Drifting
I posted my cynical view of New York City in GERMS. I wonder if anyone has noticed that the title of the post responded to the domain name of this web site WHAT WE DO IS SECRET… I thought it would be a good way to punctuate Made by Blog as its entries started to drift away from topics only related to perfume.
Since the entry of GERMS I haven’t responded to the comments. I appreciate all of them and apologize for not having been able to comment back. Anyhow, here are my thoughts on some of the comments given to the previous few posts.
Sarah G’s comment on GERMS has been stuck in my head… “I think that while the city may have a clean face, there are dark and dangerous forces at work within it, and within American society at large. It is our responsibility as artists to respond to them. And that is where NYC’s next artistic jolt will come from.” I don’t think any artist will disagree with what she wrote there. My only question is how many artists would be able to face the challenge…
In GERMS, Treazurekitten also left a quote from Picasso, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” It’s actually one of my favorite quotes from the artist. In a way it was funny to hear Philippe Starck say “I think my job is absolutely useless …. I feel like shit…” in the video I posted recently. I’ve always believed that a truly creative and original artist will have the feeling of creating an absolutely useless garbage, and yet feels completely content with his life.
Octavian’s comment immediately reminded me of a Japanese food called Natto (fermented soy beans) which used to smell much stronger when I was a kid. Perhaps our modern society has been trying to kill all the unique smells on earth, and Natto was just another victim of this plot.
There was a brief comment from Estetik in an older post BRANDING THE FUTURE: “Olfactive branding is not really enough to achieve the goals.” Well, I think it depends on what the ‘goals’ are for the companies, and although olfactive branding may not bring immediate cash to the companies it will add a new dimension to their images for people who still have decent olfaction.
Yukiko asked about the locations shown in the 4 images posted on Dec 2. The top image in the entry is the interior of Azzedine Alaia Boutique in Paris. The second and third are Hotel Puerta America in Madrid. The last on is MHT (a jewelry store) in Tokyo. Yukiko-san, I don’t know if you live near Tokyo, but here is the address of MHT: 3-7-3 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo. I haven’t visited this store in Tokyo, but Marc Newson had lived in Japan for a while and he seems to understand what works well in Japan.
N.F. Shioya
A sculptor living in New York
8 Comments
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Octavian
I liked the photos, the idea … of “collecting” human and natural smells from different natural corners of the world. I saw also that Givaudan started to be active in this field of contemporary/art/fragrance etc.
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Yukiko
Actually, I live near Tokyo Art Museum, one of Ando Tadao’s work. I read “Hikari no Kyoukai” by T.Hiramatsu.(Photo Book hasn’t come yet…)
How I see his construction is completely changed after read that book. I love to know the episode.
I’ll go to MHT (Thank you about the add). Not this year. That place doesn’t run away. I need to know a bit more info about Marc Newson(I only know about his work is the chair in your Blog).
Or all spaces posted on Dec 2 was created by Marc Newson?
I’m very curious about what was your point of view to display that 4 images together. Would you tell us if it’s not what you do is secret… -
Nobi
– octavian
i like the idea, too.
i don’t know much about giv, but my impression is their marketing team has always been inclined towards cool and contemporary things. i heard that their office in paris was redesigned by herzog & de meuron, i mean if you ask people in the industry, how many would know about these architects? giv probably has the coolest corporate image (i’m just talking about the visual aspect of it) among the big threes, but sometimes they do things in a very tacky way…
another swiss company fir is far from being hip but has ‘class’, and i like that. after all, among the big threes, fir is still my favorite company. just looking at the bottles or the caps they use, you can see the difference. fir used to have gorgeous paper bags to put mods for their clients, but now they seem to have cut the budget for that.
the only american company iff appears to be struggling. for instance, they try to do things with visionaire, but i’m not sure if it’s working well enough to transform their image to something sleek and contemporary.
this is only about the way each company is trying to handle its corporate image at a visual level and has not much to do with smell.
but visual impact is important even if they are suppliers for smell, don’t you think so?
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Nobi
– yukiko-san
yes, all three designs in the entry on dec 2 are by marc newson.
i finally had a chance to read the book on ando’s church last summer. the book was very entertaining especially having known tadao ando in person around the time the church had been built. i could almost hear his husky osaka-ben in my ear while reading the book 😀 …however i have to say i was a little disappointed since the book didn’t mention anything about his violent side which people around him would have seen all the time. -
Octavian
Fir Paris is moving now in a new building, I’m curious how it looks like design… Because the interiour of the old one was(is) quite left in the corporate design beggining of the 90’s.
I don’t like IFF offices in Paris, maybe because they share the building with pricewaters (or related) and the people around are such a different world… (though the garden/park is beautiful).
for giv, it’s true for their corporate image, I like it a lot, though it’s quite “cold”.
But still, from a designer point of view … there is a lot to do for all 3 and I think they lack the good people to think of it from inside. -
Nobi
the old fir paris was too compact, like a small japanese company. even fir tokyo was roomier than fir paris.
speaking of the lack of good people to think about the image, i think they still don’t realize the importance to work from inside out…
fragrance consumers are not like the consumers for fashion, and it hasn’t been important for the industry to be visually refined. but this will change… i hope. i have realized that there are so many, maybe too many, people who don’t care about perfumes at all. they care about what’s going on in fashion but think perfumes are not for them. why is that? i’m sure you know why. bottom line – one, there’s got to be more visually refined people in the industry. two, they need to start thinking outside the perfume bottle.
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Octavian
Did you smell the “green” scents made by Givaudan for the latest issue of Bloom – (a hortiCultural view) – Foliage?