The Fragrance Time with Pierre Negrin 香水相對論

Pierre Negrin, the perfumer at Firmenich said, 

Della, have you heard of any artist saying that they mixed Red-orange with Blue-violet, Green, Yellow-green, et cetera, et cetera, in order to deliver a sensual expression in their painting? No, not to my knowledge, Okay, my point is that, what makes the audience appreciate and understand an artwork is based on the artist's creative stories not the colors they use, you know, the same scenario applies to perfumery, Do you mean that a list of the fragrance ingredients does not necessarily correspond in how they communicate with the consumer? That's right, take Patchouli as an example, how many consumers can actually distinguish its smell from fragrance? Sheepishly I admit: It ain't easy for me, Voila, I don't blame you, a perfume story that focuses mainly on the ingredients makes the consumer draw a blank, Yes, I agree with you, it should be the creative thoughts of perfumers, not the inert materials that entice the audience to experience fragrances, but why does the industry still keep telling the same old ingredient story to connect with us?  

Pierre Negrin, 紐約Firmenich的調香師說，

Della, 妳曾聽過任何畫家解釋他們是如何使用橘紅，藍紫， 綠色，黃綠等等的顏色來完成一幅感性的畫作嗎？依本人拙見， 還未曾聽說過，那麽我的重點是，其實點燃普羅大眾對創作熱情的重點在于畫家的創意故事而不是顏色的名字，你是說一份香水成分的名單不能全面反映出消費者對香水的了解，是嗎？是的，就以廣藿香為例，請問有多少人可以從香水中辨別出它的味道來？心虛得很，連我這個香水包裝設計師來說也不是一件容易的差事。嗯，情有可原，以“成分”故事來牽引香水消費者的心只能讓他們丈二金剛摸不著頭，是， 同意你的看法，調香師的創意思維比那些毫無生命力的材料有意思多了， 可是我就是不了解為什麽業界還是一意孤行，老調重談那些“香水成分”的故事呢？

Shepard Fairey and His Wall 塗鴉藝術家Shepard Fairey和他的牆壁

The afternoon storm was stopped, and NoLiTa was filled with the fragrance of the plum blossoms and the cheer of springtime again.

I saw Shepard Fairey, with a bucket of glue and a long-handled brush, working tranquilly to the wall with the eye of a graffiti artist.

As I nibbled an apple ––– paid no attention to the emergency sirens and horn beeps from the heavy traffic on East Houston street, I thought of Tom Sawyer, the naughty protagonist in The Adventures of Tom Swayer, written by the American author and humorist Mark Twain.

See my favorite cartoon.

午後雷陣雨停了，紐約下城NoLiTa再次瀰漫著梅樹的芬芳和春天的喜樂。

看見提了一桶漿糊及長柄刷子的Shepard Fairey，心神恬定地以一種塗鴉藝術家的眼光在牆壁上創作。

不在乎East Houston街口傳來繁忙的警鈴及喇吧聲，我小口小口地咬著一粒蘋果，腦海中浮現的竟是湯姆莎耶–––美國文壇幽默大師馬克吐溫的著作<湯姆歷險記>中的那個淘氣小男孩。

看我喜愛的卡通。

Obsession with Patterns

While browsing through the photos that I took in Dublin, Ireland, my eyes fixed on a picture that shows a red scooter decorated with white polka dots. Again, it reminds me of Yayoi Kusama (草間彌生).

Kusama said about her painting Flower in 1945, "...a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm.  Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement...Polka dots are a way to infinity."

Kusama's obsession for polka-dot patterns is a force in the story of one of 20th-century art's most compelling and enigmatic protagonists. Her fascination with what she described as "infinite repetition" drove her to cover paintings and installations with polka dots. She orchestrated happenings such as painting naked models with polka dots on Brooklyn Bridge. Donald Judd and Frank Stella both bought her work; Claes Oldenberg, Andy Warhol, Rei Kawabuko (川久保 玲, the founder of Comme des Garçons) were influenced by her. 

I'm interested in the "process" of making patterns. I'm curious about what was in the scooter owner's thoughts when he applied the dots one by one to the body of his Vespa. It is impossible to tell if he is a fan of Kusama, but at least from the lovely white polka dots and the whimsical black types "Bottoms up!!" he created, he surely knows how to temper passion with color, polka dots, and Irish life.

Taste the Rainbow in the Alps

 After sipping a few glasses of white and red wine, Della's photos were getting blurry and blurry.

We had an unforgetful New Year Eve dinner at Gasthaus Speiserestaurant in the Swiss Alps.

The eight-course meal, created by the talented chef Friedrich Zemanek, resembled a GESAMTKUNSTWERK, addressed to all the senses and  was served by all sorts of auxiliary arts relating to the flower arrangements, the dinnerware and the cutlery, and the visual presentation of the edible. As for the food itself, it completely aroused our appetite s through its colors, smell, consistency and even sound (e.g. crispy aliments).

Though it was a cold starry night, the taste of the food brought us joy --- like a warm and colorful rainbow in the blue sky.

I am passing the warmest regards to you from the chef Zemanek --- Happy New Year.

Design with a Japanese Mind - A Conversation with Takeshi Wakabayashi 若林剛之

My name is Takeshi Wakabayashi
I owe a great deal to the nature of Kyoto.

When I need to be alone, I often take a stroll in Tadasu no Mori (糺の森), “the forest of truth”. I am happy and at peace with myself in this forest. It is natural, not pruned or planted by human beings. I also enjoy the late afternoon breeze in the spring. A kind of breeze is just like what the eccentric Zen Buddhist priest and poet Ikkyu Sojun (一休宗純, 1394-1481) described: “Break open a cherry tree and there are no flowers, but the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms”. The breeze carries away the day’s grievances of mine and puts me at ease.

From ancient times to the present, the Japanese people have celebrated the beauty of nature and the poignancy of its seasonal rhythm of the moon, the sakura blossom, the river and the forest. Inspired by nature impulses, they created meditations on the fleeting seasons of life and, through them, expressed essential truths about the nature of human experience.

Iki, the Japanese aesthetic ideal
The patterns of human experience forms culture, and the critical reflection on culture, art, and nature shapes aesthetics. Zen was formalized in China. Chan, as it is known in China, took root in Japan in the thirteenth century. Zen Buddhism’s emphasis on simplicity, emptiness, and the impermanence of the natural world generated a distinctive Japanese aesthetic. Therefore, the appreciation of nature has been fundamental to many Japanese aesthetic ideals, artistic expressions, and other cultural elements.

But the highly refined Japanese aesthetic sensibility is not only about the sensual appeal of elements of the natural world, but also about the human emotions it imbues them with. The main theme in Japanese aesthetics is that objects are alive and should be in harmony. Iki (いき, often written 粋), a traditional aesthetic ideal in Japan, illustrates this value of Japanese aesthetic.

Iki is not simply “Japanese things”. It can be used for almost anything, but especially for people. Iki is not found in nature itself, but can be found in the human act of appreciating the beauty of nature. Iki is associated with a thing or situation that is simple, improvised, straight, restrained, temporary, romantic, ephemeral, original, refined, inconspicuous, etc.; it can also be related to a person who is audacious, chic, pert, tacit, sassy, unselfconscious, calm, indifferent, unintentionally coquettish, open-minded, and restrained.

Satou Toshi-san, the owner of Tawaraya Ryokan in Kyoto, is the perfect example of Iki to me. I'm not only impressed by her personal style, but also influenced by her sense of fashion, architecture, taste, and hospitality. She is truly a pioneer in creating a new style inspired by Kyoto tradition!

Design with a Japanese mind
In my 20s, I used to be called “the American boy”, owing my obsession with Ralph Lauren's collection. But soon after turning 30, I started to question my running after Western fashion as a Japanese designer. Moreover, what is the “modern” Japanese style? Just like you, Della-san. Becuase you are educated in America, with roots in Asia, I don’t see you viewing art and literature only with the Western eyes, right?

The aesthetic system of Japan is significantly different from that of the West. For example:
• Contrary to the precise geometrical values in the Western world, Japanese use diagonal, rather than a centrally placed horizontal or vertical line when dividing a rectangle symmetrically.
• In the West, the pictorial quality is based on realm; in contrast, Japanese characterize the elements drawn from the natural world in an abstract from.
• The West worships a permanent beauty and a complex context; Japanese praise the beauty of nature and its harmonious simplicity.

As a designer, I am open to anything. But things that take full concentration and excessive training attract me the most, such as calligraphy, tea ceremony, and traditional craftsmanship. Therefore, inspired as I am by the sublime Japanese aesthetics, I see no need to adopt Western ideals. And as an upholder of the need to rediscover and appreciate Japanese traditional values, albeit in an apparently revolutionary guise, I established the “Made In Japan” brand – Sou • Sou.

Sou • Sou, pronounced as so – so in English, expresses the ultimate statement of Japanese lifestyle. It is a typical Japanese way to say the word when we make a nod to maintain a friendly and harmonious atmosphere during a conversation. Although the word doesn’t convey a meaning of “yes”, it implies “I agree with you” and “I understand you”.

Sou • Sou has always made the point: discovering and interpreting avant-garde art in Japan, and the roots that bind it to the cultural and aesthetic values of the country’s own tradition. It doesn’t matter if the design is for Jika-Tabi (split-toe shoes, 地下足袋) or textile; all of Sou • Sou’s works derive their aesthetic merit from the fact that it cannot be fully achieved without perfect execution!

Tradition is present
When I walked in the courtyard of Shimogamo Jinja, I saw the glow of sunset deepening and hanging on the torii gate . Even though Kyoto is a modern city of more than a million, the weight of history and the force of tradition have given the streets of the city an undeniable unified and harmonious atmosphere, beyond the well-known image of temples and geishas.

Tradition lives in the present, and it is our key to the past.

Surely Ideas Love You, Monsieur Maurice Roucel – An Extract from "KyotEau: Bottled Memories".

The French master perfumer Maurice Roucel says, “Though it is never clear where ideas exactly come from and how they announce themselves is unpredictable, I get ideas from everywhere, all the time. I can’t go through life anymore without allowing myself to be constantly inspired by anything. Just walking around can be enough – being open to different things, people and surroundings…” To Monsieur Roucel, what appears to be a spontaneous thought may well have been a long time cooking in the unconscious, just like a baby learns to walk and an adult learns to drive. As John Cage declared, “I have nothing to say and I am saying it.”

However, when it comes down to how creativity operates, Monsieur Roucel believes that a designer sketches in order to create the beautiful shape of perfume bottle; a musician writes musical notations to compose the greatest piece of harmonious music; a perfumer formulates ingredients to create the most memorable fragrances. For when it’s all said and done, Monsieur Roucel sees that ideas can sometimes be conjured up with practice, intuition, and new prospective.

Andy Warhol once explained: "I just paint things I always thought were beautiful - things you use every day and never think about." Ideas are subversive and they come in various guises. If you pay attention to them, they come to you. The angel of inspiration seems to favor those who have a promiscuous curiosity and enthusiasm.

The Life of the Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel – An Extract from "KyotEau: Bottled Memories".

How about the work life of a perfumer? The confidentiality of perfume formulas pulls a blanket of mystery over the perfume industry. However, Christophe Laudamiel is willing to shed a bit of light.

In his words:

“Half of his life is spent writing fragrance formulas to surprise and to create all kinds of envies and wonderful sensations for the happy few: clients, friends, and family.
Another half of his life is spent filling up trashcans with rejected fragrances from people who cannot smell or cannot judge but who think they belong to the happy few! The other half of the trashcans is what it takes to create a magic fragrance: a lot of expertise and a lot of trials and errors because not even perfumers can predict a scent in their minds just by looking at its formula.
A further half of his life is spent running around the lab looking for the suitable material in a jungle of 2,000 bottles or so to determine the correct next ingredient for his recipe of more than 80 ingredients.
Half of his life is spent thinking of how he can be more clever than nature by trying to tame ingredients and making them smell like what they don’t want to smell like.
Half of his life is spent thinking of how he should be shrewder than certain people sitting across a meeting table with different agendas.
Half of his life is spent thinking of how he can translate into a scent what someone cannot describe with words, but only with faces and emphatic gestures.
Half of his life is spent traveling either across Manhattan or across oceans, because the ingredients, the scent palettes, the fragrance collections and atmospheres won’t travel in the Internet in a zip file.
Indeed, there are many halves in a perfumer’s job, but they constitute the many facets to create the magic formula.”

我會輕聲訴說我的愛 I would softly tell my love

我對浪漫主義至信不渝。身為一名無可救藥的浪漫主義者無關好與壞﹣我平日雖然腳踏著實地，但難免有時走神地飄往太虛仙境。

無可救藥的浪漫主義者其實就是不折不扣的理想主義者及多愁善感的逐夢者。我喜歡在自己擬模的真實世界中堆築希望。對我來說，對這個世界絕望的人就是注定要孤寂一生。

秉持浪漫的態度當然不可能解決所有的問題，但是這樣的態度卻能振奮原動力及創意。就以土兒其作家Nazim Hikmet 為例，因政治立場與當局者不同而屢次遭拘捕的他（終其一生為共產黨員），即使進出監獄、流亡海外佔其成人歲月中的絕大部分，依舊悍衛浪漫的信仰，寄情寫詩從未間斷。

Hikmet的浪漫精神對我影響至深。他的詩篇《我會輕聲訴說我的愛》有如月光瀉地，誏我心中有了一分對寫作的明白：即使天下只有一個知音讀者，我還是依然擁抱浪漫，持續創作。

各位先生和女士，現在Hikmet先生將要輕聲訴說他的愛給你們聽：

如果我是一棵梧桐樹，我將安息在它的碧綠濃蔭下
如果我是一本書
即使通宵夜讀千遍也不厭惓
如果我是一支筆我片刻也不願停留在自己的手指中
如果我是一扇門
我迎善拒惡
如果我是一扇窗一扇倘開且無窗簾的窗戶
我將引領這城市進入我的房間
如果我是一個單字
我會招喚美麗及純粹的真理
如果我是一篇短文
我會輕聲訴說我的愛。


I believe in romanticism, and being a hopeless romantic is not a good thing or a bad thing – I may have my feet on the ground, but my soul fly somewhere over the rainbow.

A hopeless romantic is an idealist, and a sentimental dreamer. I like to dream of an actual world in which I can harbor my hopes. To me, those without hope in the real world are condemned to be alone.

A romantic attitude may not solve all our problems, but it is an excitement with motivation, and a pinch of creativity. Take the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet as an example. Although Hikmet was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs (he was a lifetime communist), he held romanticism up and continued his poetry writing under the stress of spending much of his adult life in prison or in exile.

I own a great deal to the romantic spirit of Hikmet. It is his poem I would softly tell my love that opened my eyes to the soul of writing. He makes me believe that even if there was only one reader paying the attention on my writing, I would continue to write with hope and, love.

Ladies and gentlemen, now I have Mr. Hikmet softly tell you his love:

If I was a plane tree I would rest in its shade
If I was a book
I’d read without being bored on sleepless nights
Pencil I would not want to be even between my own fingers
If I was door
I would open for the good and shut for the wicked
If I was window a wide-open window without curtains
I would bring the city into my room
If I was a word
I’d call out for the beautiful the just the true
If I was word
I would softly tell my love.