Last weekend I did something simple but indulgent for a dear friend. I bought her a bunch of tuberoses. We distributed them in numerous vases and turned her home into some heavenly smelling abode by tea-time. As we sat, admiring the sudden burst of visual and sensual beauty, the wafting fragrance reminded her of a flower shop from her childhood in New Zealand.
You know what I mean, right? You walk into a flower shop, it’s cool from the air conditioning, there’s that scent of fresh cut leaves and stalks hovering above a faint impression of roses and lilacs.
This inspired me to explore that sense, feeling, memory in a tangible perfume form. It’s ready by March 2022. Hit reply to reserve a batch of 5-10 ml extrait de parfum or as solid perfume in pure silver compacts.
Retrofitted
Last year, I launched a zero-waste perfume project where I invited audiences in India to send me their mini-perfume bottles so I can fill them with new meaning and perfume. Recently, a client sent me her grandmother’s possession. This retro bottle had been sitting in a dresser-drawer untouched for decades. The perfume inside it had long evaporated leaving a grime around the plastic pump and cap. Together with my glass-blower, I’m exploring ways to revive this bottle with a custom fitted glass stopper - and ofcourse some perfume to fill it with new life so it can be enjoyed again. Reply to this email if you would like to find ways to reuse old perfume-flacons.
Incense of the Season
One element from the “Gul Ishaboor” Synesthesia Box for Fall-Winter 2020 was so wildly popular that I had folks repeatedly asking for it. In one instance, I was actually commissioned to recreate a batch as gifts for family and friends. The gul-ishaboor incense — produced in two iterations of vetiver and frankincense — is ready by first week of March. As I don’t function like a regular “Shop”, it’s easiest to reply to this newsletter to reserve your batch, and I’ll even add extra incense from my exhibition Bagh-e Hind so you can enjoy the exhibition with tangible scent references.
Im’soap’able
I only recently found out that almost everyone who had purchased the Bagh-i Babur soap that I developed for the Bagh-e Hind exhibition were reluctant to use it! At first I thought it was only my co-curator who avoided using it in order to “not desecrate its perfect form”.
Just use it! The whole point of this synesthesia element is to luxuriate in the atmosphere encoded in the 17th and 18th century Mughal and Rajput paintings in our exhibition!
I can make more!
I have been giving curatorial tours through Bagh-e Hind to various folks from the field of fragrance, history, and culture. As Bagh is a virtual exhibition, these curatorial “strolls” are my way of connecting with my audiences to get a sense of their responses in real time.
My last few guests were editor of Hyperallergic, Hrag Vartanian, who promptly commissioned me to write an opinion piece midway through his tour. As he bluntly asserted, “You need to mark your turf!”; Editor of Aeon magazine, Sam Haselby, who very kindly insisted that as curators of such a multidisciplinary exhibition, we should write a think-piece for Aeon Psyche; Olivia Jezler, an expert on scent technology who kept gasping over my descriptions of edible perfumes produced for this show.
Kramer is my vibe
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