Carter Weeks Maddox of Chronotope
Profile: I don’t remember life without perfume. Most of my adult family members wore it when I was growing up, and I wore theirs. I’d sneak sprays from the bottles on their vanity counters when they weren’t looking, and they never called me on it—not even when it was my mother’s Halston. Her father called Fabergé Brut his “smellin’ good” and insisted I apply it, as he did, before leaving the house. My father wore Polo and Aramis and Clubman, and his father wore Obsession and still does, even on days when his only plan is to mow a pasture or work on a vintage Studebaker in his barn. I also wore my grandmother’s Aromatics Elixir. Between it, Mom’s Halston, and Dad’s Aramis, Bernard Chant must be the perfumer whose work has influenced me the most. I love his chypres.
Carter Weeks Maddox age 5 and his grandfather Harold Weeks © Chronotope
I was also opinionated about fragrance from a young age. One Christmas, my grandmother gifted all the boys in the family bottles of Tommy Hilfiger Freedom. When I sprayed it, I was appalled because it smelled like the metallic-fizz aspect of raw baking soda—like aluminum and certain stick deodorants. I expressed my aversion loudly, in front of the whole family, which upset my grandmother. I ruined Christmas.
Carter: the college years © Chronotope
When I was an undergraduate, I depleted the bottles of perfume that I’d brought with me to college from home, but I had no money to purchase more. So for a few years I didn’t wear any. Later, in grad school, a guy I dated wore lavender essential oil, which he applied directly to his neck. One day during the annual cedar bloom, we went on a bike ride together, and as we rode through this massive gust of cedar pollen in the wind, the scent of his lavender oil and the pollen hit my nose at the same time. Together, the two substances smelled like fruity cereal, and sparks crackled through my head. I interrupted our ride to insist we go to Whole Foods so I could purchase some cheap essential oils, then I spent that night counting out drops of oils directly onto my forearms in an attempt to recreate what I’d smelled. That single sniff made me aware of how fragrances are constructed, and that awareness fundamentally changed the trajectory of my life.
Carter in Spain
A few months later, I finished my MA degree—for which I studied critical theory and wrote my thesis about manifestations of the Chronotope, a literary device that translates to “time-space,” in postwar women’s memoirs. Almost immediately after graduation, I left the States for Spain to walk an ancient pilgrimage route called the Camino de Santiago, and I took a vial of a questionable essential oil blend with me on pilgrimage; it contained cedar, orange, cinnamon, and lavender oils. I revisited this blend again and again over the next near-decade as I taught myself how to make perfume. When I launched Chronotope in 2020, that original, primitive blend of cheap oils had grown up into a real formula over somewhere nearing 3,000 total modifications I’d made to it through the years. You can smell the end result, too: it’s my perfume called Buen Camino.
Chronotope Perfume Organ
On American Perfumery: To be an American perfumer is, at least to me, to reject the hogwash that suggests what I’m doing is somehow special or new because of where I’m from—because it’s not. Instead, I embrace a history of scent culture that I largely remain in the dark about beyond knowing it predates colonization by a longshot. And I hope that I’m accountable enough to use my work responsibly so that I don’t contribute to any more of that historical obfuscation and revisionism. Instead, I want my fragrances to help spread word of actual history as I learn about it through my work. We all deserve to know the truth.
Hannah Wilke Intra Venus images Ronald Feldman Gallery
Favorite American Artist: I adore the American artist Hannah Wilke to the extent I’ve already created a perfume, called Intra Venus, that’s inspired by her life and named after her final body of work. She was deeply concerned with ideas regarding ephemerality and bodies—particularly how our bodies hold both life and decay in equal measure at all times—and her means of expressing these concerns really helps me think about my work in perfume. She also set a great example for how to love and care for ourselves and others as entire humans, flaws and all. I often feel haunted by her work—and through her work, I even feel haunted by her. I gladly welcome her ghost.
—Carter Weeks Maddox, Founder, Creative Director, and Nose at Chronotope
Chronotope Intra Venus
Thanks to Carter, we have a draw for your choice of
one 30 ml bottle of Intra Venus Eau de Parfum
Notes: Hyacinth, Yarrow, Wasabi, Mastic, Poison Bulb (Swamp Lily), Damp Marshes, Cedar Moss, Cyclamen, Amaryllis, Ribes Mercaptan, Jasmine Auriculatum, Cypress, Hinoki.
OR
one sample set of Chronotope Perfumes’s full catalogue of seven fragrances for two registered users in the US only.. To enter the draw, you must be a registered reader. Please leave a comment with what you found fascinating about Carter’s path to perfumery and your choice of either the sample set or Intra Venus. Draw closes10/15/2022
Editor’s Note: I have been following Chronotope on Instagram since 2021. Carter introduced his line in August of 2020, at the height of the Pandemic. His fragrances don’t smell like any others out there. They provoke (in the best possible way) and are expressions of his olfactive aesthetic. In addition to his online store, Chronotope is now sold at the American Perfumer. –Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief
All photos belong to Carter Weeks Maddox unless otherwise noted.
Carter Weeks Maddox is 169th in our American Perfumer Series, which officially began with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of DSH Perfumes on July 11, 2011
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