Perfumer Oliver Valverde: "I wanted to create the fragrance of the cosmos"
We love space: We don’t miss the chance to praise Gravity, write astronauts as role models and wear NASA T-shirts. Therefore, having learned that Oliver Valverde arrived in Moscow, who made the first aromas of the cosmos in our memory (literally: Nebula 1 and Nebula 2), could not help but interview him.
You used to be engaged in music. How did you start making perfumes? Was that your idea?
My. I wanted to realize myself and show things that I like. And I decided to reflect them not only in the flavors themselves, but also through design. Packaging must continue the concept. Here is the Nebula series - everything is interconnected in it: the shape of the bottle, the lacquered surface, the white color, the lens imitating the porthole, the picture of the nebula under it. All this allows the fragrance to become an experience, not just a smell.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PATTERN OF CREATING AN AROMA OR EVERY TIME EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ANNEW?
Sometimes I discover a new ingredient - synthetic or natural - I fall in love with it and start experimenting with it, mixing it with others. Or some idea comes to my mind that I want to realize. So it was with the Nebula series: I really love science and science fiction, all these rockets and spaceships, reviewed a bunch of documentaries about galaxies, and now I wanted to make an aroma that would resemble nebulae - they are so beautiful. In the process of creating the fragrance there is no clear sequence, it depends on the mood, the moment, the weather - everything in the work counts. When I feel that I can no longer sit in the laboratory, I can go out and do something else. I do everything myself: I design it and design external communications. Therefore, I like that Oliver & Co. not only business, but also a life project in which you are your own boss and can work in several directions.
HOW DID YOU HAVE AN IDEA TO TRANSFORM THE COLORS OF FOG INTO A SMELL LANGUAGE?
Thanks to synesthesia, we associate colors and smells with each other. This becomes clear if you look at the packaging of almost any fragrance on the market: perfume with a rose is most likely packaged in a pink or red bottle, citrus in green, woody in brown. Sometimes I smell something and imagine what color it might be.
DID YOU WILL CONTINUE NEBULA SERIES?
I will, and I will be Illustrated too. You can also create and develop different directions in parallel with each other. For me, it is pointless to have one line, because I am rather inconstant. I think about different things all the time, and I quickly get tired of doing one thing.
Do not want to work with other perfumers?
I have been independent since my childhood, I constantly need to be able to be alone and think about things that I consider important. The business is the same. I have friends among perfumers, we sometimes correspond on Facebook, give each other advice on where to buy or how to mix some ingredients, but I never touch upon the concept work. I don’t really like to read literature about perfumery. When I first started, I read a couple of books on the history of the perfume business - in Spain, unfortunately, it is not very developed, so I had to learn myself. But these were not guidelines for creating fragrances, I am too autonomous for them. The only way to do what I do now is to take and do it the way I want it. I see no point in repeating other people's ideas.
Money interests me only in two aspects: they should be enough to support the business and the best ingredients
and describe the emotions when creating such a personal thing as a perfume? this is, after all, a soul to invest in work.
"Soul" is a high word, but it fits, yes. When you touch the thing that live people have done, you feel some kind of its energy. And it does not matter, it is clothing, flavor or food. Regardless of what you do, you need to invest your passion, then its customers will feel. It seems to me that in the 21st century the story about industrial production no longer works: well, you did a thing with a cost price of 7 dollars, then you sold it for 14 - and what is the interest? Due to the spread of technology, we have somewhat lost touch with what we buy. A sweater from Zara or H & M can be beautiful, but it doesn’t compare with a sweater purchased from a local designer - in it you will feel somewhat special. Money interests me only in two aspects: they should suffice to support the business and for the best ingredients.
And where do you get the ingredients, by the way?
I buy in the Barcelona laboratory, they are brought there from all over the world: from Japan, Thailand, South America, even from Russia. I know that some perfumers, almost like alchemists, extract the ingredients themselves, but this is not close to me, I just love to interfere.
and the last question: did you have fears that people would not understand your work? Not everyone appreciates art perfumery.
Yes, but it was only with the Nebula series - it’s still very conceptual. Many stores do not want to go out of the comfort zone and sell non-classical things. And when you present something unconventional (space is not a garden or a vegetable garden), there is a chance that it will not be accepted. But I'm not afraid that some of my fragrance might not be appreciated: Oliver & Co. - my project, in which I can do whatever I want (as long as it is associated with perfumery). Maybe some flavor will not become a bestseller, but it will complement the rest. I now have everything in exactly the order in which it should be.
Photo: Cosmotheca