In 2024, when Acne Studios collaborated with French perfume house Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle to create its first-ever fragrance, the aim was simple: to distil Acne's creative language – avant-garde, cheeky and casually cool – into a bottle.

The result was a suitably unconventional fragrance that blended aldehydes (the synthetic compounds that give perfumes a clean, metallic quality) with a gourmand heart of rose, peach, and vanilla, and a deep sandalwood-and-musk base. It is a fresh, almost laundry-like scent with a delicate, slightly sweet edge; or, as the brand describes it, ‘a neoclassical perfume with an irreverent twist; at once vibrant and comforting, magnetic and radical’.

Now, Acne Studios and Frédéric Malle are expanding their olfactory offering with a bath and body collection meant to be worn in conjunction with the fragrance, amplifying the original scent (which was already celebrated among perfume aficionados for its potent sillage). The Body Wash is a silky lather that leaves a delicate perfume in its wake, while the Body Milk is formulated with hydrating shea butter and natural oils to likewise leave skin baby-soft and lightly perfumed.

For perfumer Suzy Le Helley, creating the Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle perfume and its companion bath collection was an exercise in pushing herself as a perfumer and the industry at large. ‘This perfume is, for me, one of the first aldehydic gourmand fine fragrances on the market, and that is something I am very proud of,’ she says. ‘It is also very unique in terms of performance: it is very long-lasting, very powerful, and has a strong sillage.’

To develop the final scent, Le Helley worked closely with both Frédéric Malle and Acne's Jonny Johansson, both titans in their respective fields, to come up with a product that blended the subversive, niche style of both brands. ‘What I enjoyed most was the freedom and trust that were given to me by both Frédéric Malle and Jonny Johansson,’ says Le Helley. ‘This project allowed me to explore new facets of my creativity, pushing me to experiment and take risks.

‘I wanted it to create a unique comfort zone. It is, first of all, a fragrance for yourself, but we worked carefully on the technical aspects of the perfume, its strength, and its longevity. People who smell it on you should also be transported into your luxurious cocoon of comfort – like a beautiful Acne Studios scarf.’

Chanel No.5’s influence has been so profound, its name so classic, that even those who have no interest in beauty know exactly what it is. But No.5 is only a fraction of Chanel’s fragrance story, and in order to shine a spotlight on the rest of it, the house has just reintroduced 11 scents from its Les Exclusifs de Chanel collection, including No.5, in a new, luxuriously concentrated form – Les Extraits de Chanel. With the reinvention of the product range, its packaging, and in-store services, the house tells the story of Gabrielle Chanel’s impact on perfumery to a new audience.

Les Extraits de Chanel

Les Extraits de Chanel is a celebration of Gabrielle Chanel’s revolutionary approach to fragrance, with each scent in the collection offering insight into her equally unconventional life. Take, for instance, Coromandel, a fragrance inspired by Gabrielle’s passion for Chinese lacquered folding ‘Coromandel’ screens, which she scattered around her apartment to create a dark, labyrinthine environment. To evoke that same atmosphere, the Coromandel perfume blends patchouli with balsamic resins, deep red rose, and white chocolate notes to create a warm, seductive, and slightly gourmand scent that evolves drastically as it is worn.

On a lighter note, 1957 is a scent designed to commemorate Gabrielle’s trip to America to receive the Neiman Marcus Award for services in the field of fashion. An olfactory love story between France and America, it blends white musk (popular in 1990s American fragrances) with iris (historically used in Versailles to scent gloves and wigs).

Also notable is our personal favourite, Cuir de Russie, a fragrance crafted in the 1920s by the same perfumer as No.5. Inspired by Russian soldiers' boots and Gabrielle’s brief affair with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, it features a tar-like smokiness, leather, and a hint of mud for a scent that is refined but also slightly dirty.

All the fragrances within Les Extraits de Chanel are crafted with the highest-quality perfume extracts in the industry, and it is one of the last fragrance ranges existing today that has been crafted entirely by hand. It begins in Chanel’s own fields in Grasse, France, where each flower is harvested by hand for the best quality. They are then processed within an hour of picking, to retain the highest concentration of their scent, and it’s this proximity between flower and formula that makes Les Extraits de Chanel uniquely dense, with olfactory profiles that are impossible to find in any other perfume.

The packaging of the fragrances is designed to echo the luxury of the formulas inside. Each bottle is sealed using a 19th-century process known as baudruchage, which consists of applying a fine membrane of baudruche (a rubber-like substance) over the neck of the bottle, and securing it with two pieces of lacquered black cotton thread, ensuring the closure remains airtight and protecting the fragrance from oxidation. Each bottle comes with a set of scissors, specially designed to cut the strings that seal it.

The fragrances also come with a glass applicator tool that is dipped into the bottle and then used to blot the scent on the wrist, rather than the user applying it as a traditional spray. In all these ways, Les Extraits de Chanel is designed to carry on the tradition Gabrielle Chanel started: offering a unique take on perfumery, executed to the most exacting standards.

Following the launch of its Venice-inspired perfumes in 2024, Bottega Veneta is entering its second fragrance chapter with the launch of the new Alta collection.

Alta takes a more expansive approach to perfumery than its predecessor, in terms of its size (an initial launch of ten fragrances as opposed to the Venice collection’s five), its reach (it is retailed at a more accessible price point and distributed more widely), and its inspiration (looking beyond Venice, to Italy and the wider world).

Each Alta fragrance comes in a glass bottle decorated with the brand’s signature Intrecciato pattern. It is an obvious homage to Bottega’s history, but also a nod to the line’s conceptual underpinning, with each fragrance an ‘interweaving’ of an ingredient from the house’s native Italy with an ingredient from another place in the world.

Take, for instance, Ricordami, a stracciatella-inspired fragrance that blends milky vanilla notes and crunchy, dark chocolate. Its name meaning ‘remember me’ in Italian, Ricordami, is meant to evoke childhood memories of ice cream melting on your fingers, but, to temper the sweetness, an oak wood essence is added to the blend.

The same is true of Bare Morning, which blends the scent of Borotalco – an Italian baby powder that will be immediately evocative to anyone who grew up there – with Oceania sandalwood to create a cosy, skin-like fragrance. Other fragrances on the lighter end of the collection include Montebello, which takes its name from the Bottega’s leather atelier. Since the actual Montebello is surrounded by gardens, the perfume version is created with a blend of zesty, fresh blood orange essence with creamy North African neroli flower.

Balliamo, which means ‘let’s dance’ in Italian, is inspired by dancing under the trees at a garden party with a glass of prosecco in hand, with green notes of Italian white fig and the deeper woodiness of American cedarwood.

The fragrances graduate to richer notes, starting with Moment After, which combines very delicate Italian leather accords with warm vanilla. Night Sounds is meant to conjure the feeling of being both asleep and awake with a dark, resinous blend of Italian saffron accord and Vietnamese benzoin. Velvet Steps, inspired by the idea of secretly escaping in the night, blends liquorish-like Italian plum accord with a velvety Spanish labdanum. Finally, Crepuscolo, which is inspired by watching the last rays of sun sink beyond the sea, is a blend of salty Fior di Sale and dark South Asian oud.

The Intrecciato-weave glass bottles are finished off with a wooden cap and gold-finished ring, which visually unites this new fragrance collection with the previous. Yet, Alta marks a new moment for the brand, as it aims to reach a broader global audience without sacrificing craftsmanship.

From 4 June 2026, the Alta Collection will be available on bottegaveneta.com, across Bottega Veneta boutiques and in department stores worldwide.

When Chanel launched Bleu de Chanel in 2010, it marked a major turning point for the brand and masculine fragrances more widely.

It was Chanel’s first male scent in over twenty years (its previous launch was Égoïste in 1990) and, in a market dominated by fresh, clean colognes (think Acqua di Parma’s Colonia or Issey Mikaye’s L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme), Bleu de Chanel proposed a new approach to the genre with a scent that was still fresh and clean, but enriched by the addition of wood and amber notes.

Jacob Elordi is the face of Bleu de Chanel

In short, its aim was to set a new paradigm for what defines ‘masculinity’ in a fragrance, and the trajectory of the market in the past 16 years since its launch has proven it's done just that.

Bleu de Chanel’s top notes of grapefruit and lemon maintain that aforementioned freshness, but its signature blend of New Caledonian sandalwood with amber, cedar, patchouli, and labdanum gives it the rich, warm quality that has become the norm in male scents since.

Last year, it took that legacy even further by launching Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif, an even richer and denser interpretation of the original fragrance that turned up the dial on its amber and leathery notes.

In keeping with its aim to bottle ‘modern masculinity’ and ‘a spirit that favours individuality over convention,’ the brand has enlisted two well-known male actors, the late Gaspard Ulliel and Timothée Chalamet, each embodying their own unique take on what it means to be a leading man in Hollywood today.

For its latest campaign, Chanel has carried on the tradition by enlisting Australian actor Jacob Elordi to be the new face of Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif. Written and directed by five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, the short film adopts the tropes of action films to create a playful, fast-paced and acrobatics-fuelled approach to a fragrance campaign.

Watch the film above.

chanel.com

When César Ritz opened the Grand Hôtel de Monte-Carlo in 1881 he created the blueprint for luxury hotels today by bringing a tailor, a florist, a shoemaker, a chef and a perfumer, Nestor Moëhr, under one roof to craft bespoke creations for the palace-like property on the Riviera. Ritz eventually left Monte-Carlo for Paris to start his own eponymous hotel, but the perfumer Moëhr stayed on, eventually launching his own perfume house, La Parfumerie de Monte-Carlo.

La Parfumerie de Monte-Carlo disappeared when the Grand Hôtel shuttered its doors, but now, more than 100 years after it was first created, two brothers, Vincent and Nicolas Poylo, are reviving the house for a new era with six fragrances, each named after an imaginary guest and contained in a bottle inspired by the Grand Hôtel’s archives.

The idea for the relaunch came about in 2023, while Nicolas was working for Art Recherche Industrie on the opening of the former Hotel Drei Berge in the small Oberland village of Mürren and began researching César Ritz and, through that, learned about Moëhr.

‘My brother Vincent and I grew up in a hotel run by our mother, immersed from childhood in service and gastronomy,’ says Nicholas. ‘Reviving a sleeping heritage felt natural. Vincent was then working alongside Chef Mauro Colagreco and living at the old Grand Hôtel du Cap Martin, a former hotel turned residence in 1943, where several original interiors remain. It became the backdrop of Moëhr, exploring through fragrance a long-gone era at the crossroads of the golden age of hospitality and our own childhood memories.’

Once they hit on the idea, the brothers spent years studying travel cases, fragrance flacons, medicine boxes and silverware from the turn of the 20th century to develop the bottle design, drawing particular inspiration from the work of Martin-Guillaume Biennais (Napoleon's goldsmith); a collection of French antique copper savarin molds used in the Grand Hôtel’s kitchens by Chef Auguste Escoffier; and tableware from several other Grand Hôtels of the period.

The final result is a glass flute made at a family-owned manufactory in Veneto, topped with a twisted cap cast in zinc (the metal of the Grand Hôtel’s original bar counter) and labelled with the calligraphy of Mexican painter Esteban Fuentes de Maria.

The perfumes themselves range from the powdery florals to ambery spices, but are all united by a classic cologne quality that makes them feel old-world without being stuffy. The scents are: Septime, the lightest of the family with notes of lily, benzoin and white pepper; Swann, a delicately goumard blend of orange blossom and almond paste; Sinclair, a mix of lavender, incense and olive; Jadis, a blend of rose, iris butter and pink pepper; Otis, a spicy mix of saffron and cardamom; and the richest of the collection, Benedict, with notes of cocoa, incense and tobacco.

Made in partnership with Mane, a family house founded in 1871 in Bar-sur-Loup, the six scents are crafted using a unique CO2 extraction, solvent-free process that isolates compounds at low temperature, without thermal alteration or residue. The result is a range of clean, long-lasting scents just in time for summer.

From 1 June, Moëhr will be available exclusively at Antonia via Sant’Andrea in Milan and roll out to other European retailers throughout the summer.

There are a few descriptors that inevitably appear in any spring fragrance story – floral, obviously, fresh, delicate, maybe citrus. So this year, we propose trying something different. Our edit of spring fragrances features a range of earthy, ambery alternatives for the season: think, more soil than flowers; green, rolling hills but with a factory in the middle of them; dry desserts rather than verdant landscapes.

Below, Wallpaper* beauty editor Mary Cleary selects the best subversive spring fragrances that are an alternative to the usual florals.

Ambre Levant by Louis Vuitton

Mescal Musc by Horace

Cuir Saddle by Dior

Il Lanificio by Zegna

Tucson by Astier de Villatte

Crazy Basil by Dries Van Noten

The debut of Maison Margiela’s Scentsorium collection marks the cult brand’s first foray into luxury perfumery after years of winning fans with its Artisanal collection of time-and-place-inspired fragrances. According to the brand, the six scents in the collection are executed with ‘surgical sensoriality’, a way of saying that the maison’s perfumes are inspired by the creation of its clothing: materials are stripped back or deconstructed, with accents added on top to add definition.

It’s a method that creates tension between raw elements and refined craftsmanship, a juxtaposition which is classically Margiela, and, like the brand’s fashion, will appeal to consumers who prefer products with a conceptual bent. That’s not to say these are fragrances that are difficult to wear, but they are niche – each scent is inspired by specific and sometimes unusual emotions (for example, 'the tension between desire and infatuation'), with an intriguing metallic accord running through each.

The collection took over three years to develop, and during its evolution, the line underwent 'countless iterations', according to Sandrine Groslier, the global president of Luxe Fragrance Brands at L’Oréal. 'We don't count in luxury – we refine until reaching the most exceptional juice possible. Some chapters required over 70 versions. Chapter six’s [Fit of Folly's] futuristic patchouli alone took 18 months. We pushed suppliers repeatedly, customising molecules, fractioning materials. When developing true luxury, you iterate to absolute perfection. The number doesn't matter – only the transformation achieved.'

Below, we break down the scents and offer an honest review of each.

Maison Margiela's Scentsorium Collection

Blaze of Stillness

This is the lightest scent in the collection and the closest it has to a skin fragrance. Its blend of neroli blossom, fig and musky suede creates a creamy, powdery quality usually associated with white flowers, but cut through with a particular metallic quality that conjures associations with steel or chrome. In the initial notes we made for the fragrances (and before reading the brand’s descriptions), we wrote down ‘knives and flowers’ – fitting, perhaps, for a scent designed to evoke ‘the feeling of hope in a moment of suspense.’

Silent Fury

The most iconic scent from Maison Margiela's longstanding Artisanal collection is a scent called ‘Jazz Club’, a boozy, smoky blend inspired by the scent of drinking cocktails in leather armchairs. One way to think of Silent Fury is a more accurate, and artful, expression of what a jazz club might actually smell like: the metallic tang of sweat and metal instruments, the cloying scent of spicy colognes, leather jackets and the mustiness of cigarettes clinging to artificial fabrics.

Anguish and Awe

Anguish and Awe will likely be the biggest crowd pleaser from the collection. An opulent floral infused with resinous, fruity notes, it’s the kind of fragrance that conjures the word ‘expensive’. Inspired by ‘the tension between desire and infatuation’, the fragrance aims to be the olfactory equivalent of a black rose, with the initial punch of its dark, sweet qualities eventually settling down into a lighter, more recognisably floral composition.

Tender Defiance

This fragrance is a combination of liquorice, incense and smoke that, despite the darkness of its ingredients, has a candy-like quality that made us write down the word ‘pink’ in our testing notes. The explanation for this is probably down to the refined treatment of the liquorice and gentle heating of the resin, which creates a strange metallic sweetness. If Anguish and Awe was inspired by the black rose, Tender Defiance is a dark red one – still dramatic and romantic, but a little on the lighter side.

Delight in Despair

This is one of the most intriguing scents within the collection. Inspired by the feeling of euphoria, the fragrance takes an experimental approach to cypriol and saffron by experimenting with the distillation temperature to give the ingredients novel qualities. The green, grassy quality of cypriol is intensified and infused with the creaminess of saffron for a scent that is both clean and warm with a slightly sweet dry down.

Artist Cristine Brache was inspired to create her new show at London’s Bernheim Gallery, Centerfolds, when she found out that Dorothy Stratten – the Playboy Playmate who was brutally murdered by her estranged husband in 1980, when she was just 20-years-old – wrote poetry. It was a fact never acknowledged during Stratten’s life or in the manifold documentations made after her death. These included The Killing of the Unicorn, written by her boyfriend and famed movie director Peter Bogdanovich (who started dating Statten when he was in his 40s and she was in her teens), Star 80, directed by Bob Fosse, and countless made-for-TV movies.

Centerfolds attempts to create a dialogue between those two aspects of Stratten: the private young artist and the public sex symbol who was taken advantage of by nearly every man in her life (Hugh Hefner, Bogdanovich, and her pimp-turned-husband-turned murderer). In doing so, Brache aims to bring a more authentic image of Stratten. It’s an admirable aim, but one that poses a question: how can a visual artist create an authentic likeness of a woman whose legacy is almost entirely an inauthentic visual construction? For Brache, the answer was an unconventional but effective one: ask celebrated New York perfumer Marissa Zappas to create a scent that could accompany the images.

Marissa Zappas and Cristine Brache collaborate on ‘Centerfolds’

‘The show is deeply invested in how Stratten’s image functions within the larger lineage of Playboy, an infrastructure that shaped, and still shapes, the construction of feminine archetypes,’ writes Brache over email. ‘Dorothy’s visibility was both manufactured and unstable; her image is in flux, historically and emotionally, and there’s an alienation specific to women, especially celebrity women, whose identities become public property.’

‘[That’s why] I knew early on that Centerfolds needed a scent component, and that it had to be made by Marissa,’ she continues. ‘I wanted the fragrance to operate on a more unconscious, bodily register, to create an elegiac undertone that moves through the viewer rather than being looked at. My paintings inevitably depict her, and they participate in objectification to some degree; that tension is unavoidable when working with an image that history has already overexposed. The fragrance becomes a counterpoint to that, one of the few ways to honor Stratten without returning her to the same visual economy. Unlike an image, scent can’t be recirculated, extracted, or capitalized on in the same way. It resists possession; it slips from the viewer’s grasp. In that sense, it becomes something that can’t be taken.’

The scent Zappas created for the show is a blend of lily of the valley, frankincense, apricot, and banana. Viewers first encounter it on the second floor of the gallery, and by the time viewers reach the third floor, where the portraits of Dorothy Stratten hang, it fully saturates the space. The idea, according to Brache, was to create ‘a sensory arc that mirrors the conceptual one,’ as one moves through space and witnesses how Dorothy Stratten’s likeness has been circulated and consumed over time.

Zappas has gained a devoted following for her idiosyncratic approach to fragrance, and this collaboration with Brache comes soon after her work with another exhibition, Her Scent of Mystery, at Olfactory Art Keller, where she explored the rediscovery of a lost perfume created for the 1960 Smell-O-Vision film by the same name which starred Elizabeth Taylor. Collaborating on this project with Brache is a natural next step, with both shows using scent to enhance the phantasmagoria of American consumerism with its Playboy bunnies and Hollywood starlets conjured up in celluloid and centrefolds.

For Zappas, the Centerfolds scent needed to feel devotional, but still retain a sense of levity and life. ‘There’s reverence, but nothing really sombre,’ she says. ‘Cristine and I were also interested in an idea of fruit that wasn't totally ripe. The reality is that her life was cut brutally short. I wanted a smell that reflected that and her luminosity.’

Still, the fragrance draws more closely from Brache’s work than it does Stratten herself. ‘The fragrance was very much inspired by Cristine’s color palettes and her overall understanding and depictions of Dorothy Stratten,’ says Zappas. ‘There's a lot of the color yellow, visually and olfactively. From the beginning, it was important to us not to create a scent that attempted to “represent” Dorothy or bottle her essence. Instead, the goal was to enhance and deepen the sensory world of Cristine’s show, and to act as an atmospheric extension of the work rather than a portrait. The fragrance exists in conversation with the artwork, not as a representation of the subject.’

Together, then, the fragrance and artwork enhance each other, creating an unusual, and compelling, gallery experience. As Zappas says, ‘introducing scent shifts the experience from something purely visual into something more immersive and mystical. Smell has the ability to bypass intellect and move directly into emotion. Cristine’s work already carries an inherent texturality and soft power that aligns with this kind of sensory expansion.’

Centerfolds runs until 2 April 2026 at Bernheim, London.

When Wallpaper* interviewed Dries Van Noten in 2022 about his upcoming perfume line, he compared the scents to olives: ‘The first one makes you go, “Ooh, what is this?” But after that, you always like it. I think you have to learn to appreciate things, and sometimes you have to learn to appreciate my vision of beauty.’

And while he’s right that the unusual combinations of the Dries Van Noten scents –pomelo and leather; pepper and rose; liquorice and tobacco – make them distinctive, they hardly make them divisive. This is especially true of Soie Malaquais, which, since it launched as part of the core range of ten gender-neutral Dries Van Noten perfumes, has quickly cemented itself as the emblematic fragrance of the house.

Soie Malaquais is a blend of silk notes and chestnut that melds to the body like a second skin, with a slightly balsamic sweetness, warm cacao and a touch of rose. In the words of the nose behind it, Marie Salamagne, it ‘has a magnetic tension’ that draws people in and takes on new dimensions throughout the day – the kind of scent that, when you have it on, keeps you reflexively smelling your wrist from morning to night.

According to Salamagne, the key to Soie Malaquais' success is that it 'embodies everything that defines the Dries Van Noten universe: contrast, sophistication, and emotional depth. It brings together elements that don’t typically coexist – the warmth of chestnut, the luminosity of silky florals, the richness of dark notes – yet feels completely seamless.’

Now, Dries van Noten is celebrating Soie Malaquais with a series of sculptures and limited-edition bottles designed by Dutch ceramic artist Bouke de Vries. Based in London, de Vries is best known for transforming porcelain fragments into unified works, and his collaboration with Van Noten sees him apply that same process to the ceramic blue and white base of the original Soie Malaquais bottle.

‘It was really the blue and white of the bottle that my ideas were based on,’ says de Vries. ‘There is an obvious resonance with my work because of the use of blue and white ceramics. Working with fragrance was a way to add an extra, evocative dimension to a three-dimensional sculpture that was already an evolution of many two-dimensional patterns and, like a perfume, is built from different notes – [just like] my work.’

The new collection includes five one-of-a-kind bottles that see the Soie Malaquais porcelain base shattered and reconstituted as flowers, buttons, fans, and other shapes. De Vries has also created complementary sculptures of tulips and roses rising from shards of the same blue and white porcelain. While these creations are highly exclusive – only ten are in existence – a special edition Soie Malaquais with a gold-veined base is slightly more accessible, with 100 bottles available to purchase from Dries Van Noten boutiques.

For de Vries, the message behind all of these creations is the same: to transform what is broken into a treasure and, like Van Noten, find beauty in unexpected places. As the artist explains it himself, for this collaboration, he 'imagined the object in a suspended moment of drama, its ceramic shell shattered, while suggesting that fragments can be coaxed back into a form even more rare and singular than before'.

An installation by Bouke de Vries marking the collaboration is on view until 12 March 2026 at Dries Van Noten’s Galerie Quai Malaquais, Paris

Regular editions of Soie Malaquais are available from Dries Van Noten, £275 per 100ml

Perfumer H and Studio Nicholson are two brands with a lot in common. Aesthetically, they share that blend of the refined and idiosyncratic that is so closely associated with British style; both are founded by women who are experts in their respective fields (Lyn Harris with perfume, Nick Wakeman with clothes); and both brands are built on an appreciation for craft and an exacting, meticulous attention to detail.

So it’s not surprising the two are now collaborating – if anything, it’s surprising it’s taken them this long to do it. ‘Lyn and I have known each other for years,’ Wakeman says on a call from her London office. ‘It’s just an unspoken commitment, I guess, that at some point we would do something together.’

That something is Soap, a perfume and incense that blends cardamom and white pepper with aldehydes, fresh orange flower and gentle white musks, which will now become the signature scent of Studio Nicholson, fragrancing and available to purchase from its shops. For Harris, bottling the essence of Studio Nicholson was a matter of evoking the feeling of soft fabric against skin, like slipping on a clean, well-worn shirt – fresh but still retaining the unique scent of its owner’s skin.

To create that sensation, she incorporated an intense level of aldehydes to create, in her words, a ‘transparent, clean and intently white note’. The addition of these clean notes was also inspired by Wakeman’s love of traditional barber shops. ‘My friends go to this particular gentleman's hairdresser in Mayfair and I always love smelling their hair when they come out, because they've got this kind of cologne in it,’ says Wakeman. ‘I love smells like that, anything medicinal, so there's an element of that in the fragrance. But the final thing doesn’t have that kind of fabricated smell – it's a very earthy, human-type smell, it's soft, and it sort of lingers. I've never smelled anything like it.’

Harris echoes the sentiment. ‘I think it’s a very seductive scent. The people I know who have worn it have people stopping them and asking what they’re wearing.’

The fragrance launches in conjunction with a capsule collection of clothing inspired by Harris’ personal uniform: a lightweight Italian cotton shirt, soft cotton twill pants and a blue Soap baseball cap, which will also be available in Studio Nicholson shops.

Soap will be at Perfumer H and Studio Nicholson stores as well as select retailers from 4 February 2026.

The ‘Saddle’ bag became an emblem of early 2000s style when it made its debut at John Galliano’s Dior S/S 2000 ready-to-wear show, and now, thanks to perfumer and Dior Perfume Creation Director Francis Kurkdjian, the emblematic 'it bag' has been translated into an equally innovative fragrance.

‘For me, the “Saddle” bag is a very inspiring story,’ Kurkdjian tells Wallpaper* at a preview of the fragrance in Paris. ‘It’s almost like an accessory that becomes part of your body, and from that feeling, I started thinking about something very sensual, almost a nude leather. Something very skin-like.’

Cuir Saddle: Dior’s latest fragrance is inspired by the ‘Saddle’ bag

That approach is what led Kurkdjian to develop an entirely new approach to leather perfumery, which tends to be smoky and animalistic, with the kind of olfactory profile lovers of tobacco or rich, musky scents are drawn to. With Cuir Saddle, Kurkdjian has not entirely eliminated those smoky and woody notes, but has tempered them with florals and soft musks to create what he calls a ‘trompe l'oeil’ fragrance or ‘skin fragrance’, designed to subtly enhance the scent of your own body chemistry. Just like the bag that inspired it, Cuir Saddle fuses to the body so that you almost forget you are wearing it at all.

The perfume is the latest addition to ‘La Collection Privée’, a range of luxury fragrances that use scent as a medium to explore the history of the house, by reconfiguring aesthetics from the archives to reflect the olfactory tastes of the present.

When it came to Cuir Saddle, Kurkdjian was not only thinking about Dior’s history, but the unexpected history of perfumed leather. Since ancient times, people have tried to mask the animalic smell of leather with notes of rose, musk, spices and the like. Catherine de’ Medici made history with her perfumed leather gloves, and scented leather took on new dimensions in the Roaring Twenties when the Russians arrived in Paris with their famous Russian Leather, which was finished with birch oil, lending it a distinctive scent. It is the mixture of the animal hide and the methods for perfuming it that have led to our present-day understanding of leather smells. For the new perfume, Kurkdjian wanted to upend this tradition with soft notes and the addition of synthetic molecules. ‘In this sense, Cuir Saddle seemed to present a very modern challenge,’ he says.

At a time when gourmand fragrances are dominating the market, Cuir Saddle presents an innovative, forward-looking alternative – a refined scent that suits the contemporary taste for lighter perfumes while still going against the grain. ‘Leather has always carried an idea of sensuality. It’s often long-lasting, and there’s something noble and expensive about it. But it’s not a very popular category. It’s more for connoisseurs. Leather notes are often raw, scratchy, old-school, which is exactly why we wanted softness here.’

Dior Beauty’s La Collection Privée Christian Dior Cuir Saddle fragrance is available now at dior.com

Every day of the past year seemed to bring a new beauty launch, making it hard to tell exactly which debuts were worth paying attention to, and which were simply more noise.

Thankfully, after a year of trying, experimenting and then trying again, I’ve narrowed down 25 of the standout beauty launches of the year, chosen for a combination of innovative formulations, pleasing packaging, and the offering up of something new.

From contouring palettes to workout apps, Japanese make-up brushes and fragrance designed for your clothes, we're certain there’s something here for everyone. And, with the festive season looming, it doubles as a handy gift guide – whether indulging yourself or a loved one.

Make-up

Hair and body care

Perfume

Skincare

Wellness

How do you create an exhibition of things you can’t see? This was the question the perfumer Francis Kurkdjian had to answer when he agreed to stage an exhibition of his work at the Palais de Tokyo. The result is Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible, an expansive showcase of Kurkdjian’s career that combines scent with films, sculptures and sounds to create an immersive sensory landscape that not only challenges conventional ideas around perfumery but also offers a new take on the traditional exhibition experience.

It comes at a meaningful time for Kurkdjian, who this year celebrates thirty years since the launch of his first commercial perfume, ‘Le Mâle’ by Jean Paul Gaultier, which he created at only 24 years old and quickly became an international best-seller that is credited with revolutionising men's fragrance. From then on, Kurkdjian has continued to prove that he is one of the most innovative noses to ever work in perfumery, with a resume that includes collaborations with renowned artists, musicians and chefs, as well as huge commercial hits–Dior’s 'L'Or de J'adore,' 'Narciso Rodriguez for Her,' and, of course, one of the most popular perfumes in recent history 'Baccarat Rouge 540' which Kurkdjian released under his own brand (he is also the creative director at Parfums Christian Dior).

Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible celebrates the full-range of his artistic output, with a focus on his collaborations with other creatives and olfactory experiments. Visitors to Palais de Tokyo can expect to find gloves scented using 18th-century techniques and a fragrance called Sillage de la Reine (In the Wake of the Queen), which recomposes a perfume in the style of Marie-Antoinette according to the formulation rules of her time. On display is also a recreation of L’Or bleu (Blue Gold), a scented, drinkable water developed in partnership with the artist Yann Toma and ‘V-Scent,’ a device designed by Francis Kurkdjian to diffuse digital fragrances through a virtual reality headset.

One of the most memorable moments in the exhibition is a video and installation on The Smell of Money, Kurkdjian’s 1999 collaboration with the artist Sophie Calle for which he designed a fragrance inspired by a well-worn dollar bill that was both ‘attractive and repulsive.’ As well as an immersive recreation of Kurkdjian’s 2008 exhibition The King is Dancing, for which he filled the Ballroom Grove at Versailles with 600 double-wick candles scented with a powdery fragrance of violets with the aim of recreating the atmosphere at one of the Sun King’s lavish balls. The exhibition also culminates in an immersive installation inspired by Baccarat Rouge 540 for which Kurkdjian collaborated with the artist Elias Crespin, the world’s most starred female chef Anne-Sophie Pic, the composer David Chalmin and pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque to create an experience that activates all five senses.

These are just a few of the many projects that make up the Perfume, Sculpture of the Invisible, the result of which is a fascinating documentation of the history of perfumery as well as a revealing exploration of what forms the industry might take in the future. For Kurkdjian, going through the exhibition and viewing decades of work in one space was an emotional, and revelatory, experience.

‘Jérôme Neutres, the curator of this exhibition, forced me to step back and observe my own creative process from a distance,’ Kurkdjian writes over email. ‘It is not something I have done before. I realised that, over the years, I’ve been sculpting emotion, memory, and silence – not just perfume. It reminded me that what I create isn’t only about fragrance, but about presence and absence, about how we connect to the world and to ourselves through invisible traces.’

‘In a way, the exhibition made me more aware of the artistic dimension of my practice, beyond the craft – and it opened up new questions, which is always the beginning of something exciting.’

Over the past few years, Loewe has made its name synonymous with craft; and now, as the brand enters a new era, its latest fragrance launch solidifies that association. The Crafted Collection sees Loewe Perfumes launch its most elevated fragrances yet, with three scents each dedicated to a singular note – oud, iris and vanilla – filtered through the brand’s signature idiosyncratic lens.

The fragrances

The fragrance notes that Crafted Collection takes as starting points are some of the most common in perfumery, which makes it all the more impressive that each fragrance smells distinctly different from any other perfumes I’ve encountered before. Roasted Vanilla is the warmest scent within the collection, with a creamy heart complicated by the peculiar spiciness of pink pepper and the alcoholic sweetness of cognac.

Bittersweet Oud is, unsurprisingly, the most opulent of the three scents, but not so much that it should scare off those who are wary of oud scents. In fact, this oud is brightened with a touch of bitter orange and is softened by the addition of sandalwood, a slightly more delicate, earthy note.

Then there is the collection’s most accessible fragrance and its most delicate scent, Iris Root. At its core, it has the powdery, creamy quality that is typical of Iris and which elevates the natural warmth of skin. Its unique character, however, comes from the addition of herbaceous angelica seed and citrusy timut pepper.

The vessels

The scents are housed in weighty, handblown glass vessels with naturally formed bubbles creating a unique pattern on each, and a tactile granite cap finishing it off. When placed on a shelf or counter, they look like small sculptures, a testament to Loewe’s dedication to transforming even the simplest objects into a showcase for exceptional craft.

It’s not the first time the brand has done this with its perfume bottles. Last year, it unveiled a selection of its signature Botanical Rainbow scents – Loewe 001, Loewe Earth and Loewe Agua Drop – adorned with porcelain carnation caps designed by fellow Spanish brand Lladró. Known for its exceptional ability to render porcelain into lifelike forms, Lladró handcrafted and individually painted each of the carnation’s serrated petals, no matter how small.

Of course, the Botanical Rainbow collection itself is also a work of notable design. The collection comprises almost 30 fragrances that, when lined up together, create a rainbow of hues, from metallic fuchsia to emerald green, sunshine yellow to a subtle off-white. And then there are the ribbed terracotta pots from Loewe’s cult candle collection, which are inspired by a 5th-century BC Greek mug that former creative director Jonathan Anderson bought at auction.

As Cruelles told us when the Lladró and Loewe collaboration launched, ‘Loewe has such a strong, ongoing dedication to excellence in craft and a deep respect for its Spanish roots.’ The Crafted Collection is a testament to that, and those who are in London this week can delve into the collection’s creation at a pop-up installation at 109 Bond Street. Inside, visitors will find a ‘smelling station’ where they can experience notes found within the three scents, as well as retro TV screens displaying clips from the brand’s new campaign (starring Loewe’s celebrated new director Eva Victor), and a bar upstairs serving bubble tea and matcha – an ideal secret spot for relaxing before returning to the hustle of Freeze.

The Crafted Collection pop-up, 109 Bond Street, London W1S 1EG, 14 – 19 October 2025; perfumesloewe.com

At one point in our conversation, the Japanese designer Satoshi Kuwata takes off his cape and turns it into a hoodie, then he deconstructs it again and places it on the floor to show me how it looks like origami. Designs like this – versatile, fluid, part Western streetwear, part traditional Japanese – are the cornerstone of Setchu, the brand that won Kuwata the LVMH Prize for Young Designers in 2023 and is steadily earning him a reputation as one of the most promising designers working today.

The brand takes its name from ‘Wayo Setchu’, an aesthetic movement that began in the 19th century and saw Euro-American codes incorporated into Japanese design (‘Wayo’ signifies Japan and ‘Setchu’ means compromise). That same compromise carries into Setchu’s line of perfumes, which debuted at Pitti Fragranze last week and have just become the first fragrances ever to be stocked in Dover Street Market New York, London, Ginza, Paris and Los Angeles.'. Each of the six scents within the collection combines notes inspired by a certain aspect of Japanese life with a Western counterpart. The result is fragrances that, depending on where you are from, can be familiar in some respects and strange in others, but are altogether unique.

Kuwata knew he wanted fragrances to be a part of Setchu from the very beginning, having been fascinated by scent since he arrived in London for the first time 20 years ago. ‘I arrived at London Heathrow in January and I was immediately shocked by the different smells,’ he says. ‘I realised I was familiar with Japanese smells from spring, summer, winter, but this new country smelled so different.’ Kuwata would go on to study at Central Saint Martins, train under the tailors of Savile Row, work alongside Gareth Pugh and Riccardo Tisci before launching his own brand. Still, that memory of stepping off the plane at Heathrow has stuck with Kuwata, and it's the desire to preserve a moment in time that inspired him to create scents associated with a particular time and day.

The collection starts off with Monday 9AM Genmaicha. Inspired by the tea Kuwata drinks at the start of his working week, Monday 9AM mixes genmaicha, a Japanese green tea blended with roasted rice grains, with sweeter-smelling European-style tea for a scent that is malty, slightly syrupy and, most interestingly, has a subtle burnt note.

The next scent in the collection, Wednesday 5PM Yuzu, is the brand’s take on a citrus fragrance with a combination of bitter and sharp Japanese yuzu and fresh lemon reminiscent of that found in European men’s colognes.

Thursday 1PM Ayu is the line’s most surprising scent considering it is inspired by fish. Specifically, it is inspired by the ayu, a vegetarian fish that only lives in very clean water and, according to Kuwata, who is an avid fisher, has ‘a beautiful cucumber water smell rather than a metal fish smell’. Because fishing is Kuwata’s primary way of relaxing, he asked the line’s perfumer, Julie Massé, to suggest a Western equivalent to the smell of relaxation. She suggested the smell of rocky beaches in the south of France and created a scent that blends Mediterranean solar accord, notes of a salty breeze and the dry scent of everlasting flowers with the watery cucumber and watermelon notes inspired by the ayu.

The next scent, Friday 2AM Tatami, is the most provocative in the collection. ‘I was born and grew up in a room with tatami,’ says Kuwata. ‘It’s in my DNA, but I realised there’s no scent inspired by tatami on the market right now. So I want to express something unique and also sexy, the smell of a night after a party, so it has this woody but also peppery smell.’

The final scent, 8AM Saturday Hinkoki Buro, is for the day after the party. Inspired by bathing in a tub made from hinkoki wood and its Western equivalent, taking a shower, the scent combines the depth of cyprus wood and musk with fresh touches of warm steam accord and fir needles.

All of the scents in the collection are subtle enough that you might not consciously perceive them at first, but curious enough that they work their way into your mind, like a song you heard in the background and have been humming ever since. On the day I’m introduced to the fragrances, I’m told by three different people that they never wear perfume but will be wearing these; proof that it's a perfume equivalent of the maxim, ‘you say more with less’.

laesetchu.com

When Francis Kurkdjian was tasked to craft a fragrance for Baccarat’s 250th anniversary back in 2014, he didn’t know he would have an olfactory hit on his hands. Nearly a decade later, Baccarat Rouge 540 – so named for the temperature at which gold dust and crystal transform into a molten red hue – has become one of the world’s most coveted fragrances, so much so, that it’s even been namedropped in a Drake song.

A decade on, though, Kurkdjian wanted to push his creation further, releasing something even rarer and even more exhilarating. Today, the perfumer’s eponymous fragrance house, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, has unveiled an ultra-limited edition of Baccarat Rouge – the Édition Millésime.

So restricted is the release that only 54 bottles will be released per year for the next decade. And so precious are the ingredients, that a flacon of Édition Millésime will set you back $28,000.

The fragrance’s rarity, not to mention breathtaking cost, comes from an ingredient that’s even rarer than gold: ambergris, a substance that forms in the digestive tracts of sperm whales thought to originate from undigested squid beaks. But once expelled into the ocean and washed ashore, the hardened material emits a musky, earthy odour that’s been treasured by perfumers for centuries.

Though the original Baccarat Rouge fragrance includes an ambergris accord, it’s a synthetic version that is derived from a fragrant herb called clary sage. As the perfumer recalls, ‘At some point, I said to my business partner Marc [Chaya] that I would love to push some boundaries and to use real ambergris. However, if I do, you won't be able to sell as much.’

And thus, Édition Millésime was born.

Because Kurkdjian had never worked with real ambergris, he had to do some research. In fact, he quite literally immersed himself in it, spending weeks on a boat with Longitude 181, an environmental organisation co-founded by a protege of legendary French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, to learn about sperm whales and their migration habits.

Working with a specialised ambergris broker, Kurkdjian acquired a block of the natural stuff, crushed it into a powder, and synthesized it into a precious liquid. Working with it, Kurkdjian says, is an olfactory version of editing an image in Photoshop: ‘You tell the guy next to you, “push the light, bring the brightness. Ok, stop there, go back.” Perfume works the same, more or less,’ he says.

So what does Édition Millésime smell like? Fans of the Baccarat Rouge 540 may not be able to discern the difference immediately, but as the perfume mellows, it reveals more complexities, even a certain creaminess, per the perfumer. ‘The new scent remains in the same family, it’s just a difference of strength,’ Kurkdjian explains. ‘It's bigger in terms of volume and sillage. You have more strength. Real ambergris brings indescribable, intangible, sexiness.’

Such a remarkable perfume required an equally remarkable vessel. Kurkdjian and his team worked directly with the artisans at Baccarat in eastern France to craft a special red crystal bottle and luminous base for Édition Millésime. ‘It was a very intense dialog,’ the perfumer recalls. ‘[I told them] you have to push your boundaries. I pushed my boundaries with the scent.’

The result is something that’s an objet d’art, rather than a simple perfume bottle; The bottle, which comes topped with a 24-karat gold cap, and base, which ensconces the bottle between eight crystal pillars, required 19 artisans to make and some 500 hours of workmanship. The bottle and base, in turn, are stored in a spruce box – a miniature version of the ones that Baccarat uses to transport chandeliers – and even comes with its own drawstring leather carrying bag.

The 54 lucky owners who get a hold of Édition Millésime this year will also be a part of an exclusive clique called ‘Les amis du Rouge’ and have access to special invitation-only events and releases from the Maison; each perfume bottle even comes with its own membership card.

Kurkdjian, for his part, didn’t have a particular end-customer in mind to be a part of this exclusively-scented set. ‘If you start to think that you want to target a group, it becomes cheap,’ he insists.

Still, we wouldn’t be one bit surprised if Drake – and several other avowed A-List fans – joined the club.

Vyrao’s new fragrances, Ludatrix and Ludeaux, promise to deliver on what has always been the beauty industry’s number one commodity—enhanced attractiveness—with a novel approach.

Blending neuroscientific research and alternative healing philosophies, the brand has developed fragrances it claims can enhance feelings of flirtation and seduction (Ludeaux), passion and arousal (Ludatrix).

Can Vyrao’s two new fragrances make you more attractive?

They are the tenth and eleven perfumes to join the Vyrao catalog, which includes scents that have all been designed to ‘amplify your energetic field’ with ingredients known for their therapeutic benefits and bottles that each contain a Herkimer diamond ‘charged’ by the brand’s in-house energist, Louise Mita, to magnify the fragrance’s particular intention.

When founder Yasmin Sewell launched Vyrao in 2021, she knew this out of the box thinking could make the brand divisive; but she built her career on hitting on trends before they became trends (she stocked then-emerging designers like Rick Owens in the Soho store she opened at 19 years old and championed young designers like Chistopher Kane as a buyer for Browns) and Vyrao is no exception. The post-Covid years saw an increased interest in functional fragrances and openness to alternative wellness practices, both of which Vyrao delivered on.

Its quick success led to investment from LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton and a partnership with International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF), the global company that works with brands like Frédéric Malle, Yves Saint Laurent, and more. The partnership helped make Vyrao’s approach more palatable to sceptics (as Sewell told Wallpaper* in a past interview, ‘not everyone’s as comfortable in the esoteric as I am’). It also introduced the brand to IFF’s Science of Wellness program, which uses MRI scans to understand how different smells activate particular emotions.

For Ludatrix and Ludeaux, IFF perfumer Meabh Mc Curtin used those findings to formulate a ‘sensual base’ for the scents from the heart of musk and ambrox, both of which are shown to trigger receptors connected with sensuality and self-esteem. She then blended that base with a latex accord, an element drawn from Sewell’s first inspiration for the fragrances.

‘Initially I wanted to turn the colour pink into a scent and at the same time that came to my mind I was having custom latex made with Atsuko Kudo,’ says Sewell, referring to the legendary London-based brand known for its couture latex creations. ‘I was inspired by the fabric in certain colours: pink, red, certain fleshy tones, and of course, the smell of that fabric. Latex is an insane material, it holds your body in a way that is so empowering. So it all sort of came together, I decided to bring latex into the scent and really go there.’

That blend of the ‘sensual accord’ and latex accord forms the backbone of both fragrances, but from there Mc Curtin tweaked them to conjure different emotions.

For Ludatrix, Mc Curtin ‘really wanted to capture that balance of feeling empowered and irresistibly attractive.’ To do so, she combined the musk-ambroxan-latex base with a ‘lipstick accord’ made from rose that acts like ‘that finishing touch that instantly makes you feel confident and sexy, like slipping on your favorite shade before a night out.’ The result is a heady scent that blends soft rose with a spicy touch of sichuan pepper.

Ludeaux, on the other hand, is a slightly more subtle fragrance. To create it, Mc Curtin blended the base with a juicy, playful peach note. For her, ‘that burst of brightness and creaminess, further enhanced by Osmanthus Absolute LMR and Tonka Bean absolute, is what gives the fragrance its confidence and charm, it makes you feel approachable, yet unforgettable.'

So just how successful are these scents in achieving their intended goal? Taking Ludatrix and Ludeaux for a test run didn’t garner me any new love interests, but it did generate a lot of questions about what I was wearing. Both scents are compellingly unusual, their blend of delicate florals with rubbery latex and a particularly heady musk creates scents that are both comfortingly familiar and subversively synthetic. Neuroscience and holistic healing aside, these scents garner attention if only because, like most attractive things, they are strange and pleasurable for reasons that are ultimately hard to define.

vyrao.com

Few natural fragrances capture the sun-soaked magic of late summer like fresh-picked heirloom tomatoes. So beloved is the garden fruit that it spurred a TikTok craze (remember 2023’s #tomatogirl?) and even inspired a viral Loewe clutch. But tomatoes needn't just be limited to your farmer’s market haul or your social feed this season; they also make for a divine candle fragrance. Candle brands are on the scent, with various tomato-inspired offerings from the likes of Diptyque, Jo Malone and many more.

If you think a tomato-scented candle sounds unusual, like the olfactory equivalent of sniffing a caprese salad, think again. According to Pia Long, the head perfumer and director of the UK-based scent consultancy Olfiction, a truly tomato-y fragrance is inspired by the plant’s green bits.

‘The “tomato” theme in perfumery is typically expressed through the characteristic tomato leaf and stem greenery; a biting, vegetal greenness which can be divisive but for the lovers of it has a moreish and uplifting quality,’ she tells Wallpaper*. ‘As a perfumer, one can use some ready-made bases available to evoke tomato leaf and even the fruit, but many perfumers will construct their own accords based on their own impressions and the creative constraints of the brief in question. I thrive in this territory, enjoying the nature of all kinds of green accords.’

Some tomato scents, she continues, will amp up the tomato’s fresh flavours, while others will emphasise earthier, notes like leather, to reference a garden’s earthiness.

Whether you prefer fried-green or ruby red; pronounce it tomato or to-mah-to, one thing’s for sure: tomato candles are the definitive home fragrance of the summer. In fact, we tested a whole crop (pun intended) of them, for their fragrance, aesthetic, burn time and price point. Without further ado, the best tomato candles of 2025.

What happens when an artist and a perfumer are given the freedom to develop a perfume together? What would the overlap of their creative universes smell like? And what would it be like to be a fly on the wall for this process? With her olfactory project Nez 1+1, Jeanne Doré, founder and editor-in-chief of the perfume revue Nez (‘nose’ in French) looks to unveil exactly that: by matchmaking a chef, musician, artist or other creative with a renowned perfumer, Nez 1+1 explores the limitless world of fragrance innovation, while unveiling the ins and outs of the development process to the public.

After years of running the cult online blog, Au Parfum, Doré founded the physical revue Nez, which opens the complex world of perfume to a larger audience via a multidisciplinary approach. ‘Once you start to be interested in fragrance, you discover very quickly that it’s also about arts, science, history – all these worlds you have to go through,’ she explains. ‘It’s about opening up the industry as a cultural and creative subject, not just a luxury business.’ So, to further materialise the world of perfumes as a creative realm, she launched Nez 1+1, an ongoing series of limited-edition fragrances.

Viewing perfumery, at its heart, as an act of translation, Doré decided to work with creatives from wide-ranging disciplines to explore how different artistic practices can be interpreted via scent. For example, Paris-based chef Akrame Benallal, known for his avant-garde cooking involving all five senses, worked in collaboration with perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin, the nose behind several fragrances for the likes of Diptyque and Hermès, to create a fragrance called Adorem.

For another perfume, named Amoressence, perfumer Nicolas Beaulieu teamed up with sculptor Jeanne Vicerial, where the latter’s larger-than-life sculptures of gorgons and female anatomies, each woven from a single thread, were interpreted into scent. ‘Each artist shares what they want to be translated, but the perfumer is also the creator – it’s ultimately their interpretation of the artist’s stories or memories,’ says Doré. ‘It’s the crossroads of two people, two universes.’

Ansongo, a new scent for Nez 1+1 by Aïssa Maïga and Dora Baghriche

The first meetings between the two creators of each fragrance are always to discover each of their respective worlds. Nez 1+1’s latest duo in residence are French-Senegalese actor, director and producer Aïssa Maïga – known for her roles in films such as The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) by director Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Mood Indigo (2013), directed by Michel Gondry – and perfumer Dora Baghriche, who have worked together to produce Ansongo, released in June 2025.

‘The collaboration was sparked by a mutual acquaintance, Ammin Youssouf, the co-founder of The Colors, an agency specialising in the fast-growing multicultural beauty market,’ says Doré. ‘He was aware of Aïssa’s keen interest in fragrances and felt she would be an ideal fit for this project. We organised an initial meeting with Dora, and they clicked immediately.

‘This part of the process is magic. When the artist visits the laboratory, they are like children, discovering all these bottles of essential oils and different raw materials,’ Doré laughs. ‘But for the perfumer as well, it’s like a playground, as they can experiment freely in a way that they wouldn’t be able to in larger commercial projects.’ If the Nez team is there throughout the process, it’s simply to guide ideas – and to record their podcast of the same name. ‘The podcast allows the wearer to be a little mouse listening in on how their scent was created, from the first ideas to when the artist chooses the final fragrance.’

Each Nez 1+1 perfume is available in a limited edition, accompanied by a detailed booklet explaining the partnership behind it and the final formula. But if the availability of the perfume is limited, the relationships formed during the project are often ongoing.

‘With Aïssa and Dora, we had a hunch they’d get along well. But the connection has surpassed our expectations,’ continues Doré. ‘They share a genuinely joyful and amicable nature. As a perfumer, Dora is deeply receptive to other creative disciplines, particularly literature. She approaches her work with great sensitivity and eclecticism. We see this reflected in Ansongo, which is decidedly earthy, spicy, yet also fruity with a highly original date note, inspired by the distinctive fruit of the doum palm tree, which held strong memories for Aïssa from family holidays spent in Mali as a child. Despite Dora developing several variations of the initial attempt, Aïssa consistently favoured the very first one, valuing its powerful character. It’s an unforgettable scent.’

Ansongo by Dora Baghriche and Aïssa Maïga for Nez 1+1, €35 at shop.bynez.com

Refillable beauty has revolutionised the industry, with the aim of reducing surplus packaging waste; only about nine per cent of that packaging would have been recycled, according to the British Beauty Council.

Here, across make-up, skincare, fragrance and haircare, Wallpaper* edits a selection of the best refillable beauty packaging designs that you’ll want to keep in pride of place on your vanity table or bathroom shelf, from the likes of Dries van Noten, Hermès, Noble Panacea, Perfumer H, Davines and more.

The best of refillable beauty design, edited by Wallpaper*

Refillable make-up

Refillable skincare

Refillable fragrance

Refillable haircare

Vetiver Primavera – the new fragrance from men’s grooming brand Horace – has spring in its name, but it is a scent that conjures the feeling of summer. A fragrance both solar and earthy, it is composed of sparkling lemon, yuzu, and mandarin tempered by delicate, honeyed orange blossom and dry, woody vetiver.

As perfumer Meabh McCurtin describes it, ‘the fragrance all started with the vetiver, which is a fragrance in and of itself – it's earthy, it's woody, it has a peanutty part, and it has a sparkling citrus touch on top. So, if you imagine that as a jewel at the centre, then the other notes that are added in are like different facets that highlight the vetiver underneath.’

Those other facets include not just the citrus notes and orange blossom mentioned above, but also incense, cashmere and ambroxan, which give the final product a modern and, in McCurtin’s words, ‘addictive’ quality.

Each batch of the Vetiver Primavera fragrance is mixed at the International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) factory in Grasse, a gleaming facility just a short drive away from the fields where IFF – which creates scents for some of the biggest brands on the market – grows its ingredients, from roses to vetiver and irises.

At the facility, perfumers like McCurtin work in offices formulating products for the likes of Horace, Calvin Klein and YSL, while downstairs a team of expert technicians work in a laboratory filled with vats of precious fragrance extracts, crafting the perfumes according to the noses’ formulations. The artisanal, exacting process of making this Horace fragrance comes across when you smell it; yet, the price point remains relatively accessible.

This is in keeping with the defining ethos of Horace, which launched in 2016 (and opened its first Horace London store in 2024) with a simple mission: to create grooming products for men that have elegant packaging, quality results and affordability. That might sound like a slightly uninspired aim, but when founders Marc Briant-Terlet and Kim Mazzilli debuted Horace in their native France, they had been unable to find a grooming brand that spoke to men like themselves and their friends, men who are concerned with looking good and appreciate refined, considered products, but don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time or money on either.

Instead, the grooming market of the time was flush with brands that marketed a simplified, outdated masculinity (of the Old Spice ‘smell like a man, man’ variety), and luxury fashion houses selling male grooming products alongside their female beauty offering (think Boy de Chanel and Dior Homme). Horace filled the gap between the two, creating everything from skincare to beard products, sunscreen, haircare and, of course, fragrance.

Vetiver Primavera fits naturally within Horace’s growing fragrance catalogue. The brand’s first scent was &Horace, a clean blend of bergamot, sandalwood and tobacco designed to be easy to wear and universally appealing, like a white T-shirt. Then there was the far punchier Oud Rose, the olfactory equivalent of wearing ‘a leopard-print tuxedo to the opera’, with notes of rose, patchouli and oud. Then the limitededition L'étiquette, a debonair blend of lavender, tobacco and tonka bean that, to stick with the sartorial metaphors, is like wearing a well-tailored suit. Vetiver Primavera, then, is the linen shirt of the fragrance closet – comfortable, versatile, casual but elegant.

According to Briant-Terlet, the brand’s fragrances have been such a success that they often sell out before they even launch, suggesting customers trust the brand enough to know they will like whatever it produces. It’s a reputation Horace deserves and one that has made it the number-one men's skincare brand in France. As Briant-Terlet says, ‘we want Horace to become the go-to beauty brand for men – the first one that truly covers all their needs, from skincare and fragrance to deodorant and beard care. We’ve built that position in France. We’re well on our way in the UK. Next up: the US.’

Horace Vetiver Primavera is available at horace.com, £62 for 50ml

Who – or rather what – will make the next Chanel No. 5? For centuries, fine fragrance has been the domain of highly trained perfumers, or ‘noses’, whose craft involves not just technical skill but deep intuition. Traditionally, launching a new scent would include hundreds of collaborators across conceptualisation, testing, sales, and formulation, and was a time-consuming and expensive process (hence the high price tag on many luxury perfumes). But now, with dramatic advances in AI, it's never been easier for fragrance professionals, as well as novices, to go from idea to bottled reality, sometimes within minutes.

Proponents say AI not only cuts costs and democratises the field but also makes fragrances more sustainable, as climate change impacts natural resources, and with mounting ethical concerns around animal-derived scents, AI-driven synthetic alternatives offer a more accessible, potentially eco-friendlier path. AI also allows noses to experiment with hundreds of creative pairings, often at the push of a button.

However, others point out AI’s own environmental and ethical concerns, and raise worries over what happens to the artistry if we start reducing scent formulation to algorithms. But does it truly have to be a binary? Regardless of where you land, the future is here – and it looks a lot like AI.

Surprisingly, leading creatives are already embracing it. Calice Becker – VP Perfumer at Givaudan and creator of Dior J’Adore – helped develop and, in 2022, launched Carto. This AI-powered tool uses a massive ‘Odour Value Map’ to generate scents from over 5,000 rare or niche global ingredients. Called the ‘ChatGPT of fragrance development,’ Carto’s encyclopedic knowledge is said to be up to five times more comprehensive than a human perfumer, and is meant to craft rough ‘fragrance sketches’ to be expanded by human artists.

International Flavours & Fragrances (IFF) also recently launched its Science of Wellness programme, which combines decades of R&D with neuroscience data to design fragrances proven to enhance emotion. Paco Rabanne’s Phantom, for instance, was crafted using IFF’s ‘augmented creativity tool’ and neural data from over 45 million brain measures to track the emotional response to scent pairings.

To be competitive seems to be to experiment. Recently, YSL Beauty grabbed headlines when it partnered with EMOTIV brain-measuring software to bring EEG-enabled, scent-reactive headsets to global stores. Other fashion houses are also using augmentation for 21st-century facelifts. In 2024, Prada released Paradoxe Virtual Flower, utilising AI to reimagine its legendary Paradoxe line by tapping into its vast scent library.

‘With Virtual Flower, we are reinventing Paradoxe,’ explained Nadège Le Garlantezec, the brand’s perfumer. ‘My team and I used an artificial intelligence tool – for us, this was a way of pushing the limits of creativity,’ they say of their specialised system, which allowed for the mining of ‘new olfactory territories’ by suggesting compelling and unusual pairings.

Similarly, Givenchy’s Very Irresistible franchise was recently updated with AI and neuroscience, introducing a new ‘anti-morose’ rose extract to organically enhance moods. AI technology is also being adopted by smaller brands, including Dossier, known for recreating popular scents at a discount, which unveiled AInée, an algorithm blending AI with human perfumer expertise to offer personalised scent recommendations.

Some creators see this emerging technology as a bridge to new human experiences. At Atelier Jolie in New York City, through 14 June, visitors can experience a unique partnership between The Invisible Dog art museum and Everyhuman’s Algorithmic Perfumery.

Stepping into the space that once housed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s studio, a system of glass vitrines and pipes is attached to a mobile scientific lab that offers an olfactory experience on demand. The brainchild of scent designer Anahita Mekanik and artist-technologist Frederik Duerinck, it transforms user data into customised scents.

After filling out a survey reminiscent of a Myers-Briggs personality test, information is fed into the algorithm and sifted through the machine’s entire palette, partitioned through the scent lab, and then distilled to create a physical manifestation of your personality (mine was a cross between a fruity/floral essence and new age incense, an odd pairing, perhaps, but fittingly personal).

The pair don’t see what they do as replacing the painstaking work of crafting customised perfumes; instead, they utilise a sophisticated lab technician as a creation partner. ‘We’re expanding the pie,’ says Mekanik. ‘We give you a tool, but it’s more about creativity and moving away from traditional consumerism,’ she says. ‘You can share your formula if you love it; it becomes a great way to connect with other humans.’

Frank Voelkl, a principal perfumer at DSM-Firmenich and veteran nose, believes AI can be a foundational instrument. ‘When used thoughtfully, AI is an ally, not a replacement,’ he says, noting it can manage onerous tasks like juggling complex datasets, consumer preferences, raw material availability, and ingredient interactions – enabling more efficient and precise formulation. And for perfumers, more bandwidth for experimentation.

At the vanguard, Osmo, which emerged from Google’s research department, sees the use of AI to create unique smells while experimenting with formerly far-out concepts like scent teleportation and olfactory intelligence.

Osmo is led by neuroscientist Alex Wiltschko, who fell in love with perfume as a tween in suburban Texas, where he saw a portal to new worlds. ‘When someone sprayed this invisible mist, people changed around them, behaviours changed. They changed. I was watching magic happen,’ he says of his inspiration to study olfactory neuroscience, later completing his PhD at Harvard before swapping academia for entrepreneurship and a role at Google. On a mission to demystify the world of scent, he created Generation by Osmo, a fragrance house that utilises both molecular and natural ingredients. ‘With Generation, anyone can launch a fragrance brand,’ he says, ‘if you have an idea, we can help build it.’

Wiltschko sees unlimited potential, including rare scent recreation, the production of biodegradable materials, and the ability to make perfume adaptable to allergy sufferers. Don’t be surprised if some day your computer can even transport scent over your next Zoom call. ‘A challenge in the fragrance market is that the world’s moving faster – tastes are becoming more niche and personalised, and the need to have something unique is growing,’ he says. ‘If you smell like somebody else, if your product smells like something else on the shelf, you’re going to get left behind.’

Not everyone is sold. Beauty writer and fragrance historian Arabelle Sicardi runs a creative collective called Perfumed Pages as well as popular scent swaps where guests exchange fragrances and fan over artistry. ‘I understand the merits of AI – it’s a great tool for someone who already understands the craft – but I also know it will be used as shortcuts for human jobs,’ she posits, noting that perfume culture isn’t about the end product but the exploration and depth of knowledge accrued. She notes that for a new generation of perfume enthusiasts, it's not about finding ‘the sexiest perfume that'll make them more desirable,’ but appreciating the artistry.

‘The niche community continues to grow – and there are no signs of it stopping,’ said Jake Levy and Matt Belanger of Stéle, one of NYC’s most influential indie perfume stores, of the boom in smaller fragrance houses. ‘While sometimes met with criticism from those who may not understand or appreciate the journey it takes to find a scent, there is a thriving community that finds enjoyment in fragrance both as a hobby and profession.’ They note that indie fragrances have broad appeal, but they're seeing a particularly strong trend with Gen Alpha. And as anyone who has paid attention to the rise of Scent-Tok can see, the first digitally native generation can't get enough of perfume – with many preferring indie fragrances.

The pair see that, in tandem with the rise of AI, consumers are seeking exclusivity and discovery – the equivalent of browsing a record store for a new favorite band. ‘If a luxury brand sells 500,000 fragrance bottles annually, how exclusive is that?’ Meanwhile, Stéle stocks over 600 fragrances, most of which are from brands that produce fewer than 3,000 bottles of each scent. ‘While AI can speed up the creative process and offer precision, it can’t replicate the heart and soul that make a fragrance truly special,’ they say. ‘The magic of any creative work comes from the passion and effort behind it – the journey in getting there – and you can always sense when that’s missing.’

Trey Taylor, a magazine-world veteran and the creator of Serviette perfumes, sees the rise of artisan fragrance experiences, experimental spaces, and scent walking tours against the backdrop of the AI revolution as part of a larger shift in behaviour. ‘There’s more openness now, both in terms of the exposure and the places that provide these spaces, where perfumers and perfume interested people can connect.’ Trey also notes that the many hours he logged learning the ins and outs of perfuming and scent matching ultimately made him a stronger artist and innovator. ‘Everyone needs to go through that kind of training.’

With an industry worth over $60 billion, there’s a lot at stake in the upcoming debate over the use of AI in perfume – one that will no doubt bring radical transformation. But as for whether an algorithm will someday create the next Baccarat Rouge or Opium? The future, as they say, is still unwritten.

Welcome to the second instalment of the new Wallpaper* video series, The Stuff That Surrounds You. Watch as we're invited into the intriguing and idiosyncratic homes of creatives and makers (such as our debut with Veronica Ditting), catching a glimpse of their interior lives via the objects with which they surround themselves, all of which tell a story.

Yasmin Sewell began her career in fashion at luxury retailers such as Browns and Liberty. But she has always been drawn to holistic practices; she is certified in reiki and trained in Ayurveda and flower essences.

When she started her wellbeing brand Vyrao in 2021, she sought to combine her expertise and, with her genderless, natural and vegan eau de parfums, incense and candles, ‘fuse energetic healing with master perfumery’. Vyrao aims to enhance spiritual wellbeing through scent – or ‘[bottle] joy’ – even claiming to use neuroscience principles in the creation of its fragrances to activate emotional and memory centres in the brain.

Sewell’s ‘take on wellness’, which she defines as ‘our energetic, spiritual emotional wellbeing’, continues in her home, which is filled with objects that make her happy. ‘I always choose things that make me feel great when I see them,’ she says. ‘I fall for them in some way, for whatever reason that I can't totally explain.’

Among the objects that contribute to Sewell’s haven of positivity: a Varier ‘Ekstrem’ chair, a 1980s lamp bought from Vincenzo Caffarella, a dealer at Alfie's Antique Market in Marylebone, and a pendant light from Kempton market in Sunbury. She treasures the light not because of any label attached to it, but because, when she looks into her house from outside, and her children are in there, she ‘always thinks it looks really magic’.

Curios and gifts serve as mementos of people and moments throughout. ‘My house is full of things that have either sentimental meaning or were made by people that I love,’ Sewell says: wax statues bought in Puglia, for example, or a hummingbird pendant given to her by Vyrao’s art director, and a photograph of her grandmother, Georgette (after whom Sewell named one of her fragrances), taken for a magazine shoot.

There’s a note from her ten-year-old, terrariums containing frogs and spiders, and a crystal collection – although Sewell isn’t ‘a big crystal girl’, they were all gifted to her by friends or family. Her art was gifted, too, from an artist with whom she forged a connection, her best friend, her cousin’s husband... ‘If you can fill your space with things that you genuinely love, these things, they do hold a vibration,’ says the founder.

And, of course, Sewell’s house smells divine: ‘I'll maybe spray two or three different scents throughout the day depending on my mood,’ she says.

One of the most striking things about Sewell’s home is its colour: it is, overwhelmingly, green. ‘This voice just kept saying to me, everything has to be green,’ she says. As she was painting, the idea for Vyrao – derived from the Latin ‘vireo’, meaning ‘I am green’ or ‘verdant’ – materialised. Green is associated with balance and healing, which is what Sewell, at home and at work, strives for.

We hope you take as much joy in Sewell’s soothing space as she does.

Featuring: Yasmin Sewell. Video: Studio Soeur. Head of Video: Sebastian Jordahn.

Antwerp-based eyewear care brand Alpagota is on a mission to elevate the rather boring, yet entirely necessary, ritual of cleaning your glasses. Through the launch of its debut line of aromatic lens cleaners and cloths (the latter made from a patented Japanese fabric), the days of simply breathing on your glasses and wiping them on your sleeve will soon be a thing of the past.

Alpagota’s scented eyewear products make cleaning your glasses a thing of beauty

‘By transforming a mundane routine into a scented ritual, we help people become more involved in their essential daily care,’ says Gaëtan Gaye, the founder of Alpagota. But the brand isn't just about romanticising the everyday, he adds. He wants to spread the word about the importance of taking care of your glasses.

'First and foremost, it's a question of health, of visual health,' he says. 'The slightest smudge on your lenses causes your eyes to struggle to find the correct focus point. That constant extra effort tires out your eye muscles, leading to tension and headaches.'

Enter Alpagota's hero product, The Protective Aromatic Lens Cleaner. Drawing inspiration from high-end skincare, it is contained in refillable, jewel-toned glass spray bottles, inspired by mid-century design.

The cleaners offer three different olfactory combinations: notes of sandalwood and matcha, eucalyptus and patchouli or green mandarin and cedarwood. The formula removes impurities and protects against smudges, dust and grease, enriched with anti-static and anti-stain ingredients, as well as lengthening the life of lenses by preventing the coating from peeling.

Alpagota's cleaning cloths accompanying the lens cleaners, made from a patented fabric called Silktech, which features a high density of ultra-fine knitting yarns. This allows the material to absorb impurities through capillary action, while remaining super-soft and elastic to prevent damage to the surface of your lenses.

Every cloth is hand-cut and hand-sewn in harmonious colourways that complement the shades of the corresponding cleaner bottles, including apricot, red and indigo; blue, cream and anthracite; and burgundy, blue and orange.

A recent report by fragrance marketing firm EcoFrench Lab named 2025 as 'the year when olfactory emotions transform the customer experience'. And, while Alpagota isn't the first to produce scented products, Gaye notes that it speaks directly to this uptick.

'We are part of a major trend called olfactory-led experiences, which are rising in demand, with Gen Z being the main driver,' he says. 'This is a generation that expects more from its products than mere efficacy.'

alpagota.com

Two Antwerp-based creatives – Katrin Wouters of jewellery house Wouters & Hendrix and legacy model and meditation coach Hannelore Knuts – have joined forces on an unexpected piece of design: a scented ring called L’Issence.

Although this is a decidedly innovative project – the L’Issence ring cleverly conceals a wick infused with soothing essential oils – the history of aromatic jewellery spans centuries, from tiny perfume flacons fashioned into pendants to rings with secret compartments containing solid perfume. But with L’Issence, the concept is updated for 2025, created to punctuate an ‘always on’ lifestyle with small moments of calm.

Wouters & Hendrix makes Hannelore Knuts’ L’Issence ring

The ring’s name subtly plays with the word ‘essence’, replacing the ‘E’ with an ‘I’ in a nod to the act of ‘self-care’. ‘When I inhale the blend of essential oils contained in the ring, it helps me to anchor myself,’ Knuts, a 2023 Wallpaper* cover star, explains.

Knuts studied photography at Antwerp’s Royal Academy during the late 1990s, getting her start in modelling by walking the graduate runways for Bernhard Willhelm and Veronique Branquinho. Soon after, she became one of the most sought-after faces of the 2000s, shooting with the likes of Steven Meisel, Juergen Teller and Inez & Vinoodh, alongside forging relationships with designers including Miuccia Prada, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld and Martin Margiela during his tenure at Hermès.

Seeking to ground herself after years navigating the whirlwind of the fashion industry, Knuts eventually retrained as a mindfulness and meditation coach to find equilibrium in her daily life – and also help others to do the same. ‘A small gesture has a profound impact on your being and your stress levels,’ she says. ‘If you are less stressed out, you can be much nicer to yourself and others. To anchor myself during modelling, essential oil was so helpful. It became a part of my life. Then, several years ago, I started to dream about scented jewellery,’ recalls Knuts.

What started as a dream became reality when, by chance – or perhaps fate – Knuts received a proposition from Wouters & Hendrix to become an ambassador for the jewellery brand, founded in 1984 by fellow Royal Academy graduates Katrin Wouters and Karen Hendrix. ‘What I like about Wouters & Hendrix is that it is rooted in craft, but combined with a sense of playfulness – there’s almost a sense of humour to its designs, but it remains elegant,’ adds Knuts, speaking of how their shared vision helped to bring L’Issence to life.

Crafted in two variations: sunstone set on a gold-plated chunky band, or labradorite mounted on a solid sterling silver base; the selection of these gemstones was guided more by instinct than by any belief in their mystical properties. The scent mechanism in each piece is ingeniously concealed behind small pieces of Iolite, flanking a bold, faceted cabochon. On one side, the round-cut Iolite turns, revealing a compartment for a scented wick. On the other side, another Iolite disc slides open with the lightest of touches. Then, wearers need only to bring the ring close to their nose and inhale Knuts’ custom blend of rhododendron, neroli, and ylang-ylang, developed in collaboration with Bioflore.

The making of the L’Issence ring was, at times, a challenging technical process for Katrin Wouters and the Wouters & Hendrix team, particularly when incorporating its scented component. ‘I thought about the right coating for the inside of the ring – the small tunnel bridging two Iolite covers – so that the oil does not cause any oxidation and the scent stays fresh,’ she tells Wallpaper*. ‘It was a slow process of almost two years. Slow but strong,’ she says.

When both iterations of the ring were finalised and in hand, Knuts turned to one of her long-time collaborators, Dutch artist and photographer Viviane Sassen, to capture the L’Issence campaign. Here, Sassen chose to work with her signature style of collage, juxtaposing an assemblage of images from the natural world, such as flowers and rocks, with shots of Knuts wearing the L’Issence jewellery.

As the limited-edition L’Issence ring nears its debut later this month (May 2025), Knuts reflects on its purpose. ‘Though a beautiful piece of design, the rings are not just an object,’ she says. ‘By bringing L’Issence into the world, we’re also sending out a message: take care of yourself.’

The L’Issence ring by Hannelore Knuts x Wouters & Hendrix is available in a limited-edition on the Wouters & Hendrix website, wouters-hendrix.com

For the founder of La Pyae Apothecary, Kathleen Baird-Murray, distilling three decades of experience as a beauty editor, including hundreds of hours of interviews with leading fragrance experts and thousands of ideas about scent and storytelling, into her own fragrance line has been the achievement of a lifetime.

After almost a decade in the making, La Pyae Apothecary launched at the end of 2024 with Catch Me If I Fall, its debut scent created in collaboration with renowned perfumer Frank Voelkl, the man behind cult compositions for the likes of Le Labo, and Glossier, including Santal 33 and You. So unsurprisingly, Catch Me If I Fall is just as unique and expertly crafted as one might expect.

The story behind La Pyae Apothecary’s perfume Catch Me If I Fall

Catch Me If I Fall is also the culmination of Baird-Murray’s lifelong journey to reconnect with her Burmese heritage, which began with a trip to Myanmar in 1994, just as she was starting out as a journalist. Here, after a separation of over 50 years, Baird-Murray was able to meet and grow close to family members, while also becoming acquainted with the country in which her Burmese-Irish mother was born, alongside its culture and visual language in a broader context.

‘I have so many vivid memories of being there,’ she says. ‘You’ll see this mix of neon signs, neon-decorated temples next to the more classical, gold leaf-covered temples. And I used to see lots of flower petals threaded together on a string that people would give offerings to the Buddha. So many visual references I just loved.’

The journey to bottling these feelings and experiences in Catch Me If I Fall began when Baird-Murray sent Voelkl a small treasure box to reference. It contained sandalwood prayer beads, old family photographs, a childhood memoir and a book of more recent photos taken on a trip.

This close dialogue between the two has resulted in a fresh and evocative perfume that is floral without being cloying; musky, but simultaneously zingy. This was achieved via top notes of bergamot zest, cardamom, neroli and green leaves; jasmine sambac, ambrette, freesia and iris at Catch Me If I Fall’s heart; and cedarwood, sandalwood and white musk at its base.

La Pyae – pronounced ‘La Pea-yay’ – is the nickname of one of Baird-Murray’s relatives, meaning ‘full moon’ in Burmese. Referencing the name of the fragrance itself, Baird-Murray acknowledges that it is ‘a bit of a love story.’ ‘It’s a love story for Burma and a love story for my mum, who’s not around anymore,’ she continues. ‘She died 20 years ago. It’s for all those people I love, whether they’re near or far away.’ (Baird-Murray’s mother Maureen, wrote a 2012 autobiography about her childhood, A World Overturned, which the ‘journal’ section on Ly Pyae’s website details).

For La Pyae Apothecary’s visual identity, imagery comes courtesy of Maison Racine (formerly known as Metz + Racine), with London-based design agency Farrow behind the perfume bottle for Catch Me If I Fall. With a pleasing weight and tactile ridges, the bottle’s cap is 100% compostable, a detail that took some time to secure, sourced from a small British brand recommended by another perfumer that Baird-Murray knows. ‘I’ve had a lot of very kind support from a lot of people in the beauty industry in realising this,’ she says.

On the front of Catch Me If I Fall, Times New Roman-esque typography in the oxblood red of betel – a flowering plant native to Myanmar – names the scent. ‘It has the look of slightly faded paper that has been sitting in the window of a shop with the sun hitting it,’ Baird-Murray says. ‘I wanted [it to] remind me of something classic, as if it had been around for a long time.’

The creation of Catch Me If I Fall may have also taken a long time. But for Baird-Murray, it was more than worth it. ‘I used to get so frustrated that I couldn’t bring La Pyae to life,’ she says. ‘But, in the end, it’s better than I could have imagined – precisely because I’ve had to wait.’

La Pyae Apothecary and Kathleen Baird-Murray frequently work with key Myanmar charities, Medical Action Myanmar, Burma Skincare Initiative, and Prospect Burma, plus The Disaster Emergency Committee and Community Partners Initiative, which are also currently responding to the March 2025 Earthquake disaster.

To find out more and share donations, click on the links above.

lapyae.com

Christian Dior was notoriously superstitious, and lucky charms, from the Rose des Vents eight-pointed star to the fer à cheval (horseshoe), are synonymous with the history of his namesake house. But it is le muguet – the lily of the valley, the designer’s favourite flower – that is perhaps the most enduring symbol of his legacy.

To Monsieur Dior, the lily of the valley’s delicate white blossoms and sweet yet verdant aroma ushered in the beginning of springtime. And with it, the promise of new beginnings that the season connotes. A constant presence in his life and work, sprigs of the flower were pinned to lapels and hemmed into the linings of garments. It even inspired entire collections, such as the S/S 1954 Muguet collection, and the embroidered and ruffled Muguet dress, created in 1957 as an homage to the couturier’s beloved bloom.

During the years in between, Christian Dior and nose Edmond Roudnitska produced Diorissimo: the first fragrance from the house inspired by the lily of the valley. In perfumery, however, the muguet is considered to be an ‘invisible’ flower; that is, it cannot be distilled into a pure fragrance, only replicated or reimagined using other ingredients.

Francis Kurkdijan, Dior’s Perfume Creation Director, now introduces an exceptional example of this in Le Muguet, the first chapter of a new collection called Les Récoltes Majeures. This trio of fragrances is built around three different flowers central to the story of the house, each contained in an artisanal amphora bottle. Here, Kurkdijan speaks with Wallpaper* about the technical, yet no less poetic process, of bringing Le Muguet to life.

Dior’s Les Récoltes Majeures: Le Muguet by Francis Kurkdijan

Wallpaper*: How did you approach the research process for Le Muguet, the first fragrance in the Les Récoltes Majeures collection?

Francis Kurkdijan: It all began when I joined the House of Dior in 2021. I immediately began researching the specific variety of lily of the valley that Christian Dior loved, called Fortin’s Giant, or Nantes, which he asked his florist in Paris to grow in a dedicated greenhouse that was also heated in winter. That way, it could grow all year round, and he could always have the flower on site in Paris.

Over the decades since, this particular species has been lost to history, and I wanted to rediscover it. A very close friend of mine is a lily producer, so I asked him to do some research to find out how we could reintroduce it to the gardens of La Colle Noire, Christian Dior’s château in Grasse. There was a specific bush behind the fountain on the left side of the house, which we know is where he planted the flower originally, and so this is where we also planted it.

W*: What makes this particular species of lily of the valley so special in terms of its aroma?

FK: The flower is a bit smaller than the lilies we are familiar with today. But it’s much more fragrant. In the making of Le Muguet, we used the ‘Headspace’ technique – an extraction procedure that was developed in the 1970s, but is, of course, much more technologically advanced today. It analyses the fragrant molecules of flowers that can’t be transformed into essential oils. So it helps perfumers to analyse the smell of an object, providing data that captures its DNA; all the different facets that make up its scent.

W*: Can you explain a little more about how the technique works?

FK: To give you a practical example, it’s like analysing the components of a colour. If there is a very specific shade of pink that you want to recreate, you need to know the ratios of red, blue, white, and so on. Perhaps this shade of pink has something else in it that you can’t see with your eye, but you can feel it’s there. In terms of scent, Headspace allows us to see these ratios. At the very end of this analysis, you are presented with the composition of what the flower is made of. Once you get that, you can recreate the smell using different ingredients.

W*: What influence did Diorissimo, the iconic lily of the valley fragrance created by Christian Dior and Edmond Roudnitska in 1956, have on Le Muguet?

FK: Diorissimo set the foundations for what a lily of the valley fragrance is for the entire world of modern perfumery. Since then, every single lily of the valley perfume released to the market smells somewhat alike, because they are based around the same canvas: usually a combination of roses, jasmine and ylang ylang. So Le Muguet is a departure from Diorissimo. My take was to change the paradigm. And instead of starting with Diorissimo, I decided to go a step before that, meaning my point of reference should be the aroma of the flower itself.

W*: With this in mind, how did you arrive at Le Muguet’s final composition?

FK: When I looked at the result of the Headspace analysis, I noticed that this particular species of lily of the valley can be experienced as a ‘green almond’. There was a different idea here. It was a shift from how the lily of the valley was defined by Diorissimo. With Le Muguet, we got rid of the animalic component of the lily of the valley, by removing the ylang ylang. So here, I was able to present a new vision. The idea was to mimic nature; to recreate the flower as Christian Dior would have smelled it blooming. So Le Muguet is built around Grasse centifolia rose and jasmine.

W*: Of course, Le Muguet is highly connected to springtime. As a perfumer, what does the season mean to you?

FK: The springtime is exciting: it’s a signal for flowers to bloom. It’s a sign for nature to awaken… A renaissance. The days are longer and more luminous. The light is sharper. The seasons are always important to what I do, especially the climate in France. I love the sun, the clouds and the rain. The cold and the heat. All of it.

dior.com

Aldebaran is a powerful and intriguing new single-note fragrance, conceived by Paris couturier Marc-Antoine Barrois, and composed by his friend and collaborator, the perfumer Quentin Bisch. It is an elegant but modern treatment of the tuberose flower, a bloom that carries a distinctive, hypnotic aroma.

Aldebaran, named after a giant red star that shines 400 times brighter than the sun and that captivated Arab astronomers in the Middle Ages, has all the punch of Robert Piguet’s 1948 olfactory masterpiece, Fracas, but is distinguished by its clarity and luminosity. In Aldebaran, the milky facets of tuberose are enhanced simply by paprika and Tonka bean.

Why mention it now, when our attention is full-focus on the halls, palazzos and galleries of Milan Design Week? Well Barrois, an alumni of the Politecnico di Milano, is a creative polymath who moves with ease between the design of couture clothing, jewellery and fragrance, while nurturing a passion for architecture and design. He sees no boundaries between the disciplines and has chosen the thick of Milan Design Week to reveal his latest couture scent alongside his first venture into furniture design.

The reveal comes within an immersive exhibition, Mission Aldebaran, mounted in via San Gregorio at the Salone dei Tessuti, a 1930s landmark that was once at the centre of the Milanese fabric trade. The installation is designed in partnership with his long-time collaborator, the French artist and architect Antoine Bouillot. Tapping into their emotional responses to Aldebaran, the pair have woven a story for the space that is a poetic manifestation of the scent, with the night-blooming tuberose at its core.

'Art installation is a medium to tell stories,' affirms Barrois. 'As a creative director I focus on bringing people on a poetic, emotional and imaginary journey.'

This journey begins when you enter a mirrored cube at the centre of the Salone dei Tessuti. Working your way through a dream-like forest of ropes you come to a clearing at the heart of the installation where light is breaking through – a nod to the cosmic origins of the fragrance’s name. A suitably uplifting soundscape by the French composer Thomas Roussel accompanies you on the journey.

In this central, luminous spot is a field of Aldebaran-infused tuberose flowers, sculpted from paper and lit by a pulsating bright globe. Visitors are invited to sit on nature-inspired seating, part of a limited-edition collection of stools and benches designed by Barrois and Bouillot. They are formed from marble, that has been meticulously crafted to resemble over-sized pebbles that rest on wood bases. Polished pebbles from Barrois’ beloved beaches of the Breton island, Belle-Île, where he lives when not in Paris, provided the inspiration.

'Nature speaks to us deeply in all our joint creations,' explains Bouillot. 'All the seating elements are inspired directly by real nature. It’s choosing the perfect pebble on a beach – just the right one. We then scanned it in super high definition to capture the curves, texture, and precise details that made us fall in love with this exact pebble. The joy of seeing our tiny pebble enlarged to giant proportions was indescribable, and then carving it into rare marbles, selected from enormous blocks in Italy, was an extraordinary experience.'

Mission Aldebaran is a sensorial mix-up emanating hope, and giving us nature expanded for the nose, eyes, ears and finger tips.

Aldebaran will launch globally after Salone and be available from Marc-Antoine Barrois boutiques and marcantoinebarrois.com

The seating collection will be available to purchase in the Marc-Antoine Barrois Paris and London flagship stores.

In partnership with Acqua di Parma

In an ode to Italian living to coincide with Milan Design Week 2025, ceramicist Antonio Fratantoni is transforming Acqua di Parma’s Via Gesù boutique into a sunshine orchard in the city.

With their golden hues, the Sicilian artisan’s sculptures capture the warmth and energy of morning light, a nod to the spirit of Acqua di Parma’s new Buongiorno Eau de Parfum – with its notes of lemon, spearmint, and rosemary, basil and petitgrain.

Inside the store, Fratantoni’s handcrafted ceramic sun beams down on the bar area, where visitors can bask in what the brand is calling an ‘all-day Buongiorno’ hospitality experience. It’s a chance to ponder the pleasure of an Italian spring morning over a cup of coffee and an Acqua di Parma cannolo pastry.

At the heart of the installation, dappled in more yellow ceramic sunshine, a workshop of potter’s tools, raw materials and specialist machinery continues a narrative of artisan creativity, technique and transformative processes.

Inspired by Buongiorno’s elements of basil and petitgrain, an organic installation by Milan’s floral restaurant Potafiori brings green textures and summertime scents into the mix.

‘Buongiorno captures the essence of Italian elegance, generosity, and optimism,’ says perfumer Emilie Bouge, who created the Acqua di Parma fragrance. ‘It evokes the sun-drenched landscapes of Tuscany.’

Crucial to the fragrance’s olfactory pyramid is the encounter between basil and petitgrain, she adds. ‘This is a harmonious pairing between two elements of nature that aren’t typically found together – petitgrain, from the orange tree’s leaves, and basil, growing close to the ground. This contrast brings a new perspective on naturality, botanical strength,

and greenness. It embodies renewal. A new way to express Acqua di Parma’s signature freshness – not just through citrus, but through aromatic herbs that add an unexpected, yet unmistakably Italian dimension.’

‘Sunrise in the Orchard’ is at Acqua di Parma, Via Gesù 1, 20121 Milan during Milan Design Week, acquadiparma.com/it

Acqua di Parma’s Buongiorno Eau de Parfum is available from €152 for 50ml at acquadiparma.com

Along with vertiginous hemlines, skyscrapers, and the Fox Trot, the 1920s brought on a golden age of perfume. Changing social mores, advances in chemistry, and savvy marketing gave rise to bold, hypnotic fragrances like Chanel No. 5, Guerlain Shalimar, Coty L'Aimant and Lanvin Arpège – all with luxurious bottles to match.

The Great Depression brought a halt to that champagne-fizz era and demand for fine French fragrances plummeted along with the stock market. Coty responded by slashing prices. Other companies simply shuttered.

One such business was the Cristalleries de Nancy, a French crystal manufacturer that was one of the nation’s finest (its founder, Jules Alexis Bayet, cut his teeth at Baccarat). At its apex in the mid-1920s, Cristalleries de Nancy was not only producing glittering homewares, like vases and glasses, but jewel-like art deco perfume bottles for Guerlain and Saks Fifth Avenue. Bayet even tapped Nancy local Jean Prouvé to design the door of the company's headquarters.

50 perfume bottle-design blueprints emerge for sale

In 1936, the glassworks dissolved, as did its creative legacy. But a remarkable discovery will inevitably have fragrance lovers and decorative art historians alike back on the scent of this historic crystal manufacturer. Paris-based book dealer Nicolas Malais heard through an intermediary that an archive of some 300 original drawings and blueprints from Cristalleries de Nancy had been located, among them, some 50 exquisite renderings of atomisers, cut-crystal perfume bottles and more.

‘I am always looking for archives linked to art nouveau and art deco,’ Malais explains. ‘Cristalleries de Nancy used to be as important as Baccarat in the beginning of the 20th century, and they were working everywhere, from Europe to the United States to South America.’

Highlights of the collection include drawings of a bottle criss-crossed by a jubilant, Jazz Age palm; a slender flacon topped by a zig-zag stopper; and cerulean blueprints showcasing designs for Saks Fifth Avenue.

Malais reckons the documents were passed down through the decades by a family member affiliated with the glassworks. The images, therefore, mark a rare survivor of art deco decorative art history while offering an unprecedented glimpse into the art of 1920s perfume-making. ‘It’s very uncommon to find blueprints and drawings about perfume like this. It's the memory of the art deco period,’ he insists.

Malais and his gallery, Cabinet Chaptal, will be offering the perfume archive for sale as part of the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, to be held at the Park Avenue Armory from 3 to 6 April 2025. The portfolio will be priced at approximately $7,500 (€7,000).

What kind of collector will be interested in such a find? ‘It could be different kinds of collectors,’ Malais reckons. ‘It could be a museum of decorative art. But it’s also possible that it will be sold to an artistic director, or someone who is working for a company and is looking for ideas from the past.’

No matter where these artefacts call home next, one thing is certain, says Malais: ‘If you are looking to be inspired by the past, this is a wonderful way to find it.’

nyantiquarianbookfair.com

Loewe’s Casa de Campo perfume captures the beginning of spring in a bottle. As the latest addition to the brand’s Un Paseo Por Madrid fragrance collection, an olfactory translation of some of the city’s most iconic landmarks, it pays tribute to Madrid’s largest urban park, originally built by King Philip II in the 16th century as a royal hunting estate.

Today, Casa de Campo is a favourite gathering spot for the city’s locals to escape the bustle of the city, with an Arcadian atmosphere and reputation as an oasis of relaxation. During springtime, as its almond trees and violets bloom, it becomes a place for informal gatherings between family and friends, informing the composition of the Casa de Campo perfume.

Loewe’s Casa de Campo perfume smells like the first day of spring

Here, enveloping notes of sandalwood and musk meet the powdery sweetness of violet, echoing the sensation of walking through the park’s impressive range of flora and fauna.

‘Each fragrance in the Un Paseo Por Madrid collection creates a sensory experience of these iconic locations,’ explains the brand’s in-house perfumer and nose behind Casa de Campo, Núria Cruelles. ‘With Casa de Campo we have created a floral formula that transmits the real essence of this area; while the addition of sandalwood and musk helps to craft a deep and enveloping fragrance, blending woody warmth with a soft elegance, creating a olfactory experience that is ultimately luxurious and comforting.’

Casa de Campo also contains the brand’s signature ‘Loewe Accord’ which Cruelles developed as the olfactory signature of its fragrance line. Inspired by the Spanish rockrose – a wildflower that grows across the Iberian Peninsula – the accord has a raw, resinous character that makes it instantly recognisable. And, like all the other Un Paseo Por Madrid scents, Casa de Campo comes in a block-shaped glass bottle with a veined wooden topper.

For those who know Madrid, the fragrances will no doubt hold a special resonance, recreating the atmosphere of a familiar location and, inevitably, evoking the memories of the time spent there. Past locations and corresponding scents have included the Prado, the national art museum that is home to work by Velazquez, Bosch and Goya; Ópera, the city’s grand theatre for performing and musical arts; San Miguel, a lively market that is a monument to Spanish cuisine and Doré, the iconic 1920s cinema.

Yet, even those who have never set foot in the Spanish city can find a scent in the collection that speaks to them. Rosaleda, for example, is another fragrance included in the Un Paseo Por Madrid collection befitting springtime, inspired by the landscaped rose gardens in Madrid’s El Retiro park.

‘The Loewe Un Paseo Por Madrid fragrances embody a significant part of our Spanish roots; whether through the choice of ingredients or the inspirations behind each scent,’ says Cruelles. ‘This cultural background enriches the olfactory experience, ensuring that each fragrance reflects both a personal identity and the vibrant essence of Madrid. At the same time, the fragrances are also designed to be unique and memorable, I hope that people feel a deep personal connection with them, experiencing a sense of timeless elegance every time they are worn.’

perfumesloewe.com

The best beauty products of the month, according to Wallpaper*, includes eight new launches by a roster of brands. Below, find Prada's latest mascara, used by lead make-up artist Lynsey Alexander in the runway look for the house’s A/W 2025 show on Wednesday this week (26 February 2025).

Plus, Westman Atelier’s bronzing drops, formulated by Gucci Westman. The American make-up artist has recently worked with Anthony Vaccarello and David Sims on Saint Laurent’s S/S 2025 campaign starring Michelle Pfeiffer, in addition to Nicole Kidman – who plays Romy in Halina Reijn’s Babygirl – on the actor’s red carpet appearances during this year’s awards season.

The best beauty products of the month, according to Wallpaper*

Today (20 February 2025) 10 Corso Como opened its doors to Olfactory Signals 01, an exhibition located on the recently redesigned first floor of the Milanese concept store.

Conceived by London-based creative agency System Preferences, the show coincides with the 15th instalment of Esxence – The Art Perfumery Event, an annual celebration of niche fragrance-making and the culture that surrounds it.

10 Corso Como and System Preferences present Olfactory Signals 01

Olfactory Signals 01 marks the first edition of an ongoing project exploring fragrance as an artistic medium. ‘Through installations, events, and collaborations with artists and designers, the project aims to redefine the role of fragrance in contemporary culture,’ says a statement released on behalf of System Preferences. (Alongside 10 Corso Como, the agency also counts the likes of Saint Laurent and SSENSE amongst its roster of clients).

In 10 Corso Como’s Project Room, the exhibition puts the spotlight on a roster of innovative contemporary perfume brands, selected for their role in ‘challenging traditional olfactory and aesthetic conventions’.

This includes names such as Barnabé Fillion’s Arpa Studios, the US-based D.S. & Durga and Chopowa Lowena, which recently debuted a fragrance line. Additional pieces on display come courtesy of design brands Objects Are By, NM3 and Redduo.

At the centre of Olfactory Signals 01 is ‘an immersive experience that explores new connections between smell, memory, and emotion’, which can be discovered in 10 Corso Como’s Gallery space.

Titled IGGSBT, this sensory installation is a collaborative work by Berlin-based artist Illya Goldman Gubin and Norwegian researcher and olfactory artist Sissel Tolaas, featuring huge rolls of scented paper questioning the ‘dominance of visual stimuli in our world’.

Goldman Gubin and Tolaas will speak further about IGGSBT and their respective practices in a panel talk tomorrow, Friday 21 February. The following day, creative directors Elise by Olsen and Morteza Vaseghi will also discuss their process of ‘archiving scents’.

Olfactory Signals 01 is open from now until 22 February 2025 between 10.30am - 7.30pm CET at Corso Como, 10 20154 Milan.

10corsocomo.com

olfactorysignals.com

It’s been ten years since Aesop launched Tacit, a perfume created by French nose Céline Barel. Last week, I met with Barel in Paris at Aesop’s Rue de Sevres store to mark the imminent debut of Aurner, her second fragrance for the brand. In contrast to Tacit’s citrussy notes, Aurner is a floral composition; its name comes from an Old Norse verb meaning ‘to be adorned, to be embellished with flowers’.

However, in keeping with the contemporary codes of Aesop, there is nothing florid or frou frou to be found in a bottle of Aurner, with Barel using the magnolia leaf, rather than its petals, as its hero ingredient. Cardamom, pink pepper, cedar heart and the ‘metallic’ aroma of roman chamomile provide nuance and complexity. (It is described by Aesop as a ‘subversive’ and ‘defiant bloom’, attributes which Bangkok-based fine jewellery designer Patcharavipa Bodiratnangkura has also interpreted into a limited run of bespoke rhodium-plated silver Aurner ear cuffs).

In the below conversation, Céline Barel shares the story of how Aurner was brought to life.

Aesop’s Aurner: a new floral perfume by Céline Barel

Wallpaper*: What first drew you to perfume-making?

Céline Barel: I am what you might call appellation d’origine contrôlée; because I’m a perfumer and I was born and raised in Grasse. (In my generation of perfumers, this is especially rare). As a child, I soaked in the atmosphere of Grasse, even though I didn’t grow up with a perfumer in the family. But, my nanny's husband used to work in one of the biggest factories in the town and whenever he would come back home at the end of the day, it was like he had almost bathed in perfume ingredients, such as ylang-ylang, patchouli and vetiver. I began collecting miniature bottles of perfume and I would enjoy describing how they smelled. Growing up in the 1980s, the bottles were like sculptures. It was also a time when you had the most marvellous and breathtaking perfume advertising campaigns. This is how I gained a huge knowledge of the perfume market, just through fragrance being a hobby and passion of mine.

W*: What was your first professional experience in the perfume industry?

CB: I wanted to take business studies at university, because I wanted to be on the brand side of perfumery, doing the marketing, building all those dreams. So, I did internships at different houses, including Dior and Chanel. But it was during an internship at Manne, which is another fragrance creation house, that I really discovered the backstage of perfumery. It was something that seemed so inaccessible, as in France you have to have studied chemistry, not business. But it was International Flavors and Fragrances, who gave me my chance, when it re-opening its internal perfumery school in Italy. They accepted just a few people onto the course and I was one of the lucky few and trained there for three years before moving to New York. I stayed there for 16 years before returning to Paris four years ago.

W*: How did you first come to work with Aesop?

CB: It was a very long process, but a natural and authentic one. It all started nearly 20 years ago when I met Dennis Paphitis, the founder of Aesop, here in Paris. I was fresh out of perfume school. We bonded over a mutual love of literature and philosophy. Also how we both loved travelling off the beaten track and preferred the ‘weirder’ things in life. So, we kept the conversation going. Sometimes he would be travelling and send me, without any context or a written letter, some elements of his trip: dried herbs, a particular bark of wood, spice, some Pantone colours. And I think this way, he was slowly shaping my creative process with Aesop. In 2012, seven years after we first met, he briefed me for Tacit. It then took a further three years to create due to his unique briefing process. We always start with a blank page. Then there will be a song, a colour, a film – and so on – that forms the inspiration for a perfume.

W*: And was the process the same for Aurner, too?

CB: It was rigorous. I always knew this was going to be a floral perfume. A ‘genderless’ floral perfume. There is a quote from Baudelaire that I love: ‘Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty’. This is how I approached its creation. Aesop is a brand that is rooted in antiquities and the meaningful quest for beauty. But at the same time, it’s a contemporary brand inspired by art and design, movements such as Minimalism and Brutalism. I had to find a way to make a floral perfume that felt in keeping with this universe. The song Lilac Wine by Nina Simone was a starting point for Aurner. When you’re listening to the song, it’s a bit melancholy. And there is a huge depth in it through her voice. There’s almost a ‘gong’ sound; a metallic vibration. But it is soothing, calming… Not strident or sharp. This song helped me to understand the tension and contrast required in Aurner; opposing the luminosity and the fragility of a flower with something deeper.

W*: How did you arrive at the final ingredients and notes in Aurner?

CB: We didn’t want to go down the route of rose, tuberose, or jasmine, for example. It was important to choose an ‘anti-conformist’ floral. Once we defined that the hero ingredient would be the magnolia, we subverted this by using the leaf and not the flower. Then, we had to find that element of ‘strangeness’, which comes from the chamomile; a ‘metallic’ sensation, so cold that it burns. I also used patchouli crystals together with cedar wood heart and sandalwood to give Aurner texture and strength. This woody background, by necessity, had to be very strong to become the backbone of the fragrance. And provide longevity; a vibration that would be working over many hours. But at the same time, I wanted a woody accord that could feel like it was disappearing and almost subliminal. Then, the inclusions of geranium, petit grain and neroli, which are Aesop signatures, anchor Aurner with a touch of familiarity.

W*: What are you most excited about in the world of perfume at the moment?

CB: I’m excited about the development of new ingredients and molecules, which allow a perfumer to innovate. There are exciting new geographic zones to be explored in countries such as South Korea, for example. But the most exciting part, I would say, is in working with different brands. Working with Aesop, and with Dennis, has had a huge impact on me. He’s one of the people in my life that really shaped me – a true mentor.

When you’re collaborating with a brand it is important to remember that you are not creating a fragrance for yourself. It’s for the customer and their consumer. I tend to lean towards the maximalist, rather than the minimalist. But Aesop has opened my eyes to other horizons, thanks to the briefs I was given for Tacit and Aurner. In a way, when I create a perfume it is almost like I’ve been an actor, getting under the the skin of a character. And the character is the brief; the story that is being told. I spend a few years with that character in my mind, writing dialogues between ingredients. When the process is over, you feel a bit blue – like an actor does when they say goodbye to a character they’ve been portraying. But, you’re also so happy to see it come to life and hopefully become immortalised by the people wearing it.

Aesop Aurner eau de parfum, £145, is available now. The Aurner ear cuff by Patcharavipa Bodiratnangkura is available at select Aesop stores in a limited edition run of 200 pieces.

aesop.com

A holey sweater artfully made using sabotaged knitting machines. Protective bulges layered on to a woman’s body. The soft scents of cardamom, musk and rose emerging from a concrete container in a fine mist. Perfumes introduced as ‘odeurs’ that are not Pour Homme or Pour Femme. A big sexy global department store named after a Mayfair street. Boutiques that pop up and vanish. Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons is part dazzling exactitude, part sucker punch. One immense, perplexing, juicy work of art.

In 1994, designer Rei Kawakubo’s inventive modus operandi didn’t suggest a move into the more industrial realm of fragrance. Since 1973, she had pushed at the lines of the body, tearing up notions of taste, comfort and status with her clothes. How would these values be translated into a less tangible medium? ‘By telling a story around what was unique and unconventional, by transgressing industry norms about advertising and packaging,’ says Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe in the foreword to a new book by Dino Simonett, celebrating 30 years of Comme des Garçons Parfums.

Comme des Garçons perfume: 30 years of disruptive fragrance

The brand’s first fragrance, Eau de Parfum, was launched around the pool at the Ritz Paris, the room decorated with sacks of yellow liquid. Its raison d’être, penned by Kawakubo, was presented in bold Helvetica type across two double pages: ‘A perfume that works like a medicine and behaves like a drug. To excite the feelings, to stir the emotions, to raise the spirit and to make one feel positive. The pleasure of a perfume for oneself.’ With those words, Kawakubo crashed through the fragrance industry’s sedate notions of gender, design and function. She offered a new sense of taste.

She is interested in smells, rather than the business of perfume, a distinction pressed by Comme des Garçons Parfums’ creative director Christian Astuguevieille, who says he doesn’t like things that are ‘too beautiful’ or ‘excessive’ in their beauty. ‘Very beautiful things are, to us, suspicious, boring and unsettling. The concept of Comme des Garçons Parfums is defined without the notion of beauty.’

Astuguevieille – an artist, sculptor, furniture designer, maker of jewellery and objects – is also most certainly not a ‘nose’ yet has overseen the development of some 94 fragrances ranging from the polluted grassiness of London’s Serpentine Gallery location to the classic English rose for Grace Coddington.

When he first met Kawakubo in 1991, they did not talk about perfume. She invited him to create rope sculptures painted black to sit in harmony with her latest collection. ‘And I created an imaginary forest,’ he says. Around the same time, he had been making objects inspired by wabi-sabi and furoshiki in his Paris studio. He is an interlocutor of odour, working between a number of perfumers and Kawakubo herself to translate concepts to elicit the most abstract scents. How would a perfume be if it were offcentre is a question never far from his mind.

As a collaborator on the debut fragrance – acting as co-author and poetic emissary – Astuguevieille described the structure of the original eau de parfum as ‘a journey along which windows open and close in succession’. A precursor to the beauty-product-as-home-sculpture we see so much of today, the bottle was designed to lie horizontally like a stone at the bottom of a stream. Kawakubo created the now-recognisable pebble bottle and the vacuum-packed interior while Franco-American designer Marc Atlan conceptualised the graphic vocabulary for the box and the bottle – all of which still confidently sit out of the mainstream. It embodies Kawakubo’s practice in the most direct way; it is a bottle that cannot stand up yet fits comfortably in the palm of the hand.

At Dover Street Market in London, a tree-like iron structure on the ground floor accommodates the brand’s fragrances. The bottles seem small, humble, regardless of their size. Even when they are 200ml, they are wide not tall; the eye is kept low, you peer at them from above and hover. The pebbles lie face down, seemingly discarded, unassuming and unpretentious – the opposite of the shiny, erect, metallic bottles that are commonplace elsewhere.

All of the vessels for Comme des Garçons Parfums are provocations, ranging from thick glass rectangles, wider than they are tall, to round cylinders and ones that appear to have flat bases but will not stand up. Their boxes appear as utilitarian as Apple products and are free from the embossed logos, thin cellophane, and polyester ribbon that still dominate the wider fragrance industry.

To date, the Comme des Garçons fragrance portfolio includes scents made with a musician, a milliner, a gallery, a muse, an artist, a magazine and a furniture design company. For the last three decades, the notion of ‘guerrilla’ has been key to the output of both Kawakubo and Astuguevieille. ‘Our olfactory research has evolved over time, but the principle has remained our loyalty to audacity and freedom,’ says Astuguevieille. That concept is the freedom to use materials like tar, the smell of clothes drying in the wind or of a garage, while knowing how to use classic substances like vetiver and patchouli. ‘We prefer not to be stuck in a category, but to be free and different.

Comme des Garçons Parfums 1994-2025, a new book by Dino Simonett celebrating three decades of Comme des Garçons disruptive fragrances, is available now at shop.doverstreetmarket.com.

comme-des-garcons-parfum.com

A version of this article appears in the March 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Four years have passed since Arpa Studios – a fragrance brand and research project exploring scent and synaesthesia – was founded by polymath perfumer Barnabé Fillion. Wallpaper* previewed its debut collection of fragrances titled Sequence 1 in the May 2020 issue, followed by an interview with Fillion about the official Arpa Studios launch at Dover Street Market Parfums.

Fillion, who has a background in photography, design, and botany, trained under noses including Christine Nagel and has worked with Aesop for 12 years. At Arpa Studios (a.k.a. The Imaginary Institute of Synaesthesia), fragrances – which Fillon sometimes describes as ‘substances’ – begin with ‘blurry images, colours and sketches’ and can take as little time as a day or as long as a year to bring to life. This way Fillion can ‘write a story based on what I see and what I feel,’ he explains. Manta, for example, is a perfume from the Sequence 1 collection based on a ‘dream, a flash, a vision’ of being eclipsed by the wings of a manta ray. ‘The movement of the manta was creating sound, a change of temperature, of light – and that became a perfume,’ he reflects.

Arpa Studios by perfumer Barnabé Fillion: Series 2

Last month during Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2025, Arpa Studios premiered Sequence 2, a new selection of scents at the Marais-based concept store The Broken Arm. This series is a continuation of Fillion’s multisensorial investigation into the link between scent and memory.

This particular area of his research is inspired by principles initially laid out in Japanese Metabolism, a post-war architectural movement which envisioned buildings and cities as living, evolving organisms. ‘Our organic philosophy and fascination with micro-organisms creating hybrid forms of life align with the principles of Japanese Metabolism, explains Fillion. ‘We are playing with science, art, nature, scent and song.’ Fillion has a close relationship with Japan, having worked in the country for almost 20 years. And, aside from perfume, he describes architecture as his ‘main passion’. ‘I think about places, even more than [perfume] ingredients,’ he explains.

The three initial scents of Series 2 are built around the flower iris. In addition, Kōsai contains yuzu, bergamot and neroli, with beeswax, petitgrain and suede at its centre. Piel, which is described as ‘the polished surface of a shimmer in the dark’ blends red shiso and jasmine with herbal notes of armoise and opoponax. Kapsel is a resinous accord, highlighting hinoki leaves, vetiver root, sandalwood and patchouli.

Collaboration is vital to Fillion’s imaginative approach to making perfume. Sequence 2 will be accompanied by a limited-edition box crafted from a flexi disc of the music of Philippe Hallais, otherwise known as Low Jack, who also performed at The Broken Arm for the collection’s launch event. ‘I invited Low Jack to participate in the installation Soap Culture I did at the Venice Biennale last year,’ he says. ‘What we developed there became a sort of language that I used to create Sequence 2.’ Fillion also recently worked with fashion brand Namacheko on a scent that dives into the Iraqi and Kurdish roots of its founder Dilan Lur. ‘His grandfather was a silversmith, so we dove into the idea of incorporating metal into the perfume,’ he explains.

Series 2 sees London-based designer Jochen Holz return to design the hand-blown glass bottles he created for Series 1, which are made without a diffuser. This is so the perfume is applied directly to the skin to heighten the sensory experience. Kosai, Piel and Kapsel are encased in coloured and scented glycerin soap capsules. ‘There is this idea it will disappear but it’s still protecting the glass and the perfume,’ says Fillion. ‘There’s something a bit oily about soap but [at the same time] it’s also the cleanest thing you can have in your hands.’

The remaining fragrances from Series 2 will be introduced individually throughout the year, each paired with new packaging. In addition, Arpa Studios is set to open two new spaces in Paris and Kyoto in 2025. ‘It’s been a year of making things,’ Fillion muses. ‘This is the start of a new chapter.’

arpastudios.com

Wallpaper’s beauty products of the month is an edit of the make-up, skincare and haircare loved by our resident beauty editor.

Today (1 February 2025) this includes Celine’s expanded lipstick range, Chanel’s S/S 2025 make-up collection and Mantle’s jellyfish mucin serum pads. Plus, Frédéric Malle’s quintessential perfume Portrait of a Lady by Dominique Ropion, dressed up for its birthday in a red lacquered bottle.

The best beauty products of the month recommended by Wallpaper*

Make-up

Chanel’s limited edition make-up collection for S/S 2025

Chanel’s limited edition make-up collection for S/S 2025 has been designed by Ammy Drammeh, one-third of the house’s Cometes Collective alongside Valentina Li and Cécile Paravina. Naturally, the offering is a celebration of colour and texture, with unconventional shades of Ombre Essentielle solo eyeshadows, or Stylo Yeux waterproof eyeliners. (This season, they come as duo sets in hues of mauve, pink, green and nude). Le Vernis nail polish in creamy pastels, and Jeux de Lumieres highlighting powders, complete the house’s offering.

Chanel S/S 2025 limited edition make-up, price varies, chanel.com.

Celine’s expanded lipstick shades

Celine Beauté’s debut lipstick Rouge Triomphe, which inaugurated the Le Rouge Celine collection, has now been joined by 14 others, each in the same hydrating, long-lasting satin texture. Orange Clea is a sultry red; while La Peau Nue is a classic nude, first featured on the S/S 24 Celine runway. There’s also an array of warm, rosy hues: from Rose Palace, through to cooler pinks and purple tones including Zou Zou (also the name of a fragrance launched by the house last year). Nightclubbing, which takes its name from a perfume as well, is the darkest shade of all – a deep inky violet.

Celine Le Rouge Celine lipstick, £62, celine.com.

Dior’s PH-activated lip balm

Dior Addict Lip Glow, a recent launch from the house of Dior’s make-up line, has been made with a pH-reactive formula, so the sheer wash of colour it provides will morph into a distinct, personal hue upon contact with the skin. It also comes in both warm and cool undertones and is intensely hydrating, containing both cherry extract and shea butter.

Dior Addict Lip Glow lip balm, £33, dior.com

Skincare

Omorovicza’s healing blue serum

Omorovicza’s Blue Diamond Super Serum – an addition to the Blue Diamond Surfacing Peel and Blue Diamond Supercream – focuses on eliminating senescent cells to regenerate skin at a deeper level, with ingredients including diamond peptides, tetrapeptides, hyaluronic acid and Omorovicza’s patented healing concentrate derived from the thermal waters of the brand’s native Budapest.

Omorovicza Blue Diamond Super Serum, £350, omorovicza.com

Mantle’s jellyfish mucin pads

Mantle’s Hydra Serum is powered by the combination of jellyfish mucin (said to bind water three times better than hyaluronic acid), and deep sea algae. Together, these ingredients form the Scandinavian skincare brand’s patented mPelagic2 Complex, which is now also found in its Hydra Pads alongside lactobiotic acid, providing exfoliation and intense hydration in just a few swipes. Keep them in the fridge for an additional de-puffing and cooling effect.

Hydra Pads by Mantle, £49, mantleskin.com

Haircare

Dyson’s automatic hot tool

The beloved Dyson Airwrap received an update in 2024 in the Airwrap i.d., a tool that wirelessly connects to an app via Bluetooth. Here, you are able to create your own profile and styling programme, adapting heat, timing and airflow depending on your particular hair type. Then, at the push of a button, the Airwrap i.d. will carry out the sequence. (Last month, it received a makeover in the form of a limited edition colourway called Jasper Plum, which compliments the packaging of its Chitosan products).

Dyson Airwrap i.d., £480, dyson.co.uk.

Fragrance

Frédéric Malle’s Portrait of a Lady (in red)

Frédéric Malle's Portrait of a Lady was created by legendary nose Dominique Ropion in 2010. Ropion is often referred to as ‘the master of flowers’, a title that he demonstrated with aplomb in Portrait of a Lady, where two variations of concentrated Turkish roses meet with notes of blackcurrant, raspberry, patchouli and amber. To mark its 15th anniversary, the fragrance is dressed up in a limited-edition red lacquered bottle, accompanied by a portrait series by photographer David Sims.

Frédéric Malle Portrait of a Lady eau de parfum, £290, fredericmalle.co.uk

Acqua di Parma’s interpretation of a classic

Colonia Il Profumo by Acqua di Parma is an intense reinterpretation of the Italian maison's original Colonia. Opening with the citrus notes, Acqua di Parma is renowned for, including Italian bergamot, grapefruit, blood orange, and petitgrain, the heart of Colonia Il Profumo features rosemary and ylang-ylang. Going deeper still, vetiver and patouchli provides the scent with a richness quite unlike any other from the brand.

Acqua di Parma Colonia Il Profumo, £264.00, acquadiparma.com.

Dior’s olfactory lucky charm

Christian Dior was a superstitious man. One of the couturier’s lucky charms, a piece of wood he would carry with him to bring good fortune, is the inspiration behind Bois Talisman, a new fragrance by Francis Kurkdjian for La Collection Privée Christian Dior. Kurkdjian, sharing M. Dior’s superstitions – including keeping a sugar cube as a charm – crafted a perfume symbolising the blend of wood and sugar. This scent is an olfactory exploration of cedarwood and vanilla, with multiple extraction methods enhancing the richness of vanilla.

Dior Bois Talisman eau de parfum, £380, dior.com

Tom Ford’s rose exposé

An unconventional composition of florals and leather, Rose Exposed by Tom Ford has been created to ‘capture the ephemeral beauty of a rose at its peak bloom’. It achieves this through an exclusive co-distillation of rose absolute and rose water. Rose Expose is more complex than it first appears, however: white pepper, pink peppercorn, bergamot, and curcuma give a warm and spicy element. A ‘tactile black leather accord’, as the brand describes, is comprised of sandalwood olibanum, and cashmeran.

Tom Ford Rose Exposed eau de parfum, £222, tomford.com.

Jil Sander’s premium fragrance collection, Olfactory Series 1, has just landed. The edit of six perfumes – conceived by creative directors Lucie and Luke Meier alongside some of the industry’s most esteemed noses – marks another new chapter for the brand, which expanded its remit of ready-to-wear, shoes, bags and accessories to include fine jewellery last month (December 2024).

Championing the minimalist codes established by Jil Sander, who founded her namesake fashion line in 1968, Olfactory Series 1 takes inspiration from the finishing touches on a piece of clothing. ‘At Jil Sander precious details are sometimes hidden; intended for the wearer only,’ says the brand in a statement, referencing the inside of a cuff. ‘Who does not remember, and wear, something for its smell or touch, rather than for the way it looks?’

Olfactory Series 1 also celebrates Jil Sander’s long-standing partnership with Coty. The French beauty giant has worked with the label since inaugurating its fragrance line in 1979 with Pure; a chypre scent contained in a bottle designed by Peter Schmidt. In the case of Olfactory Series 1, Formafantasma (a design practice now featured in the Wallpaper* 2025 Design Awards issue) conducted a series of experiments alongside artisanal glassmakers before arriving at the final bottle: an asymmetrical, bell-like shape housed in a white aluminium cloche.

Each of the new perfumes – titled Leaf, Miel, Black Tea, Earth, Coffea, and Smoke – has been stripped down to just a few essential ingredients. This includes CO2-extracted natural oils, synthetic aldehydes to act as ‘sparks of light flashing through the fragrances’, water and a blend of alcohols (some of which are derived from upcycled carbon emissions). From the aroma of petrichor to a freshly picked heirloom tomato, read more on how each of them smells below.

What does Jil Sander’s new perfume collection smell like?

1. Leaf

Leaf, by nose Julie Massé, is a zesty, verdant and fresh scent capturing the ‘remembrance of a freshly picked Black Krim tomato, fruit and leaves, in a Mediterranean garden.’ The aldehydic element combines lime, CO2-extracted cardamom and the cooling sparkle of mint.

2. Miel

For Jil Sander’s Miel, Mathilde Bijaoui has created a woody composition, with the essence of upcycled cedarwood and vetiver. The inclusion of CO2-extracted jasmine provides honeyed sweetness via a radiant and heady floral burst.

3. Black Tea

A contemporary take on an amber perfume, Nathalie Lorson’s Black Tea is spicy and intense, with the warmth of osmanthus and cinnamon. The black tea is CO2 extracted, which obtains ‘a pitch as close as possible to its natural note’.

4. Earth

‘The smell after the rain, small puddles of water, the first memory of a Matsutake mushroom, the generosity of the Earth,’ is how Jil Sander describes Earth, a perfume also by Julie Massé. Here, two different types of rose meet with the Matsutake, alongside patchouli leaves.

5. Coffea

Paul Guerlain has captured the essence of freshly brewed coffee in Jil Sander’s Coffea, a floral amber perfume. The inclusion of orris and the resinous notes of Peru balsam, extracted from the Myroxylon tree, captures the feeling of bathing in early morning sunlight.

6. Smoke

Both intensely woody and spicy, Berenice Watteau’s Smoke gets its name from the perfume’s use of cedarwood, cade, elemi and oud. Enveloping and enigmatic, it evokes the comforting smell of freshly washed laundry ‘drying near a fireplace’.

jilsander.com

David Lynch, the unparalleled visionary behind canonical films such as Blue Velvet (1986), Wild At Heart (1990) and Mulholland Drive (2001), passed away this week (15 January 2025) at the age of 78. On Wallpaper.com, we pay tribute to the auteur by remembering his guest editorship at the magazine in October 2010.

Craig McClean has also written an obituary, recalling an anecdote from his meeting with Lynch: ‘That morning, we sat in the concrete cube that was this multidisciplinary artist’s painting studio, one of a series of similar structures slotted into the Hollywood Hills that comprised his home with his fourth wife, the actress Emily Stofle,’ he says. ‘We were, of course, drinking coffee,’ McClean continues. ‘And yes, it was damn fine, not least because it was a cup of David Lynch Signature Cup Organic House Roast (signature notes, according to my genial and welcoming barista from beneath a shock of silver quiff, ‘sweetness, smoothness, no bitterness even if it’s just pure, straight black espresso, packed with flavour’).

Lynch directed a four-minute-long commercial for his namesake coffee brand in 2011, featuring a close-up shot of a Barbie head held between his fingers. 20 years prior, he created a Twin Peaks-inspired series of adverts for the Japanese brand Georgia Coffee, featuring cast members from the TV series including Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Dale Cooper, Mädchen Amick as Shelley Johnson and Catherine E Coulson as the Log Lady.

Clearblue pregnancy tests and Alka-Selzer antacid tablets; Parisienne cigarettes and the PlayStation. These are just a few more products Lynch had a hand in marketing via short commercials. But here, Wallpaper* reflects on the times Lynch turned his signature surrealist lens to perfume advertisements for Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Lancôme, Jil Sander, Karl Lagerfeld, Dior and Gucci.

David Lynch’s dreamlike perfume commercials

Calvin Klein (1988)

Following on from the acclaim of Blue Velvet, David Lynch was commissioned to produce his first-ever commercial by Calvin Klein for its fragrance Obsession. Released in 1988 as a series of four black and white shorts titled Awake, Dangerous, Explore and Kissed, each tells the stories of four pairs of lovers (one of which is played by Heather Graham and Benicio Del Toro). Every film was inspired by a different novelist – Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, Gustave Flaubert and F. Scott Fitzgerald – and included a voiceover reading excerpts from their writing.

Giorgio Armani (1992)

Giorgio Armani selected David Lynch to create the campaign film for his 1992 fragrance Giò. According to lynchnet.com, Mr Armani ‘personally’ phoned up the director asking for a concept, which Lynch then sent to him in the form of a short poem. The resulting advert Who is Giò? is a Lynchian neo-noir, with model Lara Harris playing a mysterious femme fatale flitting in and out of parties and around the backstreets of an unnamed city, as the paparazzi follows her trail.

Yves Saint Laurent (1992)

Giorgio Armani wasn’t the only designer seeking the talents of Lynch, with Yves Saint Laurent calling on him to dream up a commercial telling the story of the best-selling house fragrance, Opium. This time using colour - alongside his quintessentially dream-like dissolves and double exposures - a woman in a gold dress, with long red fingernails complimenting the perfume’s lacquered bottle, ascends the stairs to an apartment. Upon applying Opium to the nape of her neck, she is overcome with ecstasy.

Lancôme (1993)

Isabella Rossellini became the face of Lancôme in 1982. She would meet David Lynch a few years later during the casting process for Blue Velvet, where he remarked on her uncanny resemblance to Ingrid Bergman (not knowing that Bergman was her mother). Rossellini and Lynch entered into a relationship, with Rossellini also playing the role of Perdita Durango in Wild at Heart alongside a cast that included Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe. Although parting ways romantically in 1991, they remained life-long friends and collaborators, with Lynch capturing Rossellini on film once more in 1993 for Lancôme’s fragrance commercial for Trésor.

Jil Sander (1993)

The Instinct of Life, David Lynch’s 1993 campaign film for Jil Sander’s now-discontinued fragrance Background, is set in a vast, arid landscape. Amidst smoke machines and vivid coloured lighting, a lone protagonist chases a black panther throughout the night, ultimately befriending the animal as the sun rises. It seems as though Lynch was trying out techniques for Lost Highway (1997), which was shot in California at Silurian Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. (Lynch once said in a 1999 interview with Movieline that he liked to take on commercial work to ‘learn about the latest technology, tools that normally wouldn’t be available to me’ for later use in feature-length films).

Karl Lagerfeld (1994)

Daryl Hannah never worked with Lynch on any of his feature films. However, she did collaborate with the director as the 1994 face of Sun Moon Stars, a fragrance by Karl Lagerfeld created by the designer for his namesake brand. In the commercial, Hannah assumes a role reminiscent of the Marilyn Monroe-esque ‘Hollywood blonde’, a character trope so often used by Lynch. Here, the actor is seen in a dream-like state, swathed in lilac silk and floating around a cosmic backdrop as she longingly muses on the solar system.

Dior (2004)

In 2004, during his tenure as the director of menswear at Dior, Hedi Slimane tapped David Lynch to direct the fragrance commercial for Fahrenheit. Set to a snippet of As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls , a 20-minute-long jazz fusion track, Swedish actor Andreas Wilson is seen hurtling upward in a clinical chrome elevator as he begins to hallucinate, seeing visions of the natural world. When Wilson reaches the destination floor the doors open, revealing a heavenly expanse of orange sky. (Slimane’s long-time collaborator on make-up for campaigns and shows Aaron de Mey posted a tribute to Lynch on his Instagram, remembering this campaign shoot).

Gucci (2009)

David Lynch filmed his last perfume commercial in 2008 for Gucci (which also happened to by the first television ad for the Italian house). It starred models Raquel Zimmermann, Natasha Poly and Freja Beha Erichsen as the faces of new fragrance Gucci by Gucci. Above, watch the commercial in full, which was filmed in Paris and set to Heart of Glass by Blondie. Below, find a BTS look at the making of the campaign, which provides an intimate glimpse of the maestro at work and the uplifting atmosphere he cultivated on set. (He said in a 2017 interview with GQ that he never ran a working environment on fear). Highlights include Lynch smoking as he perfects a shot of cascading glitter and at a wrap party with the cast and crew – a moment in which their feeling of love and admiration for the director is palpable.

Incorp took founder Kira Lillie ten years to develop. And, even though producing something truly different in an oversaturated beauty market is a challenge, Lillie has certainly achieved it, through bridging the worlds of wellness, art and fashion through the medium of fragrance.

To do so, she called on the talents of some of the most interesting creatives working today. This includes the likes of artist Sissel Tolaas, jewellery designer Marco Panconesi, production company Torso Solutions and the multi-instrumentalist and composer, Eartheater, who scored the Incorp launch event during Paris Fashion Week in October 2023. ‘The idea was to create a perfume that could ground you [emotionally] through scent using input from different artists,’ says Lille. ‘Incorp is probably the most difficult project I have worked on so far. It taught me a lot.’

Incorp brings together the work of Sissel Tolaas and Panconesi in three unique fragrances

Lillie was born in Santa Cruz to a ‘hippie’ family. Despite her New Age upbringing, at 18 she moved to Italy to pursue a career as a photographer. From there, she was able to sustain a peripatetic life that took her from Milan, Paris and New York to Berlin and Los Angeles, building a network along the way that would eventually help her form Incorp.

For example, Lillie knew from the moment she had the idea for Incorp, that she wanted the scents to be developed by Sissel Tolaas, who she had become friendly with while residing in Berlin. Tolaas describes herself as a ‘smell-artist’ and she is widely recognised as the world’s leading authority on smell – not, it is important to note, perfume. In Tolaas’ view, we have vastly limited our range of experiences by relying too much on sight and sound as our means of experiencing the world. To combat this, the artist created around 1,500 unique words for describing smells and collaborated with museums and fashion brands on a range of projects designed to expand our olfactory perceptions.

This spanned from using David Beckham’s sweat, found in his Adidas trainers, to make cheese (which was then served to VIPs at the London Olympics); perfuming Balenciaga’s runways with the smell of blood, antiseptic, petrol and money; and extracting the human scents left on historic items of clothing and applying them to the walls of the Metropolitan Museum Art’s Sleeping Beauties exhibition.

Yet, according to Lillie, Tolaas said that developing the scents for Incorp presented a unique set of challenges, as they are made solely from essential oils, which are difficult to control and stabilise. But after years of experimentation, Tolaas arrived a three olfactory profiles: I, WE, and YOU. I is the earthiest scent, with notes of thyme, vetiver, myrrh and a touch of lemon balm. WE is slightly brighter, with coriander, orange and Roman chamomile. While YOU has a floral-citrus blend of rose, lime, sandalwood and coriander.

The environmental cost of making perfume from essential oils means that Incorp will never mass produce the fragrances. But this was never Lillie’s intention anyway. For her, the perfumes are best used in a personalised, ritualised way. ‘For example, my friend, the fashion designer Glenn Martens, has [an Incorp perfume] hanging on his wall and he uses it every morning when he wakes up – like a morning meditation kind of thing,’ Lillie says.

The bottles that contain I, WE and YOU were designed by product designer Samuel Reis, who Lillie found working in a converted cereal factory just north of Lisbon. Reis created the amorphous-looking vessels using tree trunks as a glass-blowing mould. The top of the bottle, plus wearable perfume vials, were then added by jewellery designer Ugo Cacciatori, who Lillie met while living in Milan. Cacciatori has a resume that includes Valentino, Giambattista Valli, Marni and Fendi. But he was hesitant about taking on the challenge of designing a bottle top, according to Lillie. ‘I asked him to help and he said to me, “I’m not an artist”. But I just gave him one of the bottles anyway and told him to play with it. Six months later he called me and said: “I’m an artist!”,’ she explains.

Still, Lillie wanted an additional component for the top of each bottle. So she asked Marco Panconesi, who heads up his namesake jewellery brand Panconesi, to help design a gua sha-like tool that could be inserted into the perfume oil and used for application. ‘He had been at one of the crazy, experiential dinners I host all over the world for different artists,’ says Lillie. ‘I told him I wanted something functional for the bottle design,’ says Lillie. ‘I love what he came back with because it looks like an ear or a spoon, but feels like a finger – so it works for acupressure.’

In the future, Lillie has dreams of creating a physical space built on principles intrinsic to Incorp; namely, artistic collaboration and an almost spiritual connection to nature. ‘I would love to find a plot of land and create a community of artists that feels a bit more contemporary than your typical retreat,’ she says. ‘There would be a garden for growing food and rotating chefs. Creatives could come together to question how we move through life today, find support, experiment and play.’

incorp.world

D.S. & Durga’s personalised online quiz, which aids in finding a scent from the cult American perfume brand, informs me I’m a ‘beach goth’. (The multiple-choice questionnaire asks if I prefer ‘Renaissance or Bauhaus’; ‘Marley or the Stones’; ‘tea, or coffee’, amongst other things).

This assessment feels correct. I moved to LA for the sun and the sand but somehow live in Echo Park – a world away from the ocean by the city’s standards. And on the day I meet D.S. & Durga’s co-founder Kavi Moltz – the ‘Durga’ to David Moltz, the brand’s, ‘D.S.’ – at its second Los Angeles location in Silver Lake which opened this month (December 2024), I’m dressed all in black, as is she. ‘I told David it’s funny he didn’t formulate the quiz results for ‘beach goth’ around me,’ she says. ‘But I never get it, because I choose tea over coffee.’

Inside D.S. & Durga’s new Silver Lake store, inspired by Ray Kappe’s 1960s Californian home

D.S & Durga was founded by the husband and wife duo in 2008, becoming known for its unique and immersive fragrances, such as ‘Pistachio’, ‘Burning Barbershop’ and ‘Cowboy Grass’, each created in the brand’s Brooklyn-based studio. It was a decade before its physical presence expanded beyond these walls. ‘Retail was always part of our vision,’ says Kavi Moltz. ‘As a former architect, I was always interested in using these two loves of mine – physical space and perfume.’

After New York, California was always going to be D.S. & Durga’s second home, with the state providing a constant source of inspiration. Its most popular candle, ‘Big Sur After Rain’, a eucalyptus leaf and wet wood-based tribute to the place Kavi and David regularly holiday, was also recently translated into a perfume, ‘Big Sur Eucalyptus’. Silver Lake was Kavi and David’s first choice for a retail location in the city, but they had trouble finding somewhere that worked for their vision. So last summer (2023), they unveiled a debut West Coast boutique in Venice. Designed by Woods Bagot, it pays tribute to modernist architect John Lautner, whilst honouring its beach-side locale with the earthier, sandy tones of plaster and wood.

The Silver Lake store takes a similar approach, this time designed by ViaClover, with uniquely Californian elements. The use of a beautiful, warm-toned wood references Kavi Moltz’ time studying architecture in LA, at a school founded by renowned architect Ray Kappe. ‘He invited a few students to view his house [in the Pacific Palisades] and it had so much of this dreamy California, honey pine-coloured wood. It’s the most beautiful house you’ll ever see – exactly what you’d think of when you think of a high-design and the California hippie movement.’

A hand-poured concrete treatment, which creates tonal, striped layers, is another signature feature (included in every store except D.S. & Durga’s first) and can be seen at the cash wrap. Behind the register is the ‘lab wall’, nodding to David’s Brooklyn perfume lab. There are black lacquered surfaces, programmable coloured lights to match the vibe of each highlighted perfume, plus clear acrylic spiked panels. Artist Leah Tinari, who regularly collaborates with D.S. & Durga, flew in from New York to hand-paint the store’s glass front.

When it comes to perfume, some people stick to a signature scent – or style – while others experiment. Kavi almost exclusively wears ‘Durga’, the scent David created for her; he changes fragrances almost daily, to offset the weather. ‘Generally, people like a heavier, warmer, spicier, earthier scent in the winter, and something more fresh, aquatic, citrusy, beachy, spring, and floral in spring and summer,’ Kavi says. ‘David often does the opposite and wears something like ‘Italian Citrus’ in February to feel as though you’re brightening up a winter’s day. Or if you’re dressed to the nines, but it’s June, maybe you put on something a little heavier to make the mood a little more serious so it doesn’t just feel like a beach day.’

Scent layering is intrinsic to the brand. Its best-selling perfume, ‘I Don’t Know What’, is a fragrance enhancer that blends easily with others. ‘In perfume, there are top notes, heart notes, and base notes,’ Kavi explains. ‘David says that ‘I Don’t Know What’ has no heart; it’s like the structure of a perfume without the substance in the middle, so you can wear any other with it. It’s one we think everyone should have in their perfume wardrobe.’ To encourage layering amongst its customers, the brand recently created a ‘Murder Mystery Set’, which comes with five different mini perfumes – which Kavi and David describe as ‘characters’ – all of which include a touch of ‘I Don’t Know What’ in their profiles.

‘Perfume is Armchair Travel,’ reads D.S. & Durga’s tagline. Each scent from the brand can be associated with a place, a playlist or piece of music, a spectrum of colour or even certain times of the day. Everyone who works at one of its stores is personally trained by David, to provide a retail experience in keeping with its storytelling, so they can find a match for anyone who walks inside. ‘Our ultimate goal is that someone comes in and within this sea of bottles that look similar, they’ll find a connection to something,’ he says.

To mark the opening of the Venice store last year, the brand released a candle called ‘Pacific Mythic’, based on what David Moltz says is an East Coast kids’ dream of the Venice Boardwalk. ‘The surf shops... What you imagine the boardwalk to smell like with the chaos and colourful characters around,’ he notes. ‘It’s desert-like and a little bit coastal.’ But despite the obvious differences between New York and LA, Kavi says the top sellers in both cities are surprisingly similar. ‘Although, when I was in our Venice store last week, two people came in looking for ‘The Carlyle’, a perfume we made with the iconic hotel in New York. I love that people use the opportunity to travel through scent and take home a piece of NYC with them.’

D.S. & Durga Silverlake, Sunset Row, 3300 Sunset Blvd Unit 101, Los Angeles, CA 90026.

dsanddurga.com

Unboxing beauty products on Boxing Day? Well, metaphorically speaking, why not?

Here, we take a look back at the pages of Wallpaper* from the past year, reflecting on the make-up, perfume, tools and accessories that defined our 2024.

Unboxing beauty products from 2024, as seen on the pages of Wallpaper*

Chanel lipstick in Wallpaper* February 2024: The Design Awards Issue

In the February 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, we presented a design award to the Chanel ‘31 Le Rouge lipstick’. The lipstick comes in several shades and textures, all created to be housed in a glass case crafted by Japanese artisans and designed by Sylvie Legastelois.

Read the full article here.

MyBlend led mask in Wallpaper* March 2024: The Style Issue

For the first Wallpaper* Style Issue of the year in March 2024, we turned the spotlight on the MyBlend ‘myLedmask’, with its uniquely contoured design slightly reminiscent of Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In.

Read the full article here.

Acne Studios x Frédéric Malle perfume in Wallpaper* April 2024: Global Interiors

We spoke with the creative director of Acne Studios Jonny Johansson, fragrance legend Frédéric Malle and emerging nose Suzy Le Helley about their collaborative work on ‘Acne Studios par Frédéric Malle’ eau de parfum, previewed in the April 2024 issue of Wallpaper*.

Read the full article here.

Bottega Veneta scented candle in Wallpaper* June 2024: The Travel Issue

Bottega Veneta launched scented candles earlier this year, with three different fragrances available in red, yellow and green lava glaze ceramic pots. We captured the brand’s ‘Redstone’ candle on the pages of Wallpaper* June 2024, which contains notes of plum nectar, tobacco and cedarwood.

Read the full article here.

Rimowa vanity case in Wallpaper* June 2024: The Travel Issue

Rimowa's vanity case also made its debut in Wallpaper* June 2024, our annual travel issue. A reimagined 1970s design from the Rimowa archives, the case is robust enough to contain a multitude of products and tools without fear of damage whilst on the move.

Read the full article here.

Fendi perfumes in Wallpaper* July 2024: The Design Directory

In 2024, Fendi created seven exclusive perfumes, inspired by the personalities and memories of close members of the Fendi family. The collection, which we included in the July issue of Wallpaper*, features refillable glass bottles evoking the vocabulary of Roman architecture.

Read the full article here.

Calvin Klein CK One perfume in Wallpaper* August 2024: The USA 100

The August 2024 issue of Wallpaper* was dedicated US creatives, with an accompanying portfolio shot by Inez and Vinoodh. In addition, we looked at 12 American design icons, including Calvin Klein’s ‘CK One’ eau de toilette. First released in 1994, the fragrance remains a best seller to this day.

Read the full article here.

Solid soap in Wallpaper* September 2024: The Style Issue

For Wallpaper* September 2024, the year’s second issue dedicated to style, we celebrated the pleasures of solid soap, including bars from the likes of Aesop, Celine, Diptyque, Hermès and Sisley.

Read the full article here.

Celine Beauté lipstick in Wallpaper* October 2024: Guest Editors

Celine launched its first-ever beauty line in October 2024, Celine Beauté. Designed by Hedi Slimane, who has since left the house in the hands of his successor Michael Rider, the ‘Le Rouge Celine’ lipstick in a shade of red called 'Rouge Triomphe’ made its Wallpaper* premiere in the same monthly issue.

Read the full article here.

Hermès eye and lip pencils in Wallpaper* November 2024: The Art Issue

Hermès’ ‘Trait d’Hermès’ eye and lip pencils were designed by Pierre Hardy and Gregoris Pyrpylis, the house’s creative director of beauty, to evoke a playful stationary set. We captured the collection’s kaleidoscopic colour palette in Wallpaper* November 2024.

Read the full article here.

Bottega Veneta perfume in Wallpaper* November 2024: The Art Issue

Bottega Veneta’s fragrance collection by Matthieu Blazy (now succeeded by Louise Trotter after his appointment as creative director at Chanel) includes five scents inspired by Venice, with bottles blown in Murano glass. Above, is the brand’s ‘Come With Me’ eau de parfum, as featured in the November 2024 issue of Wallpaper*.

Read the full article here.

Dior perfumes in Wallpaper* December 2024: The Entertaining Issue

In 2024, Francis Kurkdjian, the creative director of Dior Parfums took five fragrances from the house’s ‘La Collection Privée’, reinterpreting their notes in ‘Esprit de Parfum’, a new scent range featured on the pages of Wallpaper’s December Entertaining Issue.

Read the full article here.

Dries Van Noten lipsticks in Wallpaper* December 2024: The Entertaining Issue

After taking a final bow on the runway earlier in the year, for the December 2024 issue of Wallpaper* we caught up with Dries Van Noten about his next steps, which include growing the beauty and fragrance arm of his eponymous brand (and spending more time in his beloved garden).

Read the full article here.

Diffar is a new hair fragrance oil brand hailing from Japan.

‘Different experiences take you far. The impression you get from the same thing can differ from day to day, according to your approach. This is the idea behind the coined word Diffar,’ says Makoto Arii, its 38-year-old founder. With its completely natural composition of essential oils and plant extracts, developed and produced at its laboratory at the foot of Mount Fuji, Diffar not only smells great but nourishes the hair, too.

Diffar

Crafted in collaboration with Tokyo-based hair salon Scent, Diffar’s products are light in texture, including a blend of argan, jojoba, camellia and evening primrose oil, combined with shea butter. In addition, rapeseed helps to repair the cuticle and pressed rice oil protects hair from UV damage. The brand’s first collection offers six fragrances: ‘Tokyo Balance’, ‘Woody Earthy’, ‘Herbal Floral’, ‘Japanese Citrus’, ‘Spicy Wood’ and ‘Floral Floral’. ‘Tokyo Balance’ is inspired by the atmosphere of the city on a rainy day and accentuated by vetiver, while the others can be guessed from their names.

Arii had travelled throughout Japan, to source the key ingredients from specific places: Hinoki from Yoshino, Hiba from Aomori, Yuzu from Shimanto and Sansho (Japanese pepper) from Wakayama. These were blended with other precious ingredients from all over the world, such as galbanum from the Middle East, wild armoire from Morocco and agarwood from India. (A single Diffar scent contains a blend of 15 to 18 ingredients).

‘When extracted during the first 15 minutes of distillation, ylang-ylang offers a surprisingly fresh smell, compared to its usual heady note’, Arii explains, of a discovery he made during Diffar’s meticulous development process. (His background in scientific research, including on natural phenomena such as tsunamis and icebergs, dictates a methodical way of working). This is also demonstrated on the last three digits marked on each Diffar bottle, which indicate the number of samples before the finalisation of the notes. For ‘Spicy Wood’, perhaps the most complex accord composed of agarwood, sandalwood, nutmeg, patchouli and oakwood, the sample was renewed 823 times until Arii finally said: ‘That’s it!’

But where does Arii’s sensitivity to the subtlety of nature’s subtle scents originate? The answer comes from his childhood. ‘Born and raised in Minami Alps City near Mount Fuji, which is thriving with agriculture, I always breathed the smell of freshly harvested ripe fruit, straight from farmers’ hands,’ he recalls. ‘When I moved to Tokyo as a university student, I bought plastic-wrapped fruits in a supermarket for the first time and was so shocked by the absence of smell. It was then I realised the effect of smell on our body and mind is so huge.’

This particular experience led him to persistently research until he tracked down the best food preservation company in Japan, resulting in the launch of Fruitest, a pre-cursor to Diffar, a brand of semi-dried ripe fruit which remains soft, juicy and smells incredibly fresh, which he launched with his creative brand development agency Unsungs&web. (He is also currently working on a new flavoured tea collection).

Diffar’s strong visual identity was developed alongside Arii’s partner in crime, the art director Kenzo Shibata. The minimal design of its bottles becomes a canvas for colour blocking. At the same time, they evoke the colours seen in traditional kimonos. But, they also feel decidedly contemporary.

For the brand’s campaign imagery, he collaborated with London-based photographer Yuichiro Noda. In a nod to the complexity and deepness of each scent, Noda, who was born in Japan, photographed core ingredients in their original form before layering them together in a single black-and-white image, contrasting with the brightly coloured bottles. In addition, he shot six black-and-white portraits of people with various hairstyles, using long exposure.

Alongside the hair oil being used and sold at the Scent salon in Tokyo, Diffar has been showcased over the past year at various collaborative pop-up stores, such as the Shibuya-based flower shop Voice and independent store Fujin Tree 355, in Taipei. It made its debut in Europe earlier this year (September 2024) in Paris at the art gallery Galerie 3m2, which is nestled beside the Serge Lutens store in the Palais Royal Gardens.

We look forward to seeing where Arii will travel with the brand in 2025.

diffar.net

For Dries Van Noten, 2024 has been a year to remember.

In March, the Belgian designer announced his imminent retirement from fashion. Having risen to prominence during the 1980s as part of the Antwerp Six (a collective of graduates from the city’s Royal Academy, including Walter Van Beirendonck and Ann Demeulemeester), almost four decades on, he took his final bow on a runway, shimmering with silver leaf, during June’s S/S 2025 menswear shows in Paris. ‘I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for,’ he said at the time. ‘I’m sad, but at the same time, happy.’

Dries Van Noten: why the designer is growing his beauty line

Famously, one of Van Noten’s greatest pleasures is his 55-acre garden, in the grounds of the Palladian-style home he shares with his partner in Lier, near Antwerp. The garden – and the botanical world in particular – has provided him with boundless inspiration for his signature use of colour, print and texture. So when he launched Dries Van Noten Beauty in 2021 with a set of lipsticks and fragrances harnessing all nature has to offer, it felt like an organic move.

Perhaps, the beauty line’s intrinsic connection with the plants and flowers growing in his Van Noten’s garden has informed his decision to continue in an advisory role for this arm of the business, after stepping back from his position as the brand’s creative director and CEO. ‘At the beginning, I saw my garden as kind of an escape,’ he says. ‘But then I started to realise that escape is something that’s part of me. The garden balances me as a human being. In fashion, you try to control everything. But in the garden, you have to obey nature. It helps me to stay humble.’

Dries Van Noten Beauty is also built around the idea of ‘impossible combinations’ (a theme celebrated by Wallpaper* in the December 2023 issue) whether it’s the luscious reds and pinks of the lipstick collection punctuated with shades of deep violet and beige-toned nude, or the blend of notes found in its scents. Four of the most recent compositions include Bitter Splash, which marries tart grapefruit with powdery iris and vetiver; Vanille Camouflage, where resinous galbanum balances out the creamy sweetness of bourbon pods; Camomile Satin, containing soothing camomile and vanilla; and Crazy Basil – with notes of cedarwood – which Van Noten describes as ‘putting your nose in a pot of basil’.

When asked to choose a favourite flower from his garden, he says: ‘In summer, it’s the purple cyclamen, which flowers under the beech trees. I think it’s magical because it’s the last sign of summer. In December, I love the witch hazels, which are fantastic because they’re the tiniest flowers with the most delicate perfume. Next, you have the hellebores, before the first daffodils in early spring. Then in May, the peonies and roses. For me, it’s about the entire cycle of the seasons.’

The nurture of flowers and plants requires patience. ‘My life changed quite a lot this year,’ he says. ‘It’s an exciting time. We had some storms, with big trees falling over, so there is more work to do in the garden and some thinking to be done.’ And it would seem that Van Noten is approaching this new chapter in his life almost as he does his garden. ‘The quality has to be there, from the packaging to sustainability,’ he says. ‘But the good thing is we have time.’

A version of this article appears in the December 2024 issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

driesvannoten.com

Founders of Discothèque Jessie Willner and Hanover Booth are on a mission to translate the hedonism and euphoria of being at a great party into fragrance.

The brand’s inaugural line of candles, which launched in early 2023, evokes the feeling of eating yuzu cake on a Tokyo dancefloor at the dawn of a millennium, partying with poets at an abandoned Parisian bathhouse in 1979, or exclusive evenings at mythic clubs such as the Mudd Club or Chez Castel. The former, a watering hole for New York’s 1980s art scene, was imagined as a whiskey and vanilla scent, with touches of a ‘peach-flavoured cocktail and the portrait of a flower by Robert Mapplethorpe; the decadence of Paris’ Chez Castel smells like ‘velvet, incense and a lemon drop cocktail’.

Discothèque’s first perfume collection

‘We decided to name the candles after legendary nightclubs because everyone either was a part of them or wished they were,’ Willner says. But for the brand’s latest project, a wearable perfume collection, the pair felt it was time to move beyond the confines of certain clubs in favour of a broader context.

Subsequently, each of the new fragrances references a certain city at a particular time, from L.A. in 1986 to Marrakech in 2003. Of the collection, Willner’s favourite is ‘Lola at Coat Check (New York, 1992)’, a blend of musky notes with a touch of white chocolate. Booth’s, however, is ‘Call for a Good Time (Tokyo, 2000)’. ‘It’s a floral scent but has this weird, abstract feeling because it’s inspired by the look of lasers on the dancefloor,’ she explains. And, it does smell as interesting as this description suggests, with ylang-ylang, jasmine and musk. ‘Every time I wear it people stop me and ask me what it is,’ Hanover adds.

Discothèque is a ‘passion project taken too far,’ jokes Hanover. But this is precisely why it makes the brand so compelling. ‘Everything you see has been touched by us,’ she continues.

This spans from the packaging to the brand’s visual identity and the new perfume bottles: thick cubes of coloured glass with a chrome placard on the front and a square cap embellished like a disco ball.

Even though the Discothèque perfumes are inspired by the nighttime, they are surprisingly adaptable for daylight hours. They might, according to Booth, even inflect your mundane daily activities with a certain energy. ‘When I put on these fragrances, I can feel the excitement of the stories we’ve created,’ she says.

The collection isn’t available globally, just yet. But a playful marketing touch invites you to sign up for a waitlist on the Discothèque website for ‘VIP access’ to their imminent arrival.

discothequefragrances.com

Loewe and Lladró are two brands with a lot in common. They’re both Spanish, they’re both born out of an obsessive desire to master a particular material (Loewe with leather and Lladró with porcelain), and they’re both exemplars of luxury design.

So it seems fitting, then, that the two maisons have finally come together for an exceptional collaboration: a limited-edition run of porcelain flask toppers for three of Loewe Perfumes’ classic scents.

Inside the making of Loewe Perfumes’ porcelain bottle toppers, delicately crafted by Lladró

Each fragrance – ‘Loewe 001’, ‘Loewe Earth’ and ‘Loewe Agua Drop’ – has been selected to represent three different olfactory universes inside the Botanical Rainbow, the name given to the entire collection of 24 nature-inspired fragrances by in-house nose Núria Cruelles (they are recognisable for their multicoloured, block-shaped glass bottles, designed by Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson).

The Lladró flask toppers are delicately shaped like carnations, Spain’s national flower, reflecting the botanical codes of Loewe Perfumes. ‘Synaesthesia is a key aspect of how I perceive the world around me, and when I see the Lladró flowers, I can imagine smells and olfactory notes in my mind,’ says Cruelles. ‘It’s a multisensory connection.’

‘001’ was the first fragrance made under Anderson’s tenure. A light blend of jasmine, linen and musk, the scent is simultaneously fresh and warm. ‘The name indicates a new start for the brand,’ said Anderson upon its release in 2016. In the Lladró collaboration, its clean, translucent flask is joined by the magenta-pink and pale blue bottles containing the ‘Earth’ and ‘Agua Drop’ fragrances.

For the former, Cruelles combined notes from above and below the ground, including mimosa, violet, pear and truffle. ‘I was inspired by the fungi kingdom,’ she said in 2022. ‘[Truffle] gives the new perfume its own personality. Its aroma makes you deep dive into nature and drives you to the purest concept of earth.’ The latter (one of the Botanical Rainbow collection’s latest additions) is a citrussy floral, where bergamot and orange flower absolute are underscored by the woodiness of the brand’s unique Loewe Accord.

With the Loewe flask tops, Lladró shows off its remarkable talent for rendering porcelain into lifelike forms. Each carnation’s serrated petal, no matter how small, has been meticulously handcrafted and individually painted inside the brand’s Valencia workshop, which can trace its history (and its production methods) back to 1953, the year the company was founded by Juan, José and Vicente Lladró. The three brothers were artists, graduates of the Valencia School of Arts and Crafts, and were keen to bring a modern Spanish perspective to the two century-old techniques pioneered by the German, French and Italian porcelain houses Meissen, Sèvres and Capodimonte.

The Spanish siblings broke away from the familiarity of ornate, rococo designs and pioneered a new aesthetic, characterised by elongated lines and a pastel colour palette. The milky appearance of Lladró porcelain is thanks to a secret paste recipe, which is still closely guarded by the family to this day.

Loewe, likewise, came from humble beginnings before rising to fame. Starting life in 1846 as a collective of leathermakers, the Madrid-based workshop was known for its small leather goods, such as wallets, purses, and cigarette and jewellery cases. In 1872, a German expat named Enrique Loewe Roessberg joined forces with the workshop, capitalising on its technical precision and imaginative vision to open a store. (A mere 20 years later, the brand would become an official supplier to the Spanish monarchy).

When Anderson joined Loewe as creative director in 2013, he spearheaded a major rejuvenation of the house. Just ten years on, Loewe is one of the most revered fashion brands in the world; one that is also steadfast in a commitment to the past, present and future of craft. ‘Craft is the essence of Loewe,’ Anderson has said. ‘It is where our modernity lies and it will always be relevant.’

Proof of this, if it were needed, is seen in emerging talent initiatives such as the annual Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, which just celebrated its seventh edition. (Mexican artist Andrés Anza was named the 2024 winner, receiving a €50,000 prize for his life-size sculpture I only know what I have seen). Loewe also frequently teams up with established contemporary artists. Past projects span from costumes made for Turner Prize nominee Anthea Hamilton’s performance piece The Squash (2018) to jewellery designed with American sculptor Lynda Benglis, whose bronze works adorned the S/S24 womenswear show space.

What Loewe Perfumes has made with Lladró is in keeping with this collaborative spirit, here merging innate references to nature with historic craft. ‘Loewe has such a strong, ongoing dedication to excellence in craft and a deep respect for its Spanish roots,’ Cruelles reiterates, adding that just 600 Lladró flasks for each fragrance will ever be made.

‘This collaboration with an institution such as Lladró perfectly reflects these values. Jonathan Anderson draws from nature for Loewe Perfumes, and Lladró has brought this to life in porcelain.’ 

perfumesloewe.com

A version of this article appears in the October 2024 Guest Editors’ Issue of Wallpaper* available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Loewe ambassadors Jamie Dornan and Sophie Wilde are the brand’s 2024 fragrance campaign stars.

Yesterday (2 September 2024) Creative Director Jonathan Anderson revealed the portrait series and film by David Sims on Instagram, which sees Dornan and Wilde, who joined as faces of the Spanish house earlier this year, bathe in Le Corbusier’s and Pierre Jeanneret’s villa, Villa Savoye, which was built in the early 1930s in the suburbs of Paris.

Watch: Jamie Dornan and Sophie Wilde in the 2024 Loewe Perfumes campaign by David Sims

Soundtracked with Mulatu Astatke’s 1970 Ethio-jazz instrumental ‘Yègellé Tezeta’, the short video opens with a gardener, wearing a pair of blue Loewe jeans, watering manicured grass outside on a warm day.

Showering the camera lens with water, it then cuts to Wilde ascending the villa’s spiral staircase. She walks into the bathroom to find Dornan luxuriating in the glass-tiled sunken bath, before taking place on its adjacent reclining bed (which famously mimics the shape of Corbusier’s LC4 chaise lounge, designed with Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand).

Loewe has described the narrative as ‘a tensity of quotidian scenes whirling together with beauty and attraction, whilst simultaneously straddling undercurrents of the natural world that seep in through the windows.’

For Loewe Perfumes, which debuted in 2016 with scent ‘001’, Anderson has looked to nature and master craftspeople as an enduring source of inspiration. So the choice of modernist masterpiece Villa Savoye, situated in a sprawling open field and lit by the movement of the sun, is a fitting location.

The 2024 campaign spotlights four scents from Loewe Perfumes’ ‘Botanical Rainbow’ and ‘Un Paseo por Madrid’ collections: ‘Esencia’, ‘Agua Drop’, ‘Un Paseo por Madrid Doré’ and ‘Prado’. The latter is one of the brand’s latest fragrance editions, taking its name from Madrid’s Museo del Prado, with notes of chamomile, clary sage, cassis and lychee.

In addition, it debuts ‘Textura’, a scented candle offering featuring three new floral scents by Loewe’s in-house nose Núria Cruelles. The aquatic and juicy ‘Mimosa’, immersive ‘Tuberose’ and bright accords of ‘Dendrochilum Orchid’ are each contained in artisanal ceramic and granite pots.

perfumesloewe.com

When Vyrao founder Yasmin Sewell begins to create a new scent, she starts with an emotion. For its latest fragrance, the eighth perfume since the company launched in 2021, it was the feeling of stress caused by incessant screen time. As a result ‘Mamajuju’ offers up olfactory respite from the glare of digital devices, by grounding its wearer in nature.

Sewell drew inspiration from a location close to her heart to achieve this. ‘I was thinking about Australia’s red earth, the deep sweet smell I encounter every time I land there,’ she says. When we meet – on a rainy day in London – we are miles from her Sydney birthplace and the source of the key ingredient in ‘Mamajuju’, Australian sandalwood. The smell of petrichor in the air is, nonetheless, fitting.

Vyrao ‘Mamajuju’ is an earthy fragrance to counteract the effects of excessive screen time

Trained in holistic practices and energetic healing, but renowned within the fashion industry for her career as a brand-savvy buyer and consultant for Browns, Liberty, Farfetch and the British Fashion Council, Sewell is led by instinct.

A few years after moving to London at 19, she opened the Soho-based store Yasmin Cho in 1998, which stocked then-emerging labels such as Rick Owens and Miguel Adrover. A riposte to the less-than-welcoming atmosphere of high fashion retail in the city, Yasmin Cho soon counted the likes of Courtney Love amongst its clientele.

With Vyrao, she took the same thoughtful and customer-led approach. But this time, her intuition led her towards the symbiotic relationship between scent and emotion. ‘Not everyone’s as comfortable in the esoteric as I am,’ she says with a laugh, understanding that some may initially find this all a bit ‘woo-woo’. (The brand’s celebrity following includes Gwyneth Paltrow, who wears herbaceous accord ‘The Sixth’ for ‘mindfulness and intuition’ and the crisp and summery ‘Sun Rae’ to ‘boost joy and happiness’).

But all is not what it may seem, as everything that Vyrao does is rooted in neuroscience. ‘That’s why I’m so happy the brand is partnered with the IFF,’ she says, referring to the global company International Flavours and Fragrances, which formulates products across health and wellness, food, beverages, scent, and more. Its ‘Science of Wellness’ programme has conducted years of extensive research into renewable plant-based ingredients and their effects on the mind, providing Vyrao with the data to back up its claims.

‘Mamajuju’ contains 12 of these naturally occurring ingredients in its scent pyramid, which come together to energise and reawaken amidst the stresses of day-to-day life. Notes of sandalwood help ease anxiety and promote self-esteem; saffron and nutmeg uplift and relax; pink pepper and cedarwood heart boost memory function and focus. The evocative living red clay that reminds Sewell of her home country is soothing and balancing, which is illustrated in an accompanying film by long-time Vyrao collaborator Ruth Hogben.

The new perfume comes in a glistening brown metallic bottle – as if rain-slicked earth itself were rendered in glass. Its design – and that of every Vyrao bottle, which also contains its own energetically charged Herkimer diamond crystal – is almost more time-consuming than the creation of the scent itself, Sewell confesses. ‘I’m drawn to colour, I think it makes [a person] happy,’ she says. ‘I don’t believe anyone wants to live in a black-and-white world.’ A synesthete, she is painstaking in her efforts to ensure this is reflected in the branding ‘My biggest brief to my creative team is always: how do we create bottles that match the energy and emotion of the fragrance?’

‘Everybody understands and relates to the fact that our emotions affect our physical health,’ Sewell concludes. ‘I think now there's also an understanding that when we are overwhelmed, anxious, worried and stressed, inevitably, we probably get sick. If you feel amazing and you have moments of happiness and joy – if you laugh or spray on a scent that makes you feel grounded and uplifted – it might just alter and affect your immune system. I think that emotional connection isn’t “woo-woo” at all. If I have one small thing every day that makes me feel good, that helps set my intention for positivity.’

vyrao.com

Trudon’s latest fragrance ‘Absolu’ has been created by nose Antoine Lie as an ode to the orange blossom. ‘It is a powerful perfume,’ he says. ‘To me [orange blossom] is the most universal flower, one that transcends all eras.’

As the oldest candle manufacturer in the world, ‘transcending eras’ is Julien Pruvost’s raison d’être as Trudon’s creative director. The Maison was founded in 1643 by Claude Trudon, coinciding with Louis XIV’s reign and the establishment of his court at Versailles, and became the palace’s official wax-maker up until the French Revolution. Pruvost joined Trudon in 2019, a couple of years after the brand debuted its first collection of perfumes by Lie, Lyn Harris and Yann Vasnier.

Marrying a history that spans almost four centuries with contemporary scent-making, Pruvost’s vision for Trudon has included collaborations with Olivier Rousteing’s Balmain. At the same time, under his leadership, it has joined the likes of Chaumet and Hermès as one of France’s Living Heritage Companies.

In April 2024, a Trudon home fragrance collection captured the Versailles gardens in bloom. ‘Absolu’ is decidedly more autumnal, marking the transition into a new season with honey notes of orange blossom absolute and saffron, resinous cardamom, rich tonka bean and smoky guaiac wood. Here, Pruvost and Lie tell Wallpaper* the story behind it.

Trudon ‘Absolu’ by Antoine Lie: an intoxicating orange blossom perfume for the start of autumn

Wallpaper*: When you have an idea for a fragrance, how do you decide which nose to work with? In the case of ‘Absolu’, why was Antoine Lie the right perfumer to create this scent?

Julien Pruvost: The perfumer’s sensitivity, taste, track record and enthusiasm to work with Trudon are key. I select one perfumer per project, for them to translate an idea. And, they are always provided with a great deal of freedom. Antoine Lie is a master perfumer with tremendous sensitivity and soul. I wanted someone of that calibre to create ‘Absolu’ so the perfume could feel timeless yet also speak to the present day.

W*: And as the perfumer working on ‘Absolu’, how did you develop the fragrance?

Antoine Lie: The idea was to create a truly emblematic perfume for Trudon, one that would convey the brand’s story, heritage and DNA. So it was developed in the same way I work with all my clients and partners: through genuine creative dialogue and collaboration between Julien and me. This type of collaboration is incredibly important to me.

Wallpaper*: What are the key inspirations behind ‘Absolu’?

JP: Louis XIV served as inspiration for ‘Absolu’. When he was raised as the Sun King, he imposed his tastes on all aspects of court life, including perfume. The young king detested the pungent, animal notes used by most and preferred the more delicate floral notes. Orange blossom was his absolute favourite.

He would require to be literally doused with orange blossom water in the mornings. They would use large syringe-like devices to spray the scented water on him and his garments. I always wanted Trudon to appropriate some of the great natural ingredients of the world of perfumery. Orange blossom was on the top of my list (and it’s also a personal favourite, too).

W* Why did you choose notes of saffron and tonka bean to marry with the orange blossom absolute, which is floral and fresh?

AL: I used some strong ingredients with a lot of personality to add a twist to the orange blossom because I wanted to create something more intricate. A straightforward interpretation did not make sense to me; ‘Absolu’ has a complexity. Saffron was used to add depth and verticality to this fragrance and tonka bean adds strength and richness. But also a touch of softness.

W* How do you create a fragrance that feels ‘Trudon’?

AL: The Trudon creative process is guided by four key principles: richness, naturality, singularity and quality. In creating ‘Absolu’, for example, I deliberately chose not to use many synthetic notes or typical commercial ingredients. Instead, I focused on ingredients that were not only natural but also historically significant. This approach ensures that each element in the perfume resonates with the same sense of authenticity and heritage that Trudon represents.

W*: What makes a fragrance a ‘Trudon’ fragrance?

JP: A Trudon fragrance is sensitive, timeless, original and sophisticated, with beautiful natural ingredients at its heart. ‘Absolu’ [is all these things] thanks to Antoine Lie’s unique creative approach.

Trudon ‘Absolu’, £210, is available now.

trudon.com

Christine Nagel, Hermès’ in-house perfumer, is a synesthete and a storyteller. I met her for the first time in person earlier this year (2024) to discuss ‘Oud Alezan’, a warm and heady scent inspired by Nagel’s emotive encounter with a chestnut mare named Scheherazade, at the annual Saut Hermès in Paris. Her words, softly spoken in French, were relayed through an interpreter. But I was captivated nonetheless.

‘Barénia’ is Nagel’s latest creation for the house since her appointment ten years ago – and has taken almost as long to produce. It’s also the first-ever chypre scent profile in Hermès’ portfolio of fragrances. (The chypre fragrance family is characterised by the contrast of fresh top notes, usually floral or fruity, and woody, mossy base accords).

Of course, in the hands of Nagel, Hermès’ iteration of a chypre is both exceptional and poetic. As she explains when we reconnect over a call, it’s a fragrance that almost ‘melts’ into the skin, shifting over time, like the patina of the soft ‘Barenia’ leather it is named after.

The story behind Hermès’ ‘Barénia’, a perfume that took Christine Nagel nearly ten years to make

Wallpaper*: ‘Barénia’ is the first chypre fragrance you have created during your tenure at Hermès. What was the development process like?

Christine Nagel: When I arrived at Hermès’, I immediately knew that I was going to make a chypre. Because, first of all, I love a chypre scent. It has the most elegant structure. It’s sensual and it’s timeless. Hermès is a timeless house. But nobody had directly asked me to make it, so I worked on the idea in my little corner, so to speak.

I wanted to take my time to get to know Hermès and the Hermès woman. I kept coming back to the idea over the years. I couldn't just leave it alone. And that’s surprising because normally when you work on something for a very long time, often you get bored with it and move on to something else. But this truly captured me.

W*: Can you expand on the notes and ingredients used in ‘Barénia’?

CN: When I was developing ‘Barénia’ I was keen to find raw materials for a chypre perfume that are surprising and new. So, for the head notes, I used a bespoke Calabrian bergamot, made only for Hermès’. For the floral bouquet, it’s not rose, but a little flower that comes from Madagascar, which is called the butterfly lily. This is the first time it has been used in fragrance-making and is a delicate version of the big white lily that we all know. When it comes to oakmoss, I prefer to use another part of the tree, the roasted wood, which almost makes you salivate. It makes you think of a rum; sweet but also savoury.

I chose to work with two different types of patchouli. For the first, I asked for Robertet to make a patchouli extract traditionally. I wanted a very authentic patchouli, very strong. I combined it with a second, synthetic patchouli obtained through biotechnology from Givaudan called Akigalawood, which resulted in a truly unique signature.

W*: How does the miracle berry come into play?

CN: When I was around ten years old, I had a complete collection of legends and fairy tales from all over the world. One stayed with me – it was about a magician living in a baobab tree. He had magical powers of making everything that was bitter, turn sweet, even human nature. I thought that story was so beautiful.

So when I became a perfumer, I tried to look for something that would do this. Three or four years ago, I discovered the miracle berry, which contains a protein called ‘miraculin’. This makes everything sour and bitter taste sweet. I got in touch with a young Frenchman who was importing them and I asked to receive 15 kilos to make an extract. What I ended up with was a bit like dried apricot. It makes your mouth water, but it isn’t too sweet.

W*: The fragrance is named after Hermès’ ‘Barenia’ leather. Can you explain how the two are connected?

CN: After presenting the fragrance to Pierre-Alexis Dumas, and receiving his approval, I met with Philippe Moquet, who would design the bottle, to tell him the story of the scent. The design is based on Hermès’ ‘Collier de Chien’. Then, we had to think of name. Naming it after ‘Barenia’ felt obvious, because that’s the leather I love the most.

All perfumers are different. Some associate fragrance and music. I’m part Italian, so I speak with my hands. For me, tactility is very important. I describe my perfumes in terms of texture; soft or round, hard or crispy. And it was important for me to make this chypre something that you want to plunge into. It’s the same sensation that I have with ‘Barenia’ leather; I want to touch it. Artisans say that Hermès’ ‘Barenia’ leather ‘gives back the caress’. A chypre fragrance is a fragrance for the skin; it too gives back the caress.

W*: How does ‘Barénia’ speak to the character of the Hermès woman?

CN: A chypre is the essence of the Hermès woman: elegant, but not ostentatious. It’s an elegance that is almost instinctive.

And I must say, all the women who have inspired me in my career have always been women with very strong instincts: Peggy Guggenheim, Sonia Delaunay, or Nancy Cunard, for example. I think the campaign is beautiful; the choice of Malgosia Bela felt fitting.

W*: Your perfumes always tell an emotive story. Why is this important to you?

CN: Perfumers look to so many different sources for inspiration. It could be a chance encounter, a meal at a restaurant, or a story from the history of the house they are creating a fragrance for. But the story has to feel authentic for the perfume to be authentic. And every time, with every new fragrance I make for Hermès, there will be an authentic story to tell.

hermes.com