For many years now, scent, has been used to manipulate consumers into increased purchasing. One has only to think of scent’s relationship to nostalgia to understand its special power to emotionally sway decisions. It’s about time that designers look to scent to innovate not only in marketing but branding. As a recent article in The Business of Fashion explains, fashion designers seem to understand better than most just how integral the ethereal senses of touch and smell are to the experience of a brand.
Author Archives: gzupsich
writing through the senses
Join perfumer Yosh Han and food and wine writer Alison Bing in San Francisco on April 5 at 7:30 for a workshop on scent writing at 826 Valencia as part of the ongoing Night Writer series. Click here to register.
826 Valencia
826 Valencia Street
San Francisco, California
scent comedy
scent your luggage
RetaW has created scented luggage tags for the fashionable and fragranced jet set. The concept compliments their room tag series, which allow you to leave your signature scent wherever you may go. The tags are available in three fragrances: Barney – fresh and clean, Evelyn- fruity citrus, and Allen – a gentlemanly floral with a note of cassis .
NYC fragrance dinner
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time and places in a bottle
Inspired by the budding scent art scene studded with artists like Sissel Tolaas and Martynka Wawrzyniak, Goldsmiths’ design student Olivia Clemence has been busy formulating her memories into olfactive experiences. She uses homemade equipment involving steam for extracting the scents. It looks like scent art might be finally taking a very exciting and courageous leap beyond perfumery.
deconstructing perfume
The Art of Scent exhibit at New York’s Museum of Art and Design is a foray into how perfumes are born. It is a minimalist yet visually striking exhibit that surveys a brief history of Western perfumery through key fragrances. The twelve fragrances showcased are all scents that were available on the market at some point. Beginning with Guerlain’s Jicky (1889) and ending with Margiela’s Untitled (2010)ach scent represents a particular trend in fragrance.
The first room is an open airy space with twelve yonic wells installed in the wall that emit a motion-sensitive gust of perfumed air. It is a surprisingly gentle way to experience each scent. There are timed privalite displays in the place of plaques to explain the historical significance and composition of each fragrance.
The second room is even more hands on with a long glass table and chairs where visitors can sit and experience a more potent version of the twelve fragrances by dipping scent strips into small vials of the actual perfume in liquid form. At opposite ends of the table there are two options for contributing feedback on the exhibit that is projected in a real-time word cloud on a wall. One is an ipad that captures word associations for each individual experience of the fragrances. The other is a white notebook in which guests may record their personal associations with scent. The wall installation takes visitors through the process of building a fragrance through different modifications. The walls deliver a card for each of the five “mods” of Lancome’s popular fragrance Trésor (1990).
The Art of Scent evokes the wonderfully subjective and ephemeral nature of fragrance in an immersive experience that speaks to all of the five senses. If only there was more of an aural component other than video recordings of interviews. Nonetheless, the exhibit promises an exciting future for multisensorial art made possible by cutting-edge technology.
The Art of Scent is at the Museum of Art and Design, 11, Columbus Circle, NY, NY 10019 until February 24, 2013
get your guerlain
The Museum of Art and Design in New York will be featuring an exhibit on classic Guerlain scents until February 24, 2013 as part of the Art of Scent exhibit.
2 Columbus Circle
madmuseum.org
scented song
It seems Boris Vian wasn’t the only Frenchman keen on combining music and other senses. In 1922, Science and Invention featured an illustration of a scent organ inspired by perfumer and chemist Dr. Septimus Piesse’s theories about syncing scent and musical notes. When played, Piesse’s scent organ, like Vian’s pianocktail, would produce an odor (or a cocktail in Vian’s case) that corresponds to a given pattern tapped on the organ’s keys. Notorious jazzman Vian took it a step further, however, by simultaneously producing a cocktail representation of a musical tune.
We eagerly anticipate the appearance of his pianocktail in Michel Gondry’s film adaptation of Vian’s novel. Mood Indigo is slated for release in early spring 2013.
scent and creativity
Dutch researchers have discovered a compelling link between creativity and scent during sleep. According to the study, scent has the power to reactivate imagination activities concurrent with the same odor even during sleep.