Lonestar Memories: Colombina on Perfumesmellingthings. (...)Lonestar Memories makes me want to escape the mundane confines of my everyday world(...)


Lonestar Memories: Katie on Scentzilla. (...) Lonestar Memories smells of the examined life. Inside there is joy, and there is tiny heartbreak, e xisting only in reverie. The scent unravels into the consideration of past experiences, and pinings for future joys and heartbreaks(...)


Lonestar Memories: Marlen Harrison's review on PerfumeCritic.com (...) If you're a lover of leather or richer wood fragrances, this is gonna be a holy grail scent and in that case, better get two bottles.(...)


Lonestar Memories: Cait Shortell's review on Legerdenez. (...) Do you appreciate scent because you identify with the scent and its image? Does a scent have the ability to create a memory outside one’s own experience?(...)

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Trial insights



We tend to cover our naked bodies. Some of us do it with good reason, in the case of other individuals it is a pity. For the later, the hidden skin increases the interest, setting a series of imaginative visualizations in move, which do not fit with reality and quite often lead to thorough disappointment once visualization meets reality. In my perfumery work, visualization plays a role, too, not a key role, but still. Usually, at the end of a series of many, many trials ultimately finding their way to the local waste disposal where they are burnt and thoroughly oxidized, I think about how to visualize a particular scent. Not that I have done this many times, yet! My creative process is somewhat slow and I do not expect to create hundreds of perfumes in my life that need pictures.
Thus, I thought I share a visualization trial for the L’air du désert marocain that I developed and then threw away again. Back then, a while ago, I thought a nice picture might be the sunset in the evening, over semi-desert, the time when the earth is still gleaming but the air has already cooled down. Fragrance of spices and earthy sand fills the air. (I posted about it before… the picture guiding me in the development of this scent was slightly different: A bed in Marrakech, window open, moon raising, scents from the nearby desert and the spices from the streets below….)

Thus, I took a sunset over a rather flat savannah, fooled around with the colours (2 hours), choose the appropriate chest (2 hours), brought the upper body to perfection with photoshop (5 hours) and tried various modifications (5 hours). And deleted my idea from my brain (5 sec). It did not fit somehow. Too…naked? Leaving too little room for imagination? Next was the moon raising picture that you all know, kind of 70-ies minimalism, red and blue tones, no skin, no nothing, but leaving an entire Saharan desert for imagination

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Andy - I do love the background and all, except for the male torso- no matter how attractive it is in all it's glory;-)
But since this perfume of yours speaks to both the sexes, it don't fit - at least not for me. I wouldn't percieve an ad with a male torso as a ad for a perfume to wear, but for her to buy for her man.It's not an easy task to come up with the right image, but since you had the cutie cowboy in the Lone Star, to much attractive men...well...hmmm...;-) Some might argue that you can't get enough of cutie males and mostly I agree. But when it comes to PR and such, I think it can.

Hugs,
Ylva

12:11 AM  
Blogger andy said...

Dear Ylva
In this case I am very happy that I decided otherwise and came up with the design (on neutral ground) that I have now. And I must say...I draw the L'air picture myself, came up with it, and this kind of makes me more proud than just fooling around with photoshop.
But I have to tell you...there were quite a few who missed the cutie male torso... makes me wonder how much more or less we would have sold ;-)
Take good care on you.

12:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know what you say that it's more rewarding to use your own images. It took me quite some years to realise that, so I went from copy'n paste, re-working in PS, to take the decision to take all my pics and create all the graphics myself. Needless to say, I'm pleased as punch with the result:-D

1:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that the image that you chose to use is perfect for the scent. As you say, it lets one's own imagination work.

Now I know that you are going to deny it Andy, but I bet that male torso is your's isn't it?

5:42 AM  
Blogger andy said...

Dear Barry
hehehe... two answers...you may choose the best fitting:
a) it is not my torso because then I wouldn't had to fiddle for 5 hours to optimize this torso picture
b) it is my torso, but I had to fiddle around for 5 hourse with photoshop to bring it into a form that roughly fitted my expectations of a male torso...
Thus...the mystery remains.

But as always: You raise interesting questions and I just thought: the next campaign MUST feature the perfumer ;-)

11:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

HI Andy,

I like your concept - the sunset is lovely.

When I wore L'Air all day for the first time, I thought I had figured out your concept - or maybe it was just how it felt to me:

It was like a day passing - it starts with sharp, bright sunlight, then it mellows a little bit into the warm,spicy afternoon, and when the early evening comes the spices get a little sweeter, like people are cooking, and I can see the fires and hear the talking and laughing. Then, at the very end (about 10 hours or so after I put it on), the spices fade and I get just a coolness of damp wood and the root of the vetiver, with earth still clinging to it and the faint scent of water. It is like "A Day in the Life of a Desert."

11:28 PM  
Blogger andy said...

Dear Flora
Now that's a nice picture too, a day in the desert! Thank you very much for sharing this picture with us.

11:46 PM  

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