The Time Traveller's Scents
We were honoured last week to welcome to our Studio store the brilliant perfumer Maya Njie who was there to talk us through her latest scents. Njie’s fragrances are blended as recollections of memory; scents that seek to capture the essence and preserve the spirit of the intimate and personal. Her scents remember those elusive moments and subtle details, the one’s that would otherwise have slipped from consciousness. Our sense of smell is more connected to memory than any of our other senses, so it is through our noses that we do the most time travelling. In this case, memories from Maya’s dual Scandinavian and Gambian heritage are reconstructed by way of scent.
As a self-taught perfumer, her practice was developed through experimentation; the blending of raw materials with a variety of essential oils, aroma compounds and resins; nature and science combining in autobiographical fragrances. Maya’s olfactory identity draws inspiration from her upbringing, as well as an archive of intimate family photographs from the 1960s; the small Swedish summer house surrounded by mercurial forests, the visits to her grandparents’ sparsely furnished flat on Sunday afternoons, Uncle Lars' and Aunt Erene’s wedding. A bottling of a time, place and spirit.
The Bonkers But Delightfully Scented World of Stora Skuggan
Founded by self-taught perfumer Tomas Hempel in Stockholm, Stora Skuggan is an avant garde scent maker of the highest quality. They make all of their stunning fragrances by hand in their lab in Stockholm, Sweden, and really go deep into the meanings of the ingredients and how they are expressed together. They have some of the greatest product descriptions we've ever read - some of them are utterly bonkers, which only adds to the uniqueness of the scents themselves. With names such as Moonmilk, Thumbsucker, Mistpouffer, and Fantôme De Maules, you'll never get bored explaining to someone what fragrance you're wearing. Besides the olfactory richness, the bottles themselves are little works of art.
On the Coffee Table
We asked our resident bibliophile David McLean about his favourite coffee table tome right now - something that would stir your creativity while also giving your living space some extra design cachet:
"My favourite book at the moment is 'Magnum Magnum': a stunning collection showcasing the brilliance of Magnum Photos, featuring iconic images from renowned 20th-century photographers to today's rising stars. A must-have for both photography enthusiasts and art lovers alike. Oliver Spencer is proud to stock the signed hardcover edition. Strictly limited to 250 copies, we offer both copy number 112 and copy number 115, signed by twelve notable Magnum photographers, including Antoine d’Agata, Raymond Depardon, and Harry Gruyaert."
