Artists of Note
3 ARTISTS IMAGINE 3 ICONS
An articulation of our commitment to creativity, craft and the human link between perfumer and wearer, Artists of Note connects three British creatives with three of our iconic fragrances. Each scent is imagined by an artist and expressed through their unique vision and medium.
Meet the artists as they reveal their creations, each a testament to the sensorial power of fragrance. Plus, discover the conversations between artist and perfumer, and shop the fragrances.
Introducing Nicholas Daley
The London-based fashion designer expresses our woody-citrus icon, created by Master Perfumer Jacques Chabert, via signature designs influenced by his Jamaican-Scottish heritage.
Nicolas Daley Imagines
Re-Charge Black Pepper
“This one’s from The Gambia, this from LA, Pakistan…” Nicholas Daley is talking Master Perfumer Jacques Chabert through his assortment of rings: an ovula shell, a turquoise gobstopper, gold and silver bands. Not a mishmash but a curation, and entirely symbolic of the plethora of influences from which he draws his inspiration for his menswear collections. A Central Saint Martins alumnus, designer Daley has spent the past decade building his brand, weaving a personal narrative and wider diasporic themes as well as nods to subcultural movements into his pieces – often tartaned, more often knitted. “I feel like everything I do is very much about who I am and what I represent both on my Scottish and my Jamaican side,” he explains. “So pulling from those ancestral places and links, but then also something which I feel is somewhat timeless. Some of the mills and factories I work with have been producing handmade shoes or fabrics for over a hundred years. I really like working with that mentality – finding something or using quite distinctive archetypes, and then bringing in a new flavour and energy.”
When Fashion Met Fragrance
It's this dedication to spotlighting his heritage and craftsmanship that allows Daley to stretch beyond the fashion realm and into music, the arts, culture – and even incense. A true collaborator, he has teamed up with the likes of Fred Perry, Mulberry, the V&A Dundee and the Southbank Centre to name a few – making him an ideal candidate for Artists of Note – and for interpreting the invigorating woody, citrus notes of Re-charge Black Pepper, a fragrance that, by pure coincidence, fuses notes directly connected to Daley’s heritage. “It's just really interesting that now my work or my vision can speak to a lot more than just within the context of a runway show,” he says as we chat in his studio in north London’s Tottenham. “I think it is important not to always just be forced into this fashion vacuum, which can be quite soulless.”
Daley talks passionately about a feeling of “kinship” and a “cross-pollination of different creatives” with his collaborators – a neat summation of Artists of Note, as well as his pairing with Master Perfumer Jacques Chabert, himself a fierce innovator and long-time Molton Brown collaborator. For the crew and talent alike, it's a real “a-ha!” moment when the two meet; there’s a warmth and mutual respect for each other’s vocations as well as a shared love for craft that frames their conversation. Spanning rule breaking, childhood memories, lineage through craft, Re-charge Black Pepper and Nicholas’ interpretation of the fragrance, this is a meeting of minds that views scent through the spectrum of heritage, family, and life.
Introducing Gala Colivet Dennison
The jewellery designer and Vogue one-to-watch transforms this intense, opulent scent, crafted by Senior Perfumer Philippe Paparella, into a wearable piece of art true to her tough, sculptural aesthetic.
Gala Colivet Dennison
Imagines Rose Dunes
An unprecedently hot May, a warehouse-turned-apartment-turned-studio and talk of sand, fire and flames. Stifling may come to mind, but the combination of jewellery designer Gala Colivet Dennison, perfumer Philippe Paparella and the redolence of saffron and patchouli is turning any discomfort into sensory melting pot. The two creatives are here to talk Rose Dunes – an opulent, spicy, sophisticated fragrance, masterminded by Paparella – and Colivet Dennison’s interpretation of it via her unique practice. Atmospherically, sensorially and creatively, it’s all rather perfect.
“There's a big nostalgia within fragrance for me. It always transports me into a time that I can think about as soon as I put something on. I wear it as an accessory,” the Vogue one-to-watch says as we sit down in her boyfriend’s friend’s studio, borrowed for today to house a selection of her jewellery and meaningful trinkets for the shoot. Originally a sculptor before turning to jewellery design, Colivet Dennison spent her formative years in France with her antique dealer parents, which not only had a big impact on her work – a marriage of tough metalwork with richly coloured natural stones – but also her relationship with scent. “Growing up in France, a lot of women would wear a lot of powerful, strong-scented perfumes,” she recalls. “There were a lot of vanilla scents in banks and things, which I remember really vividly. So I've always been drawn to something very rich and powerful. I really feel that with this perfume.”
When Jewellery Met Fragrance
Rose Dunes is certainly something. Crafted by Senior Perfumer Philippe Paparella, its notes of saffron, rose, patchouli Sulawesi and Oudh accord are a direct translation of Paparella’s own familial memories of his grandma’s desert rose, and experiences and travels in the Middle East. “My grandma lived in Algeria for some years. And when she moved back to France, she had this crystal,” he explains. “I love the story about how it was formed and where it comes from. It’s a mix of sand with selenite, that forms in the desert with the heat and the wind and the rain. It’s really beautiful and it captures the colour of the desert.” When he moved to Dubai, Paparella immediately sought out those same conditions that form the desert rose. “Just to imagine how it was created was what nourished my imagination when I created the fragrance.”
And so, heat, sand – and of course, fire and flames. Colivet Dennison describes her craft as “a very physical process. It can be physically quite painful. But when I'm soldering – which is when the flames come into it – it's kind of the last element to bind it together. So there's something weirdly quite meditative about that.” The physicality of her craft lends itself perfectly to an intuitive interpretation of the scent – which is exactly what she has created. “It was mainly a visceral response to how Philippe was describing the scent and how he made it, and the elements of saffron and sand and fire and heat. And all these things that I thought definitely have elements in my work.” And how would she describe her work? “It's kind of open for interpretation. But there are different elements of me that kind of evolve in time, and different techniques that I'm sure come as my personality evolves. It's kind of always shedding a little piece of myself.”
Introducing Dr John Cooper Clarke
An icon in his own right, the self-proclaimed punk poet translates Coastal Cypress & Sea Fennel – our marine bestseller by Senior Perfumer Carla Chabert – into an evocative poem written and delivered in his signature rhythmic style.
Dr John Cooper Clarke Imagines
Coastal Cypress & Sea Fennel
John Cooper Clarke is talking about the dentist. He’s recalling a childhood memory of scent and living above a pharmacy, and the redolence of a certain illicit drug as an anaesthetic. “It smelled like a dentist’s. And in those days, dentists actually used cocaine [as an anaesthetic], rather than novocaine. So, the smell of a pharmacy really takes me back home.”
When Poetry Met Perfume
I look to the team behind the cameras. We can’t possibly use that in writing. Yet here it is. It’s entirely indicative of the self-proclaimed punk poet’s ability to hold court on pretty much any topic he chooses, weaving in the outrageous, irreverent and downright comedic with more earnest reflections of his craft and 40-plus years in the business – if you can call poetry a business, that is (“There’s always something better to do than write a poem. There’s always something more beneficial, or useful.”). Born in 1949 in Salford, Greater Manchester, Cooper Clarke is one of those personalities that you can say with some degree of certainty has seen it all. There were the 1960s Mod days: “The go-to cologne for men around about then was Acqua di Selva. Blue, sort of glass bottle. That and Old Spice”, in case you were wondering. Working the poetry scene around Manchester. Appearances alongside Joy Division, the Sex Pistols and The Fall. Tours, books, TV comedy quiz shows. And that Arctic Monkeys’ song, a swooning, indie-fied version of Cooper Clarke’s synonymous 1982 poem. Which, funnily enough, turns out to be a red thread connecting our collaborators: perfumer Carla Chabert – herself something of a multihyphenate, with interests in film and photography – is a huge Arctic Monkeys fan and pitches up on set in one of their T-shirts from their last tour.
And the music doesn’t stop there. Cooper Clarke and Chabert spend time between verbal wanders through their respective crafts, memories of the summer, the coast and the power of scent leaning in and discussing obscure French singers and favourite albums. In these moments, if you didn’t know any better, you’d say they’d known each other for years – even when Carla admits she only bought one of Cooper Clarke’s books a couple of days prior. “It’s very beautiful, poetic,” she says. “I didn’t know you then, but I could hear you saying these lines. What I love about your poetry is that it’s a play on words, it’s very rhythmical, it has rhyme and it’s beautiful.” There doesn’t seem to be much that causes the wordsmith to pause his words, but here – just for a split second – he does.