By Kilian perfumes have been the top selling perfumes in TSUM, the largest department store in Moscow, for a while.
That’s not strange: if the main purpose of a fragrance is to seduct, then By Kilian fragrances pass with flying colours. Kilian Hennessy revealed the details of his new collection exclusively to Posta da VIP:
«The story started after Harvey Nichols asked us to launch our brand in Hong Kong. The difficulty in China is that they don’t really have a habit of wearing perfume. And their philosophy and mentality are quite specific: everything has to be intellectual and have a deeper natural meaning so you end up with a light and delicate scent.
As you know I like very strong scents, so for me to work on something light and transparent was a big challenge. But I am very happy with the result — the perfumes are pure, yet have a strong character at the same time. The first two fragrances are named Water Calligraphy and Bamboo Harmony. I am planning to make either 4 or 8 fragrances for the «Asian Tells» collection, those are lucky numbers in Chinese philosophy and I wanted to do something right for their spirit.
As you know I like very strong scents, so for me to work on something light and transparent was a big challenge. But I am very happy with the result — the perfumes are pure, yet have a strong character at the same time. The first two fragrances are named Water Calligraphy and Bamboo Harmony. I am planning to make either 4 or 8 fragrances for the «Asian Tells» collection, those are lucky numbers in Chinese philosophy and I wanted to do something right for their spirit.
I always pay a lot of attention to packaging. This time it was difficult to find the right shade of red, opera red. Not too pink, not too purple. This is just perfect — and it doesn’t always look the same depending on the light. I have it on my desk, and every morning it looks different. For Chinese people this is what luxury is — the red and black colors, exactly like the box of the perfume. The women in China wear red even when they are getting married.
In the 1990s the whole world went very Asian — purity and simplicity were the trend, so the values of Asia are known and understood in West. That’s why I decided to sell the perfumes not only in China, but in Russia, USA, England and Germany as well. What is interesting for the West is the contrast: the perfumes are very pure and minimalistic, but the black and red colours express the complete opposite — they are warm, opulent, luxurious…
It was very interesting for me to try adapting the Chinese culture to my universe which is all about seduction, love, myths and sins. I have nothing in common with minimalism, but that’s exactly why it was interesting to adapt. You don’t want to become like McDonalds which are the same look and taste everywhere you go, that’s just too boring. What I wanted to do was to build a bridge between 2 cultures. Maybe they will try to understand perfumes better because of the brand that tried to understand their culture.»
