Natural fragrance brand Ffern has just opened a retail space in London’s Soho neighbourhood. It is the brand's first physical outpost and, unsurprisingly for a perfume house rigorously dedicated to natural ingredients, it is a bastion of innovative material design.
The story behind Ffern natural fragrance
Ffern was launched in 2017 by brother and sister Owen Mears and Emily Cameron who, in the words of Mears, 'wanted to celebrate the skill and craftsmanship involved in natural perfumery – an art form that has been lost today – and to be entirely transparent about our ingredients and their provenance’.
For the duo, that meant creating limited-edition, seasonal fragrances made with entirely natural and organic ingredients and packed in 100 per cent plastic-free packaging. To ensure that nothing is made which goes to waste, only those on Ffern’s small list of clients (‘the ledger’) receive a bottle of perfume when there is a new drop, four times a year.
The Ffern store on 23 Beak Street will be the first time those who aren’t on the ledger will be able to experience the fragrances first-hand, while leger members can stop by and revisit some of their past favourites in the store's archive room.
Design studio House of Grey designed the space so that it was 100 per cent plastic-free, just like the brand’s packaging, and stepping inside can indeed feel like walking into a box of Ffern perfume.
The brand has always embraced sustainable beauty packaging, presenting its products in compostable mycelium containers with a small bag of seeds (to be planted with container) and a small artwork made especially for the fragrance. In the store, neutral tones abound, with smatterings of curios and artworks along shelves or on the walls adding dynamism.
Every material inside has been considered, with a central desk made from compostable mycelium (one of the first large-scale pieces of furniture in the world to be made from the material), a hanging screen made from a leather-like seaweed biomaterial, and handwoven seagrass matting on the floors.
Even the walls are painted in 100 per cent natural lime-based paint from Bauwerk, air-purifying ecological paint from Graphenstone or clad with breathable unfired clay from Cornwall.
'The store has been designed with regenerative interior design at its heart,’ says House of Grey founder Louisa Grey. ‘ Which aligns so beautifully with Ffern. Regenerative design is about ensuring the built environment has a net-positive impact on natural systems. Innate to our working practices at House of Grey is the symbiotic relationship between human health and the health of the planet.'
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