Several weeks ago I began exploring the British perfume industry to attempt to discover
a definitive spirit. This journey resulted in a 3 part article of which you are
now reading part 3 – The Indie Kids. To read parts 1 and 2, scroll down the
page for an irreverent look at how heritage and royalty have influenced the
Great Brits - Penhaligon’s, Floris and Grossmith.
Britain
is famous for it’s indie culture. By ‘indie’, I mean independent, the creation
of something that a person or small group of people make without the backing of
a big investor or parent company. Essentially, innovation without major finance.
Some
of our greatest indie Brits are famous for innovation in the worlds of music
and fashion. Think of the fabulously unconventional fashion designer Vivienne
Westwood, who in the early 1970s
partnered up (romantically and in business terms) with avant-garde music
producer Malcolm McLaren, quit her job as a primary school teacher and created
‘Let It Rock’ a London based clothes shop. Let It Rock evolved rapidly, schizophrenically
changing names and design themes, as the pair kicked off the sub-cultural music
and fashion scenes of punk and new wave. Soon, London’s youth sported
sado-masochist influenced bondage trousers and vertiginous Mohican hair taking
alternative into the mainstream.
Westwood and McLaren
During
my teenage years in the late 1980s, I followed Manchester’s famous ‘Madchester’
music scene where bands such as The Inspiral Carpets (think – psychedelic
Hammond organs combined with guitars strummed at full tilt and huge walls of
noise) formed their own record label rather than seek a signing from a major,
ultimately allowing complete creative control and gaining cult status amongst
fans. The weekly arrival of my subscription to Melody Maker magazine saw me
scouring listings for obscure gigs that would inevitably lead me and my friends
to sleeping rough in Manchester’s Piccadilly Plaza after we missed our last
train home. The satisfaction of an extraordinary night in undergound haunts
such as the legendary Hacienda would keep us warm amongst our collected bin bags
of shredded paper waste that offices would leave on their doorsteps for the bin
men (surprisingly comfortable).
What
Vivienne Westwood and The Inspiral Carpet’s shared, was a ‘Do It Yourself’
attitude. Why bother seeking the backing of a major investor or working for
someone else when you can launch your own mini empire in your own makeshift way?
DIY is the basis of indie victory.
The Inspiral Carpets in their youth
Essential
oils, absolutes, alcohols and synthetic bases are widely available to buy
online and (with a little research) it’s easily possible to make something
unique and quirky. So why aren’t there a proliferation of indie perfumers?
One
explanation could be the bureaucratic toil that is required to obtain a
European safety certificate, i.e. a document that certifies that your perfume
isn’t going to poison anybody and will allow you to trade your fumes to the public
in a shop. This is both pricey and complex. Another explanation is that there is an expectation that a
perfumer holds a high level scientific qualification and has undergone
extensive training within the employ of Givaudin, Firmenich etc before becoming
what we know as ‘a nose’.
One entrepreneurial
spirit who has negotiated the EU rules and successfully created a range of
superbly quirky whiffs is Sarah McCartney. Sarah launched her company 4160
Tuesdays with minimal formal training, learning just enough to ensure that her
products performed as a perfume successfully. Sarah’s real ‘training’ was a
life long adoration of fragrance and the depth of knowledge that comes with
years of reading and writing about perfume. Sarah says of her company:
“The
4160Tuesdays project is about being creative: mindful observation, nerd-like
fascination, endless exploration and - fingers crossed - mixing it all up and
having good ideas. At least once a week. If we can't be bright and brilliant
every day, at least let's have a crack at making Tuesdays interesting.”
4160tuesdays.com
This statement
thoroughly embodies the indie spirit, it’s not about creating a luxury product
for a label hungry consumer. It’s about exploring what can happen when she pursues
an idea, the creation of a perfume that might capture a concept, place or
memory rather than simply ‘something that smells nice’.
Sarah mixes fumes in a home made lab
As I write, I’m wearing
a sample of ‘The Dark Heart of Old Havana’ a scent inspired by her travels to
Cuba. Sarah says of the Cuban capital:
“They have tobacco, sugar, rum and fruit. They
don’t have much of anything else. And there’s ingenuity, humour, fatalism and sweltering
heat. And this is the way I remember it smelled, walking through Old Havana to
the Caseón del Tango at night.”
And dark it smells. Our
noses are trained to recognise vanillic smells as sugary and comforting, with
associations of ice cream, cakes and all things ‘sweet’. Now and again someone
will mix it with some patchouli and spice and call it ‘noire’, but it’s never
that dark, merely a little more adult. In the case of Sarah’s Dark Heart of Old
Havana, she has created a literal interpretation of her experiences off the
tourist trail and reproduced both the edgy atmosphere and intoxicating smells
of Havana.
L’ Artisan Parfumeur
released a fragrance called Havana Vanille, which promised a combination of rum
and vanilla mixed up with spices and tobacco. To my nose it smelt of vanilla
and pepper and little else, it left me uninspired. Sarah’s Havana Vanilla
doesn’t. It makes me excited. It’s the rarest form of vanilla fragrance in that
it actually smells huge and symphonic, casting notes of dark leathery labdanum,
over-ripe fruits and a curious burnt toffee sensation into the air. Whilst
vanilla scents often smell ‘flat’, this one seems to radiate upwards and
outwards with a lot of energy. I can almost smell Sarah’s energetic mission to
learn how to Tango on her travels! Yes it’s dark in that smells of strong booze,
smoky cigars and filthy fruit pulp leftovers at the end of a market day in
sweltering heat but it’s also bright and optimistic, a triumph of very clever
perfumery.
Sarah’s scents are sold in
small scale distribution, with an online shop at the 4160 Tuesdays website, Les
Senteurs and a posh knicker shop in Camden. I’m glad about this, I don’t want
to see it in Harrods. I’d hate to hear a passionless sales assistant try to
sell her memories.
In the process of
communicating with Sarah during my research process I was struck by how much I
personally liked her. Wit, intelligence, informality and a slighty daft sense
of humour underpinned her emails, which really sums up the spirit of her
perfumes. They are a reflection of her eccentric character and as such are
delightful.
Another route into indie
perfumery is to leave your career as a nose for the big guys and set up on your
own. Ruth Mastenbroek has mighty credentials, in possession of a chemistry
degree from Oxford and a lengthy International career creating a multitude of
perfumes and aromas under the security of contracts with large companies, she
is the polar opposite of Sarah McCartney. In fact, Ruth even holds the title of
President of the British Society of Perfumers.
Ruth launched her own
signature fragrance, RM for women, independently in 2010. There must be a huge
amount of pressure involved with the release of your ‘signature’ perfume. What
if it isn’t as successful as your past creations for other companies? How do
you, as an industry expert, deliver a concoction that ultimately signifies your
personal taste, gives away a little of your character, and bears your name as
an emblem of what you believe to be your own idea of the sublime idyll within
perfumery?
Of her inspiration for
RM, Ruth says:
“Our
sense of smell is a powerful reminder of precious memories. Memories have
inspired me, influencing the complex ‘chypre’ fragrance that is Ruth
Mastenbroek.
Memories
of childhood: gingerbread, fresh earth, blackberries... Memories of my life in
England and abroad: Japanese jasmine, cherry blossom, lotus, and green tea;
Dutch lilies, narcissus, hyacinth, and salt sea air; French orchids, roses, and
wild flowers...
Memories
of travels to exotic places, the spices and oils of Morroco, Sri Lanka, Italy
and Thailand.
This
palette has been my playground, my refuge, my source of inspiration. From it I
have created a scent that stands out above all others, one that I can truly
call me. “
Ruth created a
contemporary floral chypre, with a strident blackcurrant note and abundant
jasmine. It isn’t quirky, it’s very likeable to a mass audience as well as
those with a nose for niche florals.
Ruth's signature fragrance
When I first applied it
I was surprised. To some extent I was disappointed that it wasn’t very unusual.
I’d expected to smell an innovation, perhaps with a challenging aspect that
could only be appreciated by a perfume junkie such as the cold camphor in
Tubereuse Criminelle or curious curry in Eau Noire. RM could have easily been
released by Givenchy, Lancome or Dior and appreciated by millions. As I
pondered it’s mood over several wearings I started to understand the point of
RM. It’s not supposed to be quirky. It’s supposed to be a culmination of years
of expertise and life experience, a summary of her career and a statement of
elegant femininity. It wasn’t meant to be for me, with my penchant for edgy
music, flat shoes, masculine colognes, handmade art school dresses and
jasminophobia.
So why is RM in my indie
article? Because I love the idea of Ruth creatively beating the giants at their
own game. RM is amongst the most mainstream smelling perfumes on the shelves of
legendary indie fume shop - Les Senteurs. It’s what the huge cosmetics houses
would love to release under their own name if only they could. It’s a Goliath
perfume, a high end fruity floral chypre with enormous longevity and strength that
would sells millions of bottles to millions of women if you could buy it at
Debenhams. Only you can’t. You can only buy it directly from Ruth’s web boutique and
from a number of small indie retailers. For that reason, it’s downsized, DIY
Dior. It smells as if Ruth wanted to create her masterwork as ‘the greatest
popular floral in the world’ without the restrictions of designing it for a big
house to make it actually become the greatest popular floral in the world. No
clients to please and appease, no marketing folk to deliver a definitive brief,
no tight restrictions on a materials budget and no corporate nonsense. A
J’Adore created during a period of freedom. For this I admire her as much as I
admire Sarah McCartney’s delightful eccentricity.
As I
ponder the close of my research into ‘The Scent of British Spirit’ I still
wonder why we as an industry are still deemed to be less commercially successful
and innovative than the French? I can only summarise that it ultimately might
come down to production and distribution, we simply don’t make perfume by the
truck load or market it with glamourous gusto to the masses.
Perhaps
it’s just who we are, a nation who will always be the slightly eccentric
underdog. Essentially creative but not overly concerned with winning a
commercial competition. After all, there is joy in the hidden, being part of
the alternative, we do it our own way.
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