Brume is inspired by my favourite beach in Portugal (Praia da Ursa in Sintra national park) where sometimes in summer the cold sea meeting heat from the land creates a thick fog.
Walking in that environment is absolutely magical: a kind of disorientation that seems a bit like you might end up with the fairies, feeling like you're walking in water but still can breathe, the sensory distortion of muffled sounds and heightened scent (water works like a solvent). It's strange in a Lynchian way (a favourite).
Daim
Daim is inspired by my grandparents and a kind of anti-planned obsolescence manifesto. I hate that everything is cheaply made now and breaks within a few months and cannot be repaired. I love to be surrounded by good materials and thoughtful design.
My grandparents were farmers of very modest background, yet photos of them in their youth (1940s) show them impeccably dressed in suits, hats, gloves, pearls. They passed down clothing, jewelry and furniture because the materials and design were well-made in the first place. I'm very much a quality over quantity person, and that's what Daim evokes for me.
Épices
I adore cooking and hosting - this is how I show my love. With Épices I wanted to recreate the feeling you get when you enter a house filled with people you love, cooking for you. The feeling of being safe, full, drowsy, content.
Pistil
Of the five perfumes, Pistil was the most work - I just couldn't compose a floral I wanted to wear. I never liked traditionally feminine perfumes, all of them loaded with the expectations of what womanhood and femininity should be.
I used the first perfume I remember smelling as a kid in the 80s as inspiration - Dior Poison EdP, ultra-femme and kind of playing with the 'witch' trope - made it more ambiguous in gender and added a costus note to remind us of our wildish nature.
Feuille
Feuille is inspired by the height of summer and the cyclical aspect of nature. There's poetry and wisdom in observing the seasons - the sun feels the most powerful in summer, but it's already 'dying', reaching its peak at the start of the season.
I wanted to make a perfume that felt like a wild and bountiful garden, like the feeling you get as a grass-stained child in summer only coming inside at sunset, like feeling the urgency to live fully, soaking in every last bit of sunshine before it's too late.
