Fragrance is an international multibillion dollar industry which sees a large proportion of designer brands and celebrities penetrating and cashing in. The problem? The use of fragrance as a marketing vehicle is one way in which the art perfumery is diminishing.
It seems as if a fear exists in wearing perfume which is unusual or left field. Can it be that, much like clothing fashion, we need confidence when wearing something ‘different’?
While testing my own creations for House of James I found that wearing an experimental fragrance required a need for extreme confidence - like wearing a pair of bellbottoms or skinny jeans before they were trendy. Like fashion, thick skin as required when experimenting with fragrance given the diversity of societal and personal attitudes. It feels as though only the brave trendsetters and fragrance aficionados are the ones brave enough to play with artistic niche perfumes.
sell, and some extremely well, but where is the artistry? One cannot help but wonder what happens when all fragrance compositions are simply being remixed repeatedly with an updated branding idea to make you believe it's different to its former? How can scents made with discipline and mastery such as Annick Menardo’s Black for BVLGARI or Isabelle Doyen’s L’antimatiere for LesNez, stand amongst the heavyweight competitors? These scents, although worlds apart, encapsulate the magic of fragrance experimentation and demonstrate how the seemingly unconventional can also sell well.