Today’s picture shows you a detail from the Tableau de Parfums packaging: The top cover of the box wherein we will pack the 50 ml flacon and the shiny paper label that goes around it, where it says “MIRIAM” with an art déco rose. The top cover comes with a linen paper  texture. The lower part of the box is a shiny white. A contrast that I and Brian wanted to create.

The linen cover is very fine and definitely gives a vintage feel to the assembly.

By the way: The photo does not show you the silver chord going around the packaging, holding everything together. The Miriam paper label that goes all around the box holds it together, too and seals the packaging. The same label seals the sample packaging and the purse spray packaging. My goal was to have as little different labels for the different packagings as possible, and yet not save on the presentation of the perfume.

Today, I will work on the last its and bits there. I am layouting a story, the pages of a novelette, that will go inside the 50 ml perfume packaging, on a complimentary basis.

With this I wish you a lovely weekend. Here, we will dig a little bit into work. And I am looking forward to it.

Enjoy!

It was time to scan a flower again:  Thus, I share a total scentless Gladiolus with you. One of a bunch of flowers that bloom in pink and magenta and violet colors.

Today, if I can get my brain in painting mode, will see me on Illustrator. For Tableau de Parfums and Evelyn Avenue and Woman’s Picture. In the next day(s) I will get the packaging for the samples and the 50 ml flacon of Tableau de Parfums. The effort that Brian Pera and me put into the sample offering and the perfume presentation (and protection) is gigantic. From a commercial point of view a bit too much. But then: Brian and me are in this for other reasons. The samples, for instance, will come with a teaser DVD that will introduce into the movie world of Woman’s Picture.

I think it is important because the perfumes are inspired by portraits of women in Woman’s Picture. I feel that only by watching the movie, by immersion into the world of Miriam, her mother, her memories, you can fully appreciate the fragrance and why I came up with it the way we will present it soon to you.

Actually, it is even about more. Evelyn Avenue is a panopticom, a street in Memphis, people coming by and leaving, a world of movies, fragrances, and collaboration, a liaison of people and artists. The movie Woman’s Picture that features the inspiring portraits for Tableau de Parfums is one place on Evelyn Avenue where we all meet. There are others.

The fragrances are an entry ticket to Evelyn Avenue and Woman’s picture. And the other way round. I want perfume lovers to watch out and go for a walk on Evelyn Avenue when they get a sample of Miriam, or a purse spray, or a full bottle.

This is way I am sitting here on Illustrator and try to arrange some text on a nice piece of semi transparent, parchment like paper that will go inside every box and every sample envelope.

To learn more on Evelyn Avenue and Tableau de Parfums:  There is  no  better place than Evelyn Avenue, the website. If you visit the Blog now (clicking here) then you learn for instance about the GLORIES, a band from Memphis, and learn how important music is when doing a movie and how Brian came up with music for a particular scene. Follow the link to the Glories and you can download and listen to some of their tracks.

OK… back to Illustrator!

if there is one thing that I learned in the last 7 years that I am building my brand then it is this: The fragrant inside may be a matter of some importance. But the outside matters more. It may sound sad, but this is reality.

Reality is what happens in the shops, online and offline. I talked about this fact with Giovanni and Bettina the other day in Rome, while at Campo Marzio. And by chance, Extrait.it brings these days this topic up , too. If you have not seen it before: There, on extrait, you find a link to the flacon making video of my pentagonal tauer flacon: Click here.

Now…. when I say, “the outside matters more” it does not translate into “blingbling” sells all the time. Actually, the outside can be ultra slim, or playground like, or baccarat. Each might work in its niche. But if you want to do things seriously, and make a living from perfumery, you better invest into your packaging, too. Without forgetting the inside.

As always in life: Keeping a good balance is key.

And, besides simply getting attention by a nice packaging and an appropriate flacon, you communicate to the perfume lover with your outside statement. Yes, you really do. That’s why each little label and each ribbon and each shiny edge on a flacon matters. I translates into sublime communication to perfume lovers about you, and what to expect when you push the spray.

Thank you for following me and reading my post up to here.

Today, I wish you a lovely weekend, and I share with you a draft that I scanned and sent to Brian a long time ago. It shows you a purse spray sized flacon, with a draft for a print on it. This purse spray of 7 ml volume will be one size of the Tableau de Parfums fragrances. The other flacon size will be 50 ml. But I and Brian figured that we want to offer a “travel” size, or “trial size” or “entry point” into world of Tableau de Parfums, and Evelyn Avenue with its many lines to follow beyond perfumes. After having finally! found a nice purse spray that fits my quality demand on the spray and the vial and that is somewhat affordable, I started thinking about how to decorate, print it. The picture to the left shows you my first draft.

Later we needed to adjust for technical reasons. But in this little draft, the core idea was born, and you find visual key element of Tableau de Parfums that you will find in all other products of this brand.

Having talked about visual elements and being the guy who creates perfumes: I want the outside to fit the inside. I want perfume lovers to feel the memories and fantasies that we are intending to share with them and that they will discover when they push the spray.

I am not a native English speaker, thus… let me finish by borrowing a line from Brian’s post on the Evelyn Avenue blog.- There he describes the shooting of a short, called Rose. He writes “By the time we shot ROSE last week, I’d smelled “Miriam”, the perfume inspired by Miriam and Rose’s story, and as we filmed I imagined that’s the fragrance Miriam, Rose, and the sales associates at the perfume counter in ROSE are all talking about.  It was pretty intense to have that reference point, something created by two guys who love perfume the way a child loves his fantasies and had connected over material created from memories about those relationships with lost people, scents, and the places they inhabited.”

You find his entire post by clicking here.

Today’s picture shows you the male branch of the di Liello family, the gentlemen behind Campo Marzio, who make it all possible.: From left to right this is Fabricio, me, Valentino and Gianni.

They are the owner of Campo Marzio at Via Vittoria and the inventor of the store concept which is actually less or not only a store than more a gallery, a show case of selective, artisanal perfumery. You see: I do not need the n-word….

This show case is very dear to me. It tells the world in the middle of THE shopping district of Rome that even today artisanal and selective perfumes can be found. Yesterday, Persolaise referred a side aspect: That I bring up a some interesting points about how a perfume is marketed. Actually, this is half the truth. About a lot of things happening in the back I do not talk. This topic is huge, big, and quite delicate territory. I learned that  some perfume lovers are 100% not interested in learning how the industry functions. Sometimes, me and some perfume making colleagues refer to this fact as the “dream factor”. The dreamers wish to be undisturbed.

Let’s disturb nevertheless. Marketing perfume is like being at war. A war on the attention of the consumer. A still large part of this attention you get by the press. Beauty press and style magazines and alike. To get into this press you usually need to pay. Getting into the press without paying: You must be truly interesting. The other day I was invited to join a round table, on selective perfumery, to get together with the press (think the top 10 magazines). Of course, all perfumers were supposed to pay big money for their participation on the round table.

I do not pay and cannot afford to send $ to get into the press.When you open the next beauty magazine and you see a bit of text and a few pictures of perfume flacons: Always remember: A lot of $ for every line. Except the object of discussion is truly interesting.

This is why I am so grateful for every journalist talking to me, for every interviewer like Simone from Extrait.it  discussing with me and for every blog exploring my creations.

Today, I put the last of my first ordered lot labels into the lot label printer. I have a hard time believing, but it seems to be true. We run through 50’000 lot labels since last year, March. For those in you interested in technical details: The printer is a Intermec PF 8t and runs perfectly, every day. I already ordered the next batch. This time, I ordered 100’000 labels. It is always fascinating and frightening at the same time: You think you have tons of xyz , like filled Rose Vermeille flacons and suddenly you realize: Oops. All gone. Suddenly, because I had my fragrant stuff distributed around everywhere and lost partly the overview. The warehouse is about to change this!

Now, let us see how long these 100k lot labels last. At least, they will not use up too much volume in the warehouse. On another happy note: I will meet Susan, Susan from Women’s Wear Daily and we will do a little audio interview at Medieval art&vie, the shop in Zurich, where everything started.Thus, I have to hurry up before hitting the plane for Rome tomorrow.

And to add yet another happy note: Yesterday, perfectly timed, now that the warehouse is up and ready…. the flacons for Tableau de Parfums were delivered.And as folks in Switzerland think, it is fine to call each other at 7 am or so: They were delivered at 7 am or so. I take this as a good omen.

I will see that I can give you some details there next week after Rome. But first things first: Susan and one of those big orders that lead to fast lot numbers depletion.

Here I am again, talking about fetish and perfume, following up on the post of last Wednesday (click here for the post), where I was talking trend and fetish.  In the mean time, searching  for “tauer fetish” brings my post of 48 hours ago right on top of google’s list of results. Which is sort of cool, as it tells me that Google indexes my blog sort of fast. Thank you Google, highly appreciated!

The comments that I got were great and keep me thinking “fetish” perfume. I did a quick query on thesaurus.com for synonyms and guess what pops up as first synonymous noun: OBSESSION. This tells me that fetish IS a cool name. Actually, it is such a cool name that it was used before. There existed a Fetish Perfume by Dana. It was (is) sort of a floral thing with a funny flacon.

A quick search on TESS tells me that these days “fetish” is not a protected mark for the goods and services perfume anymore.

Actually, you see: we did the first steps towards building a brand together right now. We came up with an idea for a perfume or even an entire range (dark, animalic, woody, spicy,..) and we checked whether it can be protected.

I love, love, love these brain games of inventing new fragrant worlds. And the name of the game has changed in the last few years. Actually, coming up with a new perfume has become very easy. Maybe this is one of the reasons why we see all these new perfumes appearing. Michael Edwards published a few numbers on his Twitter feeds (worth following by the way):

I copy his numbers from his twitter feed that you can find on http://twitter.com/theperfumenose

All new fragrances: 76 (1990) > 389 (2000) > 1125 (2010)

WOW!

I continue thinking “fetish”. I feel it would need to be a perfume concentration fragrance, really heavily concentrated. In a simple flacon, without spray. Avintage flacon. Like you find it at Waltersperger’s.(click here for the picture)…

Today’s picture to the left shows you rotten wood, sort of fitting. I love its smell, damp after a summer rain.

From time to time I work with PR professionals; our circles cross and I get to know the world of fashion and perfume from a insider’s perspective. Quite interesting as I usually take perfumes from an other side.  Thus, I was told the other day that FETISH is going to be a BIG trend in 2012 in fashion. Think leather, rubber, dark animalic rough woody things with Patchouli and logs of wood sticky with resin.

But contrary to my PdD time when I tried to explain my professor “lumberjack look” with its heavy duty style shirts, without much hope as people in science often miss the concept of fashion, FETISH in 2012 is dark and dirtier. Actually, lumberjack look seems to be a classic style that always works, at least for men. My lumberjack look will be activated when doing the floor , painting the walls and moving into the new warehouse and production office. We will start this venture next week. Heavy duty posts ahead there!

So I learned that fetish IS going to be the BIG trend. Usually, I tend not to think in trends , but this one quite in quite in time. Time for something different. Besides Lonestar Memories I do not have a perfume fitting, and I think Lonestar Memories is more on the lumberjack side. I am not so sure whether I really want to come up seriously with a fitting perfume to the fetish trend in fashion, but I like the idea of thinking in darker territory. After a few light sunny bright takes, from the cologne that sits in many versions in my excel to the ZETA linden blossom theme, it might be time for the dark side of the force.

Let’s consider it a mind and nose exercise. I do not want too much leather, but Patchouli, lots of ambreine, castoreum, some rubber, but not the burnt thing…or maybe, instead of the rubber, we take earth. Wet, and damp and heavy. …

What would your fetish notes be?

(today’s picture shows you a sunset in Namibia)

A while ago I got myself an Adobe Illustrator to work with and to come up with labels and various designs later. It is rather expensive, especially here in Switzerland, where everything is more expensive, compared to buying it in the US. Thus, I am looking very much forward to buying some sneakers and my favorite jeans in the US when visiting LA end May. Companies like Adobe will run into troubles sooner or later with a business model that does not fit an internet driven global market place. There is no way how you can justify asking significantly more for a download product here or there. The same is true for fragrances to some extend. Thus, the isolation of markets and regions becomes the longer the more difficult. And hence the most effective and productive market places set the standard. I guess this is the reason why the largest online retailer for low volume fragrances sits in the US (luckyscent.com).

The internet is the place with the largest diversity of low volume and artisanal fragrances.

Anyhow. So I got the Illustrator and using Adobe’s online videos I am getting used to working with the software which is fun. Actually, it is a lot of fun. It reminds me in my earlier days when I started this perfume venture. Since then, let’s say 6 years ago, the number of  internet users has more than doubled. And the number of rude  and impolite users seems to have grown disproportionate. Many got a tool that allows them to express themselves in a way that thew would never dare in the real world. Facebook sure does not slow them down.

I guess the only way to face this low level talking is by setting a higher level.

Thus, I got my Illustrator and will use it in the next months and years to come up with labels and boxes for new ideas. Ideas that will help me to talk through fragrances to perfume lovers who are interested in exploring new fragrant worlds. to be continued….

Today’s picture shows you a quick photo that I took yesterday before giving the bunch of Levkojen aka Matthiola away. I bought them at a flower shop nearby where I stop on a regular basis. The woman owning the shop buys a lot of flowers that are fragrant and she cares for special flowers you cannot get at your local supermarket. Like the Matthiolas.

Their fragrance is breathtaking: Think clove, lots of clove, with something that reminds in tuberose, basically it smelled like clove loaded with salicylates. Salicylates are powdery and give any perfume a more expensive touch, make it bigger in a sense. And tuberose is heavy loaded with them.

I passed by the flower shop on my way back by bike from town where I bought the train ticket for Rome. Yes! On Monday, I will close this blog for a week and spend 5 days with friends in Rome. Friends that I know since I am 16 and we spent a few happy days in Rome 20 years ago. Hence, time spend some time there again. And, to be frank, I am tired and I need a rest and air to think about the upcoming months.

So I passed by the flower shop, got the Matthiolas and went home, where I turned on the computer to book my flights. Yes! Rome again. But this time for entirely professional reasons. I will travel to Rome on June 17, to officially show the first time on planet earth the PENTACHORDS. I will do so at Campo Marzio’s flagship store in via Vitoria. Afterwards, Campo Marzio will have the pentachords exclusively until September.  I decided to do so because usually in the past, my Italian friends always got the new things as the last which is odd as I ship more perfumes to Italy than to any other place. Thus, I figured: Time to show the pentachords there first.

I will be back soon again with my last post before traveling to Rome and a little draw. Thus, stay tuned.

So I was in Paris, yesterday and spent about 5 hours there. Enough time to hop into the Metro, visit Bon Marché, get frightened by the sales assistants there, get bored by the selection there, and hop over to the Grande Épicerie du Bon Marché right next to it. There: Paradise! I ended up over an hour in there, strolling through the selection of spices, fresh vegetable, cognacs, armagnacs, honey, cheese, fish. It is like the best this planet has to offer in one spot. I ended up buying a Calvados, for poor W.-factor who had to take care of orders and samples. 15 years old (the Calvados) and the lady waiting behind me in the queue at the cashier’s confirmed: “c’est un bon calva! “.

She was eating a croissant that she got in the shop , and threatened the cashier to continue eating it and when its gone she we go , too . And not pay, because it took forever. The Calvados bottle (the one from the very back ) was not labeled properly. The cashier asked me to get another one, which I did not. I am a bit stubborn there and insist on me being served when I spend money. Thus, I told her that she might rather go there herself. But she could not, or was not allowed, and hence we discussed about client and service and in between she tried to call for help. The cashier on the left did the same as another bottle brought by another client was without price.

In the end, it all solved itself out, with smiles, because I got the calvados, and the lady behind me had eaten her croissant.

Anyhow: Paris called me to get together with Misha, from Woodley and Bunny, Brooklyn, NY. It was the easiest and most convenient place to meet for the two of us. Woodley and Bunny has my brand in New York and we discussed this fact, their plans, and the future. Actually, we talked a lot about 2013.

It may sound weird, but that’s the way it is. We sat there, under a blue Paris sky in bright sunlight and talked about spring 2013.

Thus, I picked a picture for today that fits: It shows you an Oregano sprout sitting in a glass in our kitchen, with little roots (after treating it with root growth hormone): A little start for a big Oregano plant later and lots of pizzas.