Chandler Burr, the curator of The Department of Olfactory Art at New York's Museum of Arts and Design, is launching the "Untitled Series" at OpenSky:
On the 1st of every month Chandler will choose a perfume that’s already on the market – some famous and some from niche collections. From this scent, he will remove all marketing -- no bottle, no package, no brand, no name and will put the scent in a 50ml lab bottle – allowing you to experience these scent works as scent and nothing else. He will give shoppers only the guidance of his carefully chosen words to understand each and determine if the fragrance is right for them. His goal is to both enable and encourage shoppers to rethink perfume as a work of art, free from all visual cues and marketing techniques. Scents include those from the late 19th century to last week, in all styles and all by the greatest scent artists in the world.
There will be only
100 bottles available in the series, each month. The first fragrance called S01E01 (Season One Episode One) and will launch this Friday, June 1st on OpenSky and the identity of the scent as well as more about the artist who created it will be revealed to shoppers on the last day of June. The series will continue with a new launch on the first of every month and a subsequent reveal on the last day of each month.
Find out more at OpenSky.
(via press release)
Update: there will be 100 bottles of S01E01; in the following months, the number of bottles may vary.
Another update: per Chandler Burr, the series was sold out early in the month.
This sounds truly fascinating! I wonder price. Also, it would be great if he offered sample or decant sizes for folks who just want to sample rather than buy a bottle.
I cannot find anything about the price. Agree, would much rather have a sample than a 50 ml bottle.
In some ways, this sounds like a cool idea – introducing people to new perfumes, and particularly opening the minds of people who might not view perfume as art or just haven’t been exposed to really interesting perfumes.
For me, though, as a perfume-aholic, do I really want to pay for a mystery perfume, even with the assurance that it’s Chandler-Burr-approved?? I’m not sure.
Ditto to all of that. I like the idea in general, but it doesn’t appeal to me personally.
Me three (or four). Cool idea, but with my collection, I’d be worried that I already had a labelled bottle of whatever he was selling.
Same here. I would love to try them before making a commitment to purchase.
Don’t forget this is the guy who gave Light Blue and Happy five stars. The likelihood of getting either as one of the “Episodes” is high.
I love this idea, really love it; but as everyone else has said, it would only work for me if he were offering a sample (or tiny bottle)–not 50 ml. That’s way too much perfume to take a chance on. Actually, that’s just way too much perfume, period. I would never finish a single one of his offerings, let alone be interested in buying a new bottle every month! Too bad. It’s an intriguing idea.
I assume this is a profit-oriented venture, since that’s basically what OpenSky is — a sort of “curated” store. So I can see why they’re not bothering with samples, but I’m with you, don’t need 50 ml of anything!
Oh, I got the impression from the above blurb that you can at least smell each scent before you buy, but you get none of the usual marketing stuff – name, bottle, label, pachaging – just Chandler Burr’s description. At the end of the month youcan find out what it is you have bought.
So this transfers the scent outr of the context normally established by the name and the marketing and sets up a new context entirely guided by Chandler Burr. Or that is how I understand it. I wonder how they determine the price?
Interesting. Imagine going to an art exhibition where there are no labels or guiding text of any sort. Just art that has been selected by the curator. You can buy, or not, but you don’t know what you are getting except by what you see in front of you. Well, perhaps this has been done already.
Now I see. OPen Sky is purely a website, so you can’t sample. Sorry folks!
Yes, sorry I didn’t answer sooner!
I love the idea of this, but I agree with everyone else that 50 mls sounds like too much. Worse, this suggests that it won’t be very affordable to play along. Of course, those in split groups could organize to try them all, and I really hope one of the enterprising decant websites will buy in and offer samples. Gaaah – and you have to sign in – another password – gaaah!!!!!!
I think it’s an interesting idea, the beginning of a separation between all the marketing cacophony, bottle design, “prestige” or not labeling, and the juice itself. It’s a good lead-up to the museum’s opening, too. I’ve seen him do this — “mystery strips,” one of which may turn out to be Light Blue — or something much more rarefied and expensive. What’s most interesting of course is when neither the strip waver of the smeller knows what it is, therefore removing all the little visual and auditory “cues” that skew much perception and judgment.
I would never buy a scent untested unless recommended by someone who knew me very, very well, and even then only a tiny amount. Tastes in scents of any kind are much too subjective. But, I’m almost certain it will go over. He may not be advertising the actual scent, but he is certainly advertising himself.
Hmmm I am not actually that interested… the fact that Chandler Burr picked a fragrance is not enough to woo me. I choose the books i look into at the bookshop depending on the cover or wether I have read about it before… When I am interested in a fragrance it its because of the notes listed and / or the bottle design / house philosophy – then I go out to sniff it or get a sample and know if I like it or not.
I shop at Open Sky occasionally ( when I’ve gotta have something that I can’t get for less somewhere else, like Amazon :), and, hey, I LOVE a surprise, so I bought the damn bottle. It was $50, and I had a $12 credit (they give you these random credits ALL the time, to encourage more impulse shopping!!), so it came out to $41.95 including shipping (which is also occasionally free).
Interesting, I called to ask about fragrance notes, since none are listed, nor does he discuss them in his video onsite, but she said that they wouldn’t even let her try the juice, much less list any notes. So it is a mystery–and I am a sucker for a mystery to be solved!!
Fun — do report back when you get it!
Well, I got my bottle of S01E01 Friday. Put a little bit on the back of my hand first, thought “this is okay, kinda cologne-ish, but not in an bad way” (I am a female, but I do like certain “genderless” fragrances, like Aqua di Parma Colonia and Philosykos), then sprayed one spritz on each wrist. After 15 minutes or so, I smelled powdery-ness. Which is fine, if you like powdery-ness 🙂 I do not. I have many, many fragrances and samples, but this matches none of them. The thing it is MOST like, that I have, is Burberry Body. Powdery with a non-offensive musk drydown. No love from me, gonna sell it on ebay, unless someone here wants.