Photo:Rocky Li

Through fragrance, Joseph Quartana's Six Scents series has taken us to the farthest corners of the world and the farthest reaches of the mind. This past Saturday night, we were taken inside the gleaming walls of Osswald Parfumerie & Luxury Skincare Boutique, Soho’s new addition to the Fragrance District, and given a sneak peak of his upcoming Series Four. Champagne in hand, I joined Osswald CEO and founder, Tanja Dreiding Wallace, store manager Clement Pinard, and an exclusive Fashion Week crowd, as we toasted Mr. Quartana’s latest installment in this mind-bending line of fragrances. As in past editions, Six Scents pairs a designer with a perfumer. This time around, Mr. Quartana switches things up by adding a new player to each team in the form of a muse, a ghost in the machine, an invisible character to inspire and stimulate the creators.

 

Joseph Quartana

I chatted with Joseph Quartana, beaming like a proud father, as he filled me in on his much-awaited Series Four, subtitled, Characters. “We had all of the designers create a fictional muse. We have some new territory to explore,” he explained. Turning to No. 2, called, simply, Modesty, Mr. Quartana reveals that designer Giuliano Fujiwara “envisioned an artist who retreats into a cave and meditates for a month and then comes out and creates a masterpiece. The perfumer, Rodrigo Flores-Roux, wanted the smell of stones in a cave and wanted to tie in the Japanese Buddhist shrine imagery, the sacredness of his art and meditation. It smells basically of stone and metal and smoke and it’s just fascinating. While all of our fragrances are unisex, I think this one lends itself a little more towards men, but it’s really, really remarkable.” When it comes to Modesty, Mr. Quartana is quite proud, “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but if we don’t win a prize for that, I’ll be very, very shocked.”

As we talked, diffusers, supplied by Delbia Do, filled the room with another scent in the new lineup, No. 5 – Second Skin, by Victoria Bartlett and Marypierre Julien. I asked Joseph about this unusual and intriguing creation. With a smile, he told me, “It’s gotten a tremendous reaction. Victoria Bartlett envisioned an ephemeral beauty. It smells of freshly showered, clean skin. It’s really strange and smells exactly of a woman who just came out of the shower. It’s not strong, but it’s just enough that it leaves a signature behind you. It’s for someone who doesn’t want a strong, powerful fragrance, but still wants to make a mark. It’s lovely on the skin.” Lovely, indeed.

Calice Becker

While growing slightly intoxicated by the fragrance (and, perhaps, the champagne) the crowd moved across the street to the uber-cool Soho Grand Hotel and the celebration continued. It wasn’t just fragrance that filled the room, some of the industry’s power players gathered to congratulate the Six Scents team on this exciting new venture. I caught up with one of the brilliant noses involved in Series Four, Calice Becker. Though unassuming and down-to-earth, Ms. Becker is a rockstar perfumer (Read her interview with EIC Michelyn Camen here). She has composed some of the world's greatest perfumes, including Beyond Paradise for Estée Lauder, Tommy Girl for Tommy Hilfiger and a dozen legendary fragrances for the By Kilian house including Back to Black, Pure Oud and A Taste of Heaven. 

Teaming with shoe-designer Raphael Young, Ms. Becker brings us No. 4 – Nappa Noir, soft black leather. Mr. Young appears to have created an alter-ego muse who basks in some of his own (and life's) greatest pleasures. "He introduced me to his favorite type of leather," she remembers, "it's a type of leather that's so fine, so supple, that if you put your fist against it, you can see all of the details of your skin through the leather." The rest of the fragrance was constructed around this exclusive, high-end leather accord. "He loves to smoke," she said, "and he loves the smell of his hands after he has smoked. Also, he loves to have his coffee at a French café with his favorite little cookie, called a Speculoos. It's done with cane sugar that has caramelized and it has a little bit of spices, it's a bit like gingerbread. And he loves violet. So now, I already had the fragrance. The picture of the fragrance came quite easily for me." Ms. Becker enjoyed working on the project so much, she finished the fragrance while on vacation at her country house. Joseph Quartana thinks she hit this one out of the proverbial park: "It's brilliant. She aced it, she totally aced it." 

 Ca ptivated by this behind-the-scenes preview, I can't wait to experience the full line when it's released later this fall. Many thanks to Joseph Quartana, Calice Becker, the wonderful staff at Osswald, Daryl Do of Delbia Do Fragrances, and to all at Six Scents for a fantastic evening and for this exclusive preview.

–Michael Devine, Contributor