1:50

Longevity, projection and sillage is not the full story...

Following an experimental approach, the perfumer repeatedly needs to evaluate the results of his formula revisions. This clip zooms in on this specific situation. «This is gorgeous!». Christophe seems to be happy. We witness a deep satisfaction. The evaluation goes beyond longevity, projection and sillage – criteria that are often used to measure the technical performance of a perfume. All this might happen silently under the surface. However, what we see is the creator’s deep affection for his creation, as if he were treating it as an attractive person.

Revisiting a scent wheel

1:57

What you see is what you smell

Circles and wheels are common formats used for knowledge visualization in different contexts. The color wheel organizes the relationships between primary, secondary and tertiary colors and visualizes color relationships. In the field of music the circle of fifths visualizes the relationships between major and minor keys. Accordingly, wheels are used to highlight relationships, identify families based on fundamental similarities, and  illustrate different grades of intensity. In the olfactory domain, wheels were used in the 16th century to classify the smell of urine for medical purposes. Since the early 20th century the wheel has become a popular format in perfumery. In the world of perfumery the fragrance wheel serves as a handy tool for classifying perfumes. However, many questions are more puzzling than a neat visual design might suggest, as Christophe points out in this clip.

Excel-ing a scent

1:40

Have you ever thought that the fleeting experience of a scent boils down to something as prosaic as a spreadsheet?

Scents appear ephemeral, volatile, elusive, and transient. Thus, one of the main challenges in the process of scent development is how this seemingly immaterial experience is materialized, that is, how the perfumer moves from first ideas to the final product. At the end of the day one needs to break down the scent into numbers. Along this experimental journey a spreadsheet is used for writing formulae, analyzing modifications and documenting the various stages of the process. A common perfume is composed of odorous materials, using sets of approximately 15 to 80 natural or synthetic ingredients selected from an olfactory palette of approximately 2500 available ingredients. Some of these ingredients are single molecules whereas natural ingredients are combinations of 50-300 molecules themselves. The final product is the result of several dozen smaller experiments that are documented horizontally on the spreadsheet. Vertically, the spreadsheet lists the ingredients used in the experiment. The precise documentation allows the perfumer to go back to an earlier modification if needed. A typical scent development process requires several dozen stages. But we also witnessed extreme cases with several hundred modifications. Have you ever thought that the fleeting experience of a scent boils down to something as prosaic as a spreadsheet?

Beyond words

1:43

Bodily ways of knowing help Christophe go beyond the limitations of an individual creator.

Christophe Laudamiel once described a perfumer as someone «who masters the behaviour and the perception of volatile molecules by the nose and the brain». Accordingly, a perfumer definitely knows how to create a perfume. Yet, this clip reveals the limitations of an individual creator. Practices of collective smelling and sense-making are needed to challenge and confirm the creative path. In this respect a scent development project serves as an extreme case: Verbal utterances account only for a small fraction of human communication. In addition, body language & posture, silence, gestures and face grimaces function as nonverbal feedback. At first sight, this clip might seem boring because there is not very much happening. At a deeper level however, one can notice the deep uncertainties a creator bears. Experiencing scents, sensing, and sense-making emerge mutually in active and reflective practices that have to cope with the paucity of language to describe scents and engage with bodily ways of knowing.

What’s missing on the pizza?

2:09

«Imagine working in an open space while a neighboring workmate eats pizza!»

This was the experience we asked Christophe to capture with a scent. The pizza scent was later used in an exploratory study on the role of the sense of smell in the workplace. We knew that odors we encounter in everyday life are complex mixtures of different notes. Nevertheless, a few characteristic molecules are usually sufficient to evoke the generic smell substances, like coffee or chocolate. However, a generic smell can hardly capture a specific experience or workplace situation.  In this session with Christophe, the assistant perfumer Ugo Charron and the scent journalist Denise Beaulieu we learn about the olfactory lifecycle of pizza.

Making of Hemingway in 6-Major

4:08

An upcoming gallery show changes the rules of the game. 

«Clients are the difference between design and art», as a common saying goes. In fact, it is the client who sets the goals, decides on the budget and approves the final scent. Hence, perfumers work under constraints defined by the client whereas creative work is often associated with freedom and autonomy. Yet, constraints can also be helpful because they stimulate creativity rather than suppress it. This clip shows how Christophe copes with a set of self-defined constraints and highlights the importance of independent work for the creative practice. A few days later, the project Hemingway in 6-Major was actually exhibited at a fancy gallery in Chelsea.

Envisioning a perfumista

0:54

Once, Christophe retrospectively envisions a persona who could wear his creation.

Perfumes are usually developed with a specific user in mind. Sometimes even stereotypes are used for briefing a perfumer. The former New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr once even presented a parody of this type of briefing: «We want something for women. It should make them feel more feminine, but strong, and competent, but not too much…». Following Christophe’s work we hardly ever witnessed anything like this. Instead, it was the scent and its aesthetic quality that guided the design process. 

Once, however, after the development of Blask had been completed for a while, Christophe retrospectively envisioned a persona who could wear this fragrance. Interestingly, his persona very much resembles the user, Mark Behnke, a well known perfume blogger, had in mind when reviewing this creation: «Blask is not a fragrance for everybody but if you are someone looking for a line that takes risks and challenges your perception of what perfume could be, Blask is something you need to try». 

The title of this clip alludes to the growing enthusiasm for perfumes. A perfumista professes the culture of olfactory hedonism. Some perfumista might identify themselves as «fragraholics», «perfumaniacs» or «fragonerds» (just to mention a few labels popular within the subculture).  A perfumista often wears an exotic fragrance that distinguishes itself from the middlebrow tastes of most people. One might think of Andy Warhol as a forerunner who once openly talked about his fondness for esoteric fragrances: 

«Sometimes at parties I slip away to the bathroom just to see what colognes they’ve got. I never look at anything else— I don’t snoop—but I’m compulsive about seeing if there’s some obscure perfume I haven’t tried yet, or a good old favorite I haven’t smelled in a long time. If I see something interesting, I can’t stop myself from pouring it on. But then for the rest of the evening, I’m paranoid that the host or hostess will get a whiff of me and notice that I smell like somebody-they-know.» 

Sometimes this passion for perfumery grows from an interest in chemistry and might rise to further practices. Some perfumista indulge in excessive perfume collecting. Others research for educational material, learn the basics of perfume creation and start as DIY perfumers. Another group of perfumista might start to write perfume reviews or publish related video content on youtube. All in all, they give rise to an increasingly discursive consumer culture. What started on the fringes eventually changes the rules of the game in the fragrance industry.

Fragrant upcycling

2:56

Garbage smells.

Anyone with a nose knows that trash can stink. It is this truism of modern life that this clip challenges: Trash can smell nice. According to our fieldnotes Christophe casually once remarked: «The garbage often smells good. And: If you want to remake it, good luck». Hence, smelling trash is a recurring theme in a perfumer’s studio. This clip, however, shows how smelling a perfumer’s trash bin can open a discussion on sustainability in the fragrance industry and envision a future of fragrant upcycling.

bodywork

0:44

subject/object, real/representational, people/things, mind/body, form/substance, body/soul etc.

Modernity has often been characterised in terms of its operation of dualisms. Over the past few decades the social sciences have witnessed an increasing interest in the body and analyzed embodied aspects of action, social interaction and meaning-making. This clip draws attention to the perfumer’s body as an active player in the process. Bodily practices are shown as a potential resource to produce value: Labour exists as «a resource in the bodiliness of the worker», Karl Marx once noticed in his influential value theory. Scents actually penetrate and involve the human body. However, once a scent becomes part of olfaction, its status as object is completely lost in the body and in the experience of olfaction The perfumer’s body serves as the origin point for all olfactory knowledge and experience. It is the basic source of information and comprehension that gives rise to brief intuitive observations. These observations are often articulated by the perfumer using surprisingly emotional, experiential and sensorial vocabulary. In fact, we seldom heard perfumers use the technical vocabulary we anticipated based on our preparatory readings. The role of the body in perfumery is certainly an extreme case. Yet, a deeper understanding of this practice helps to traverse modernity’s dualisms.