There are a few perfumers who lead me astray into wild blind buys: those I trust to make something intriguing. It’s the in- things they share: inventiveness, integrity, ingenuity, intelligence, individuality, independence.  Even if I don’t like their new scent, there is no risk of being bored.

I have an endless fascination with the discipline and ritual of craft and art practices, so I am always curious about these perfumers’ processes and methods, their experiments and detours as well as their main releases. I will never be a perfumer –it’s not something I aspire to– and I can’t imagine being able to commission a bespoke scent, but I am overwhelmingly curious about how individual perfumes start from self-direction or precise briefs) and how a whole body of work develops.

When Antonio Gardoni announced Unfiltered, a small release of reworked scents from bespoke projects…well, picture a cat doing a pre-dinner song and dance routine, tail and whiskers quivering with anticipation for fresh salmon. The only reason–ok, the only reason other than cash–that I went for the sample set is the impossibility of choosing: a one-time-only chance to get it right, and never experience the others. I am an unapologetic Gardoni fan, so, the decision to try nine bogue_profumo fragrances rather than just one took less time than writing the email.

But then there’s the downside: there is just a tiny amount of each. And by the time you are entranced, it’s already gone, like the intense but doomed love-at-first-sight affairs on train journeys that flicker through 1930s movies.

I am indulgent with good perfume–not just in my wanton purchasing, but how I wear it. So while the urge is to dive in and feast on everything, immediately, I will be as restrained as Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, savouring each moment of exquisite longing. Give myself the slow time to experience each fragrance, days to envelop myself and let it percolate through my perceptions and cross the brain/soul barrier, and sing me stories that I can remember when it’s gone.

Whose studio would you raid?

originally posted 22 June 2019