Storytelling

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.

A naïve child

3:37

How does Christophe approach even well known raw materials?

Students often think of learning as an unidirectional accumulation of knowledge. Critical scrutiny, however, reveals that prior knowledge might even hinder efforts to learn or acquire new knowledge: As the British social scientist Gregory Bateson once said: «You can't live without an eraser». Hence, practices of unlearning are essential for all types of knowledge work. In the case of Christophe we often saw him approaching even well known raw materials as if he had never smelled them before. This made us wonder and we asked him about this practice. In fact, there is reason to believe that creative practices hinge upon this kind of open approach.

Taking perfumes to nightlife

0:57

The ephemeral materiality of scent deeply impacts on how a perfumer can balance life and work. The perfumer’s body is a resource as well as a constraint.

Moving from paper testing strips to the skin can drastically change the overall experience of a perfume. What might be banal everyday knowledge has far reaching consequences for a professional perfumer. The skin of a perfumer is a constraint in the process because there are hardly more than three spots on each arm to spray. Once sprayed on the arm the scent will stay until it has completely evaporated. How long this takes is a matter of the scent’s molecular structure. Hence, a scent does not comply with an organization’s time regime. Instead, the involvement of the perfumer’s body makes the perfumer take his work home, or in this case, to the bar. In this clip, set in a bar late at night, Christophe notices a few molecules on his arm, and casually evaluates the set of recent creations. The undisciplined nature of scent blurs the boundaries of work and non-work.

The power of words

1:22

Suddenly Christophe discloses the name of an ingredient to the researcher...

The French capucine is commonly known as nasturtium. Its pronunciation in German «Kapuzinerkresse» instantly irritates the perfumer. Hence, the clip reveals factors impacting scent design beyond common textbook wisdom. Even the phonetic sound of an ingredient might make a difference. Christophe’s multisensory approach is perfectly in line with recent scientific findings showing that odor names affect sniffs length, scent familiarity, perception and evaluations. Accordingly, the same scent can be perceived by the same person differently depending on the label attached. Thus, the label «parmesan cheese» positively influences the scent evaluations in comparison with the situation when the scent is labelled as «vomit». Moreover, scent-related words (e.g. strawberry) might be influential for the olfactory experience than non-related words (e.g. old house).

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.

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.