Introducing Our Guest Blogger
Keep an eye out for posts from our guest blogger, Tina Kourasis.
Tina has a serious love of fashion and a definitive point of view. Her fashion credentials include being a fashion columnist (the coveted last page) in a local magazine and appearing and producing fashion segments for tv featuring everything from prom looks to commenting on the Oscars. Tina's also a mom and a lawyer. Her law career has also had a fashion bent, with clients such as Hudson Jeans and James Jeans. Currently, she is the content lawyer for one of the city's major newspapers. We are looking forward to seeing what her varied background will bring to Ellie Perfume.
CATEGORIES: Perfume news, events and articles
Chandler Burr on OpenSky
When I was living in New York, and thinking about starting my own business, I read an article in the New Yorker written by Chandler Burr called The Scent of the Nile that left me so inspired and awed, that I literally put it down and decided that I would make it happen.
I had the pleasure of meeting Chandler at a press event when I launched Ellie, and then saw him speak at the Chicago History Museum on The Art History Of Scent: 1889 – 2011 as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. It was during his presentation that he mentioned his desire to create a space where scent could be appreciated on its own, without the distraction of labels, packaging, celebrity connections and branding. Since then, he has brought this idea to life via The Untitled Series on OpenSky, and in his role as Curator of Olfactory Art at New York's Museum of Arts and Design. For The Untitled Series on OpenSky, every month Burr selects noteworthy fragrances that are already on the market (both large brand names and obscure niche brands), and provides a lovely description of the scent. After receiving the mystery sample, you live with the scent and make your own judgments based only on the fragrance. At the end of the month, the mystery perfume is revealed, along with the artist who created it, and you can then purchase a full bottle if you are interested.
Burr says, "The point is to let you rethink perfume. Just you and the nameless scent for a month. Remember that in a great museum, you don’t love everything you see. Some works of art shock you, some baffle you, some mesmerize you, but all of them, each of them, changes you." After highlighting the dramatic bottles that are created to lure buyers in my last post, it's refreshing to think about being inspired to focus soley on your sense of smell without being influenced by any visual distractions. It is incredibly rare to have an opportunity to relate to perfume in such a pure and unadulterated form.
CATEGORIES: Perfume news, events and articles
Perfume Bottles Gone Wild
I have always found beauty in simplicity. In general, I gravitate toward things that are understated. When I was developing Ellie, the bottle that I envisioned was classic and timeless; something reminiscent of vintage bottles that I love, with clean, modest decoration. It's a demure bottle that doesn't scream for attention, and if it were on the shelves next to a bottle created to be a beacon, like so many are these days, it could easily become a wallflower. An article in the Wall Street Journal entitled Perfume Bottles Gone Wild highlighted this phenomenon. According to the article, "There were roughly 1,200 fragrances for women and men launched world-wide last year, more than three times the number of launches a decade ago and more than 15 times the number two decades ago, according to Fragrances of the World, an industry databank". Although I can appreciate dramatic flowers and embellishments in the shapes of lips sprouting from perfume caps, I haven't been tempted to purchase them. I am not immune to the lure of beautiful bottles and packaging (with perfume, beauty products, and even olive oil). I think it can give you a preview of what you will experience when you open the product. That said, it's what's inside the bottle that counts, and I like to leave some things to the imagination.
Two images above, via F. Martin Ramin for the Wall Street Journal
CATEGORIES: Perfume news, events and articles
