Conceptual Sculpted Scent by Zuza Mengham for Laboratory Perfumes.

During London Design Festival 2016, inventive fragrance-makers Laboratory Perfumes and artist Zuza Mengham presented a unique scent-inspired sculpture exhibition at The Conran Shop, Marylebone. Transforming intangible aromas into solid objects, Mengham used coloured resin sculptures to represent five fragrances through form and colour.

Mengham shares her approach and her process: “I made a conscious decision not to read the descriptions, but to smell them all and see what I could decipher from them first directly, taking notes and ideas. After I matched them up with their descriptions I made a series of drawings with watercolour overlays, building up the colours and patterns until I was happy they translated in a way that felt appropriate.”

“All of the lab perfumes scents have a level of complexity, which meant I was pretty spoiled for options. Most perfumes have three distinctive ‘notes’, which describe the fundamental blueprint that comprises the scent. Amber is a good example; it has top notes that are fresh and grassy, developing into centre notes of rich woodiness. The base notes are the richer, deeper elements, which bind the scent, and amber’s base note matures with a balmy ambergris. So I wanted to try and represent this development through the junctures as it felt important to the visual description. I used a clear green tint with pale chalky marbling at the top for the lighter leafy notes and, as I moved down, the green became more of a browny burnt red to accent the deeper components.”

In addition to Laboratory Perfumes existing four scents – Amber, Gorse, Samphire and Tonka – the ‘Sculpting Scent’ exhibition celebrated the launch of the brands’ fifth scent – Atlas. The fragrance is built around the aroma of pipe tobacco, with layers of rum, vanilla, hay, and fresh ozone top notes inspired by the scents of Morocco’s Atlas mountains.

[Photography by Ilka & Franz.]