Exhibition | Perfume: A Sensory Journey Through Contemporary Scent, 2017

An overview of 20th-century perfumery, with an introductory installation including ten trailblazing scents of the time – one for each decade of the 20th century. It started with L’Origan de Coty (1905) – a hallmark perfume, now out of circulation, that will be specially recreated by Coty for the exhibition – and ended with ck one (1994), the original gender-neutral fragrance of western perfume culture that led the ‘clean’ scent trend.

From the self-taught to the classically trained, the exhibition explored perfumers reworking their palette of ingredients to construct original and outrageous signatures which assault all of the senses.

Each of the ten 21st-century scent’s immersive displays were as distinct as the perfume and offered insights into the identity of the perfume and its perfumer, before being fully introduced to the visitor.

Bertrand Duchaufour’s Avignon (2002) for Comme des Garçons evokes French Catholic mass and is inspired by the grand cathedral of Avignon. The fragrance has notes of myrrh, cistus oil, incense and patchouli, together painting an olfactory portrait of the high church of France. The space devoted to Avignon called to mind a catholic confessional, transporting visitors back in time and space to the one-time Papal seat of the Catholic Church.

Self-taught, Brooklyn-based perfumer David Seth Moltz is known for drawing upon American history and geography in his liquid language. His perfume El Cosmico (2015) for D.S. & Durga is an olfactory representation of the cult campground of the same name, situated near the Texan town of Marfa. As it is inspired by the rough landscape and indigenous shrubs and trees of the Chihuahuan Desert, visitors explored a sand installation scattered with specially-created objects embedded with El Cosmico to experience the fragrance.

Visitors were invited to provide a personal response and contribute their individual interpretations to each of the exhibited fragrances.

Seeking out visceral, surprising and sometimes unsavoury smells such as smoke and sweat, the perfumes evoke unexpected places or moments, rather than simply trying to mask our own odours. No longer anonymous figures working behind the scenes for big brands; the selected perfumers have opened up and are celebrating their craft with a global online community of ‘fumeheads’. Providing insights into processes, engaging in discussions and even taking inspiration from customers, they have offered a much more accessible approach to perfumery that’s unlike anything seen before.

The exhibition featured a fully functioning perfume laboratory to profile the science, skills, tools and ingredients used by contemporary perfumers in creating a fragrance.

Audience responses to each of the scents were documented, archived and streamed live in an evolving installation in the Perfume Lab.