“I'm always questioning why we’re wearing perfume and why we create perfume,” Barnabé Fillion tells me over Zoom from his Tokyo hotel room. “I'm not very interested by this idea of it being a very intense extension of your personality. For me, it's much more about connecting with your senses and being more present.”
This statement – a matter of fact declaration that a scent is for smelling (shocker) – is surprisingly pragmatic for Fillion. The French perfumer has built a rep over his career for having a unique take on fragrance; his synaesthesia – a condition where senses overlap – allows him to understand scent as more than just an olfactory experience. Through his brand, Arpa, he seeks to draw inspiration from his own memories and emotions for scents that are personal to him and relatable to the wearer. Fosforo, for example, encapsulates Fillion’s experience of stepping into an onsen in Kyushu, Japan, through familiar aromas of iris, saffron and wood. The scents' themes are fantastical, packaged prettily in glass bottles designed by Jochen Holz and come with an equally elevated price tag. Not your usual bottle of juice then. (Rest assured, they smell good too).
Still, Fillion is best known for his ongoing collaboration with Aesop and has been the nose behind some of its best-selling fragrances. Fillion and the Australian brand’s founder Dennis Paphitis have collaborated together for over 12 years now, and Fillion describes him as “a strong mentor and friend”. It’s a relationship that has stood the test of time due to a shared desire to rebel against the industry.
“It’s totally the opposite of the mainstream development of perfume, which I tend to run away from,” he explains. “We never look at trends. We never look at anything except our discussions and our dialogue, and we always want to invite more collaborators into the project. It's one of the nicest collaborations I can have because it's a long term one that’s really consistent.”
Othertopia is an ongoing coalition; currently sitting at four perfumes, Gloam is the fifth instalment of the collection, and it “pays homage to all the thinkers” who understood the potential of being, err... horizontal.
“Most of the Romans’ and Greeks’ philosophy was done laying down,” Fillion says (his locks, I must say, are on par with ancient Gods). “There is this idea of letting go to a part of the body for a certain mind to be able to start to analyse and observe things… this moment of departure is very dear to the concept of Othertopia.”
As you can expect from a scent designed to take you to another realm, its notes have a pretty hypnotic effect. Cardamon acts as a strong accord, layered on top of neroli and orange flower, and the overall effect is heady and spicy.
Philosophy and literature aren’t new sources of inspiration for Aesop; the brand has built a multi-million empire on imbuing trivial products – like hand wash – with deeper meaning. You’ll likely be familiar with the Resurrection Aromatique iteration; its herbaceous scent is catnip for millennials with just enough expendable income to invest in fancy home products. But it runs a bit deeper than just serving its purpose with Aesop, each product is weighted with artistic integrity that makes any of its amber bottles a cool accessory for your home. The ostentatious back stories that come with them often have little relevance to the product at all, but do make them a pub talking point.
Still, it works. L’Oréal recently brought the brand for $2.525 billion – the largest deal to date for the beauty conglomerate. And it has enough fans globally to suggest that there’s a demand for business that just want to romanticise the everyday, and Fillion can see that.
“People are looking for transparency. And now they are starting to get that, we’re back on track for creativity. It should explore more subjects than what was explored before. And I think also that art in general is looking for new mediums. Perfume is definitely a new expression, and we’re going a little bit further than this marketing we’ve seen that does little to stimulate your senses.”
A perfume that doesn’t present your personality but is an interpretation of art; that sounds more like Fillion.
