Scent informs space informs scent... and nature informs all! Or at least, that's what we believe here at Jorum Studio. One of our favourite spaces is the architectural marvel: Klein House, nestled in the Scottish Borders.
Designed by Peter Womersley in 1957 for celebrated textile designer Bernat Klein, the house is a strikingly stylish example of Mid-century architectural design.
There is a distinct atmosphere created at Klein House, where nostalgia meets a modern sensibility, and indoor / outdoor life are in harmony. This atmosphere is something that strongly informed the creative development of Athenaeum Eau de Parfum.
For a fragrance to explore both the interior of a building and its surrounding environment – and how one interacts with the other – requires a very special kind of ingenuity. The use of neroli oil to convey, in the words of our perfumer: 'free-falling particles of dust being pricked by crepuscular sunbeams as they ray from cupolas above' – recreates that particular sense of wonder that comes from watching nature and design interact.
A fougère-inspired lavender perfume, Athenaeum also employs Scottish lavender oil, grown in Fife (the hometown of our Scottish perfumer, in fact) as well as notes of apple, honey and beeswax to evoke the sweet-smelling midsummer air in rural Scotland. This, combined with a varnished-wood effect courtesy of Gurjun balsam, gives a very realistic effect of a summer breeze making its way through Klein House – or so we'd like to think!
There is bravery in adopting a very specific design philosophy and pursuing it fully – and it results in the wonderful feeling of simplicity and ease reflected in this very special home created by Womersley.
Experimental use of various exotic wood varieties, a grid-like structure that feels simultaneously rigid and flowing, use of negative space to allow features and furniture to breathe... certainly the design process of Klein House and the creation of all of these particularities shares much with the construction of a fragrance by a perfumer. Materials, form, texture, space, time – it's all there.
And then there's the element of nostalgia – created not through the initial design of the architect, but through human responses to time, space and memory. Our ability to appreciate this time capsule of Mid-century design in both contexts – the 'then' and the 'now', is very special indeed. Scent is a powerful tool for triggering nostalgia, an experience uniquely personal to the wearer: and Athenaeum is a unique contemporary perfume in its ability to transport nearly everyone who experiences it to a different time.
