*Apartment has gained a cult following for its small collection of striking and unique fragrances, which carry notes like cathedral incense, dust, fresh laundry or ink from a Bic pen. Each fragrance is unisex and has a name and packaging as charming as its scent. Founder Leigh-Anne Drakes creates her fragrances with careful consideration, finding inspiration in unusual places. In the lead-up to the launch of *Apartment’s latest scent, Mild regrets, we asked her a few questions about her brand and process.
What led you to create *Apartment?
Curiously, I had little to no interest in the fragrance industry until about 15 years ago, when I noticed a shift. Changes were being driven by technological advancements and the likes of left-field noses such as Sissel Tolaas. There seemed to be a niche yet growing desire for scents to break away from the sameness that cluttered the commercial shelves.
Scent was emerging as a design tool and leaving behind concepts of romance and the stuffy secrecy that had shadowed the industry for so long. From there, four years of research, development, study, and controlled explosions in chemistry classes. *Apartment wasn’t, and then one day, it was.
Why was it important to you to create unisex fragrances?
I never understood why it was that boys need to smell like boys and girls like girls. It didn’t make sense to me; it felt sort of silly. Folks should just smell however the hell they want to smell, right? I never include imagery of people in the branding; this is intentional. I feel that often the presence of people in perfumery branding is trying to tell you how to feel, how you should be, what you should desire. I want *Apartment to always be a space that’s free of that.
What ingredients do you use?
I source from all over the world, from small-scale family-run farms where we Google translate each other’s emails, right up to companies like Dérivés Résiniques et Terpéniques, who are innovating at the forefront of technological advancements in scent molecule development and environmental sustainability, and many in between.
We use no animal-based materials and obviously don’t test on animals, even if they, too, would like to smell nice.
Please tell us about your packaging choices
*Apartment is a highly visual brand. I studied photography out of school and worked in various aspects of the field for many years before moving into scent, but they have always been interlinked for me. I take an image, break it down into its perceived smells, and how they, and the spaces they inhabit, smell in my head, and create the scent from there.
Elements like lighting interest me. In my head, an apple smells different if lit by a diffused warm light – fruity and comforting – but if lit by harsh fluorescent it becomes heightened, more other-worldly, with sharper, more abstract scents coming through. I like to explore these ideas and how I can bring them into the creation of the scent.
All the photography on the packaging is my own (bar a beautiful image of rocks and snow taken by a dear friend of mine), this loops and closes around a bigger idea, a bigger feeling for me.
Each box contains four images, one on the outside of the box. But when the buyer gets home, three more images are revealed: one on the reverse of the box and one on each side of the nest of the box. I love this because the inner images are just for them – a little surprise after they have already bought the scent.
What are some of your favourite natural scents in the world?
I love the smell of cut lawn – green and zingy. Interestingly, it’s not a smell you can create naturally. There is an extraordinary molecule called cis-3-hexenol that, when used in low doses, will envelop you in airy, delicate clouds of fresh-cut grass. Glorious. I love blood orange, deep but sparkly, and a little bit mean. She doesn’t make eye contact. I love hinoki. In Japan, it’s often used to make onsen baths as it releases its fragrant terpenes when filled with hot water.
Many of the smells I like aren’t natural, but we don’t live in an all-natural world. The smells that stick in my mind are often from my childhood, stirring nostalgia, something I have a complex relationship with. The checkered linoleum floors of our kitchen and the glue-y zing of the blue synthetic carpets in my mother’s bedroom. Perhaps this is as simple as the proximity one has to floors as a child, but I find them familiar and interesting and somehow comforting.
Tell us about the *Apartment catalogue
I only ever have six in the line, so when I release a new fragrance, I have to kill one. Perhaps it sounds a bit wishy-washy, but I think there’s something beautiful about entropy; nothing lasts forever. There is beauty in having something, then one day, not. And from a branding perspective, I want *Apartment to always feel niche, and I think having a smaller, more exclusive line helps achieve this.
I try to release a new scent every 2 years to keep things fresh and to keep my itches scratched.
Who is the *Apartment customer?
The *Apartment wearer is a discerning person. Folks who have grown tired of the trite and obvious approaches to scent creation and branding, tired of the attempts to be spoon-fed romantic notions.
I think they are looking for a highly wearable scent, but something that just feels a bit otherwise; a tad off-kilter. Something wholly contemporary yet somehow nostalgic. I often look to include something peculiar, a bit curious, something ugly-beautiful in the blend. With Hydrogen is My Favourite Element, I introduced elements of cheap Bic ink. It took me months to get that note right – frantic tinkering and digging through drawers in my mother’s house, looking for old Bic pens to break open and sniff. I wanted to create this note to offset Hydrogen‘s more classical, ethereal-cathedral-incense notes. Each one has to have a thing – a what-is-that, a thing you can’t quite put your finger on.
What guides your decisions when choosing between natural and synthetic materials?
*Apartment is only blended within the EU IFRA safety guidelines. I work with a palette of both naturals and synthetics. Little can hold a candle to the depth that naturals offer, because each material consists of hundreds of molecules.
The natural gloriousness of Please Wait Here would not be possible without the terpene-rich notes that Honoki, a Japanese cypress, offers. I built that scent supporting her with almost entirely other naturals. But at other times, I find naturals limiting, as they can only ever smell like, well, naturally occurring things. Many of my ideas are too abstract and obscure to be realised through what they offer; I want to be able to create the scent of sun-baked bricks, or perhaps toy with dancing whiffs of burnt rubber, petrol or ink.
I think the choice to work with naturals, synthetics, or both is a choice of a creative nature. Sometimes, however, it’s based on the notion that naturals are somehow safer or more sustainable. This extraordinarily oversimplified notion, often pushed by misinformed media, is unfortunately just not how chemistry or toxicology works. This trend, which thankfully we are starting to see the back of, is steeped in misinformation and fearmongering
Tell us about your latest scent and the accompanying window display at AKJP
The new scent is called Mild regrets. For me, she’s the embodiment of curiously slow days by the pool when time doesn’t move properly and the limited words of language are of no use. You’re contentedly idle but faintly aware of the existential indifference of the wet, sunbaked bricks.
The window? You’ll just have to come see it, but like the previous ones I’ve done there, it’s a bit strange and makes no sense. What I hope for is for it to stir mild discomfort in those who see it. What I enjoy and deeply appreciate about AKJP is having the space to create these worlds; a space that you can treat as an art installation, without creative bounds but within the boundaries of this pre-defined window box shape. From a retail perspective, this is very unique and something we don’t have a lot of access to in South Africa.
*Apartment’s new fragrance will launch on 13 November, celebrated by a window display at AKJP
- All images provided by *Apartment
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