Elements

View the original article and images at Fragrantica.

By: Elena Knezhevich, Jodi Battershell, Ida Meister
02/02/12

The January 2012 Elements Showcase was the biggest and brightest yet, with more exhibitors, a stronger international presence and exciting experiences to dazzle every visitor. As with the August showcase, the exhibits spread across two floors of Skylight West and every available inch of space was filled with decorations or an exhibit booth.

Upon entering the space, one of the first things to catch the eye was the large original artwork by Icelandic artist Andrea Maack.  Created especially for the Elements Showcase, the large design was composed of hundreds of small panels, each numbered and signed by Maack.  Visitors first sampled the Andrea Maack scents and chose their favorite, then selected a panel of the artwork.  Andrea sprayed the panel with the chosen scent, sealed it in an envelope and presented it to the visitor.  What a memorable keepsake!

Proceeding through the first floor of exhibitions, we were delighted to see old friends such as Bond No. 9 and Histoires de Parfums, along with many new exhibitors who were participating in Elements for the first time.

A notable trend at this year’s showcase was the strong international presence.  Many French perfume houses participated in their first Elements Showcase: Parfums d’Orsay, Parfums M. Micallef and Lubin.

Neela Vermeire presented her three beautiful scents inspired by the rich culture, history and nature of India.

Mexican-born Carlos Huber presented his new line Arquiste just four months after launching the company.

Another house that attracted a great deal of attention was DI SER, a Japanese perfume house founded by Yasuyuki Shinohara, who is also the perfumer.  DI SER offers three collections based on the Elements, Goddesses and Japanese Wood.  All scents in the line are composed of natural fragrance ingredients in plant-based alcohol and water.

DI SER also represents the growing consumer interest in natural perfumery, which was well-represented at this Elements Showcase.  Providence Perfume Company, Honoré des Prés and Strange Invisible Perfumes also gave visitors a terrific opportunity to experience the beauty, depth and diversity of natural perfumes.

Exhibitor 21 Drops offered all-natural aromatherapy blends showcased in colorful packaging that straddles the line between aromatherapy and cosmetics.

Flavor and fragrance house IFF also hosted an exhibit showcasing their IFF-LMR Naturals division, which gave visitors the opportuntiy to smell the finest essential oils and absolutes of natural perfume components including jasmine, rose and black currant.

This year’s Elements really put the “show” in Showcase.  Caron and New York’sMartial Vivot men’s salon set up a vintage barbershop onsite. Visitors could experience (or observe) a haircut and old-fashioned straight-razor shave by stylist Garrett, using the new Caron Pour Homme shaving and skin care products.

There were also two informative panels hosted at this year’s showcase.  Six Scentshosted a panel titled “Artistic Process and Collaboration,” featuring perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux, author Chandler Burr, and artists and industry professionals.  W Magazine sponsored a forum on “Choosing Fragrances: The Influences Behind the Purchase,” with Sarah Horowitz-Thran, author MJ Rose and fragrance industry experts.

We met a lot of great people and sampled some amazing perfumes at the January 2012 showcase and we look forward to sharing them with you in the coming weeks!

Photo and Video from Elements by Fragrantica

View original article and images at Fragrantica

THE ELEMENTS SHOWCASE, New York, August 2011

The Elements Showcase is a unique platform for niche fragrance presentation and promotion in the United States. Debuted in January 2011, The Elements Showcase opens its doors for the second time to welcome sellers, buyers, journalists and public.

Prestige niche brands from all over the world are gathered in one place for two days. This is a unique opportunity for everybody to experience something different from the mainstream production. The show is open to the public from Monday, August 15th noon to 7pm Tuesday, August 16th 11am to 7pm. The organizers of this unique fragrant event are Frederick Boucahrdy, Jeffery Lawson and Uli Lang, and you’ll have the opportunity to meet them in person at the show.

The first show, that took place just six month ago, attracted to the US market niche brands from Europe, many of them coming with their very new creations to introduce them for the first time to the American buyers and public. This time the list of exhibitors is even more impressive. It includes such celebrated and exclusive brands as Bois 1920, Boadicea the Victorious, Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier, Joya, Ulrich Lang, Robert Piguet, Nez a Nez, Tauer Parfums and many many others. The Elements will be the debut not only for new perfumes, but for new brands as well. Fragrantica will report live from the event and you’ll be among the first to hear about the news.

View the original article and images at Fragrantica.

By: Elena Knezhevich
1/15/13

View the original article and images at Fragrantica.

January 30, 2012
Elena Knezhevich, Jodi Battershell, Ida Meister

The 2012 Indie FiFi was awarded at a special ceremony held January 30, 2012.

The Foundry NYC Team:

The Foundry NYC group was awarded a FiFi statuette and a check for $10,000 from Givaudan to continue their creative endeavors in the fragrance world.  This new FiFi category recognizes the importance of the independent perfumer in the marketplace, and it was truly an honor for all entrants who participated in the first ever “Indie” FiFi award.  The Fragrantica team congratulates the winner and we wish success to all nominees and participants at the Elements Showcase.  

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By: Sandra Raičević Petrović

As Elements Showcase prepares to host its second design and fragrance showcase on August 15th and 16th of this year, the founders are pleased to announce their partnership with The Fragrance Foundation to introduce a new FiFi® Award for Best “Indie” Fragrance Brand at this August’s show. Brands will be able to sign up to receive nominating forms at the show and via the websites of Elements and the Foundation. The winner(s) will be announced at the Elements Showcase in January 2012 and again at the FiFi® Awards ceremony in the Spring of 2012.

Elements Showcase is the brainchild of Frederick Bouchardy, Jeff Lawson and Ulrich Lang. The first showcase, in January 2011, presented curated offerings in the field of fragrance design. From its conceptualized space by Reddymade Design to its cutting-edge and experiential installations, industry veterans, retailers and media have praised Elements Showcase as an innovator in its field. “We are honored to partner with The Fragrance Foundation in the creation of a FiFi® for Best ‘Indie.’”

Fragrance. Our goal at Elements Showcase is to continuously strive to promote what is cutting edge in design and fragrance and we feel this partnership is another step towards supporting that agenda.”

An exceptional crowd of buyers from all over the globe, including Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue and Henri Bendel attended the January 2011 Elements Showcase. These buyers were exposed to dozens of emerging and established visionaries in the art of fragrance design including Bond No. 9, Lafco New York, Dayna Decker and many more. It will be from a list of fragrance visionaries similar to these that The Fragrance Foundation and Elements Showcase will accept candidates for the new FiFi® Award based on criteria which will be shared in the weeks ahead. “The Fragrance Foundation recognizes the talent and artistry of the ‘Indie’ Brands and wants to acknowledge this category in the environment which celebrates their individuality and craftsmanship,” says Rochelle Bloom, president of The Fragrance Foundation.

The FiFi® Awards, sponsored annually by The Fragrance Foundation, honors the fragrance industry’s creative achievements. The Fragrance Foundation was established in 1949 by six industry leaders affiliated with Elizabeth Arden, Coty, Guerlain, Helena Rubenstein, Chanel and Parfums Weil, to develop educational programs about the importance and pleasures of fragrance for the American public. Today, America is the largest fragrance market in the world and The Fragrance Foundation has become an international source for historic, cultural, scientific and industry related reference materials. (via press release)

Fragrantica will be reporting from Elements Showcase-The Second Edition and announcing the news about Elements Showcase and FiFi Award for the best indie brand!

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01/30/11 15:09:39
By: Elena Knezhevich

The Elements Showcase started today, and we are thrilled to report from this spectacular show. Many European and American brands are presented, and most of them arrived with new products to present. Before discussing the houses, I would like to mention that the organization and the decor of the show are fabulous.  This amazing blend of light, fragrances and visual effects dazzles the senses and creates the perfect ambience for this wonderful showcase.

View original article at Fragrantica

By: Sandra Raičević Petrović

Ulrich Lang New York is a niche house founded in 2002 and has introduced three editions so far: anvers, anvers2 and Nightscape. The house is based on Ulrich Lang’s great love for art, contemporary photography, and perfumes, of course. Today we are talking to Ulrich Lang, founder and owner of the niche line, about his work and creativity, new creations and fragrances generally.

Please tell us more about you. About your childhood, education and your first business experiences.

Ulrich Lang: I grew up in the South of Germany and studied business (marketing and Business French). During my studies I did internships in creative fields such as Music Industry and Fragrance Industry. One of those internship was with Estee Lauder’s Aramis brand in the UK. They launched a fragrance called New West at that time. Maybe that was an early hint of things to come!

How did perfumes come into your life?

Ulrich Lang: Early on, my grandmother had a beauty salon with a little perfumery in the South of Germany and I grew up amongst lotions and potions. I was able to name fragrances people wore at a very, very early age. It was the perfect education.

Your work in Aramis in UK and in L’Oreal had a strong influence on you before you started your niche line. Please tell us more about your work and experience there.

Ulrich Lang: Aramis, as I mentioned before, was a great first foray into the world of Fragrance and Estee Lauder was a much smaller company at that time. You could tell that it was family-run, everything had a personal touch. It was a great experience. I turned down en initial offer to work for L’Oreal in my native Germany because I wanted to move to New York. Temporarily only. When Brant Publications (Interview Magazine, Art in America, Antiques Magazine) offered me a job I stayed. I accepted a job in Product Management with L’Oreal later.

How does art infuence your work and your line?

Ulrich Lang: I have always been interested in Contemporary Photography and started visiting Art Basel in Switzerland at an early age. I think I have been going there for over 20 years – every year in June. I left L’Oreal in 1998 to build the Contemporary business for New York-based artnet.com (my former boss who had moved on from Brant to artnet.com hired me back).

During that time I visited hundreds of contemporary galleries worldwide and had the best visual training imaginable. During that time I also started to collect contemporary photography. Most artists I “discovered” at that time are now famous.

It could be said that every piece of art is a small part of revolution. Tell us more about your fragrant Revolution.

Ulrich Lang: Lisa Kirk is a curator and artist and a friend of mine. She told me years ago that she was working on a fragrance (with perfumer Patricia Choux, at that time at Symrise). The fragrance is based on the scent of Revolution and she asked ten living revolutionaries how Revolution smelled. Clearly not of freshly picked roses – but of tear gas, burned rubber, sweat, blood, etc.

Patricia Choux captured the essence of rebellion in a fragrance that contains birch tar oil, wood, animalic amber, leather, musk and everlasting absolute and other dirty spicy elements.

Later, Kirk created a vessel for the perfume in the form of a pipe bomb made of silver, gold and platinum in limited editions. They range from $4,000 to $40,000. I wanted to include her in a speech at the Fragrance Fair in Florence, Fragranze, in 2009 and she told me about a new video she had created for the fragrance.

I loved it and convinced her to do a more commercial edition in a lab bottle which was also created in cooperation Patricia Choux who is now with Takasago. This little bottle was launched at Project No 8′s store “8a” in the ACE Hotel and retails for $50 (12ml). The video is shown in the hotel’s guest rooms – Lisa Kirk  Revolution Perfume at No.8a/Ace Hotel

Ulrich Lang: As you can already tell from the packaging – my line is a fusion of my passions for fragrance and contemporary photography. A new artist interprets each fragrance visually on the box. I created my first fragrance anvers in 2003 when there were not as many niche / entrepreneurial lines as there are today. The fragrance contains some of my favorite notes (Mint, Basil, Leather, Precious Woods). It is subtle and very contemporary, something I look for in a fragrance for today’s complex personalities. During my time at artnet.com I met Antwerp-based gallerist Roger Szmulewicz of Fitfy One Fine Art Photography .

I admired his program (Malick Sidibe, Seidou Keita, Elinor Carucci, William Klein…) and we became friends. Roger is very quiet and introspective and he looks interesting. I decided to do some test shots in New York (with Steven Klein’s former assistant Erik Swain). They looked great and I decided to put his face on the box. Roger serves as model and muse for my “anvers” line (anvers, anvers 2).

Ulrich Lang: My follow up fragrance, anvers 2, was inspired by a photo of Roger taken by american artist Katy Grannan. It showed him in a forest wearing a formal coat and sneakers. I loved the image – Katy is such an amazing artist – and when I asked her at the opening of her gallery show in Antwerp a few years ago, she offered to photograph the visual for anvers 2, a floral oriental.

Ulrich Lang: My third fragrance, nightscape, which came out in late 2009 is a departure from the anvers series. I wanted to work with Patchouli as a key ingredient, a very modern Patchouli, not the kind you associate with the 60s and 70s…The result is a fragrance that starts fresh with Bergamot and Geen Notes, a heart of Jasmin, Cedarwood and Geranium and a base of Tonka Bean, Soft Leather, Amber, Musk and lots of Patchouli. It’s mysterious. I gave a lab sample to young photographer Matt Licari who shot the visual for nightscape in New York City. It’s a city at night, glittering, mysterious, seen from a new perspective. Pretty much a reflection of a new time.

How do other perfumes affect you? Please share with us your favorite perfumes that you love to wear.

Ulrich Lang: Growing up in Germany I was clearly influenced by two highly successful lines at the time, Jil Sander and Joop! They were omnipresent and beautifully designed, with fabulous campaigns. I came to New York City for the first time in 1987 and discovered Halston’s Z-14. I brought it home to Germany and wore it for a decade. Few people in Germany wore it since it had no distribution there at the time. It was like a niche fragrance on that market at the time! My other favorite (which led me to work with Patchouli) remains Caron’s Yatagan.

We met you in Mougins, France this year. It was a very nice niche expo, we all had a wonderful time out there. Tell us where else  you presented your collection this year.

Ulrich Lang: I do few international fairs per year. I have been attending Pitti Fragranze in Florence since their first edition and I still love going there. Esxence in Milan and Global Art of Perfumery in Duesseldorf are newer but also very focused and present many niche brands. They both ran at the same time this year so I had to choose one – luckily they picked different dates from each other for 2011.

Very important for you and your work is ELEMENTS, exhibition that awaits us January 30-31, 2011 in NY. Introduce our readers to “the new experience for established and emerging visionares in the art of fragrance design”, and your part of work for Elements expo .

Ulrich Lang: Elements is the brain child of Frederick Bouchardy of Joya, and myself. I met Frederick earlier this year. He is a very dynamic and a very creative fragrance entrepreneur. Our products are in similar distribution. We came up with Elements because we felt there was no focused showcase in the US for the “game changers” in fragrance. Our third partner in Elements is Jeffrey Lawson, an upscale art fair producer, who will ensure that our showcase will have a clean and elegant aesthetic. We did not want to do another “fair” and we feel that Elements will be very different from the current fragrance fairs. That’s why we called it showcase.

Feedback has been amazing and the first edition of Elements will feature brands such as Santa Maria Novella, Keiko Mecheri, Nasomatto, Baxter of California, Dayna Decker, Lubin, Lorenzo Villoresi, Carthusia, Nejma, Ineke, Eau d’Italie, Etat Libre d’Orange, DS&Durga, DL & Co, Carner Barcelona and Anthousa. It’s a showcase by fragrance designers for fragrance designers. The buyers we got confirmed include the best of the best, such as Barneys New York, Opening Ceremony, OAK, Project No.8, Anthropologie and others. We will also have buyers from Europe and Japan. We partnered up with New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and students in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing will present a fragrance project during the showcase.

Holidays bring good feelings and happiness every year. How will you spend your holidays and where?

Ulrich Lang: I hardly ever spend the Holidays in New York but travel to the South of Germany to be with my family.

If you could express holidays with some fragrance, which would you choose? It could be any scent that reminds you of Christmas.

Ulrich Lang: The scent of mulled wine which reminds me of a traditional Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in Germany. Cinnamon, oranges and cloves, too.

What are your holiday gifts this year?

Ulrich Lang: My presents this year will be scented candles by design firm Bureau TM, the creative geniuses behind graphics for LCD Soundsystem and several beauty brands. I helped coordinate the scent development with Takasago perfumers Laurence Fanuel and Patricia Choux and the result is a smoky, earthy fragrance with notes of clay sage, spicy nutmeg, fig leaves, incense, leather, patchouli, cedarwood and sandalwood. The candle will be available in selective distribution in 2011 and I am sure Fragrantica will report about it first!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everyone!!!

View original article and images on Fragrantica

08/18/11 16:32:50
By: Jodi Battershell & Elena Knezhevich

View original article and images on Fragrantica

08/18/11 13:07:47
By: Jodi Battershell & Elena Knezhevich

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08/18/11 11:46:01
By: Elena Knezhevich

Bois 1920 presents two new fragrances, Oltremare and Come L’Amore, which will be exclusively available in seven Neiman Marcus stores in the United States, starting from September 2011.