S H O P I N - S TO R E O R O N L I N E AT H A RV E Y N I C H O L S .CO M

Forget about categories. Poly-sensory, genderless and bespoke fragrances are the way forward

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B L U R R E D L I N E S

Words: Chiara Merullo

GENDERLESSGenderless fragrances have always existed; houses like Atkinsons have sold them for 200 years without marketing them as such, and women have never shied away from men’s scents. Let’s not forget the 1994 launch of CK One, with its black-and-white ad campaign featuring half-dressed male and female mod-els. But in the past decade alone, even the big-gest fragrance houses have moved away from binary labelling. Le Labo exclusively sells uni-sex fragrances; and Gucci describes its new fragrance Mémoire d’une Odeur as “not as-signed to a gender or a time” – with label-de-fying Harry Styles as its poster boy. According to Celine Barel, a perfumer at International Flavors & Fragrances, 17 per cent of the fra-grances launched in 2010 were deemed uni-sex, and in 2018 approximately 51 per cent of global launches were unisex or gender-neu-tral. It seems the idea of His and Hers is gone forever; the choice is entirely up to the wearer. BESPOKEDispensing with labels entirely, Experimental Perfume Club actively encourages people to mix their own scents. Founder Emmanuelle Moeglin told Vogue, “We believe in provid-ing unique olfactory experiences alongside our fragrances. Bespoke perfumery allows our customers to take an active part in their fragrance choice.” If you want to stand out from the crowd and truly smell like no one else, it doesn’t get better than that.

imes are changing. Chanel has re-leased a men’s make-up collection. The use of non-binary pronouns

is on the rise. And fragrance is no longer about feminine flowers vs. manly cedar-wood. The perfume market has developed an approach that embraces creativity, blurs boundaries and invites you to smell things in a whole new way.

POLY-SENSORYThe arts have always complemented each other; indeed, literature has inspired many fragrances. By Kilian’s Liaisons Dangereuses is a homage to Choderlos de Laclos’ literary sensation; Portrait of a Lady by Frédéric Malle is named after the 1881 Henry James novel; and the fragrance house Re Profumo describes each of its scents as “a book in a bottle”. But now it’s possible to take this rela-tionship even further. “I consider perfume an art, and I believe that the arts must interact to create new emotions,” says Pierre Guguen, founder of L’Orchestre Parfums. To create L’Orchestre, Guguen searched for the smell of music: a whiff of a flamenco guitar, the tang of a darbuka drum. He interpreted this abstract concept into five perfumes inspired by places all over the world. The creations were presented to musicians and interpret-ed into original compositions, which can be heard by scanning a barcode printed on the packaging. The result is a multisensory experi-ence of sound and scent working in harmony.

FRÉDÉRIC MALLE Portrait of a Lady 100ml, £240; L’ORCHESTRE PARFUM Thé Darbouka eau de parfum 100ml, £129, exclusive

to Harvey Nichols in the UK; GUCCI Mémoire d’une Odeur 100ml, £92; EXPERIMENTAL PERFUME CLUB Layers 01 Blending Collection £90

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