PRESENTATION
The concept of “Parfum Mobile” was born from a conversation between Christel Sadde and a friend, Pamela Roberts, Olfactory Artistic Director. While discussing, they realized that for the mobile as for the perfume, everything is a matter of correspondences and harmony, of proportions, balances and air:
THE MOBILE, a subtle construction, a set of balances, so light that the air can set it in motion in an infinite variety. It catches the eye and charms it. The spirit waltzes.
PERFUM, a construction of volatile materials, a set of chords, a game of balances, is constantly recomposed by evaporation. It challenges the nose and bewitches the memory. The spirit travels.
And for both, it’s a matter of a hundredth of a gram.
To date, three “Parfums Mobiles” have taken the form of large kinetic olfactory installations created in Christel Sadde’s workshop with the help of Anne Flipo, Master Perfumer at IFF. Mobile and perfume are imagined and created for each other. On the occasion of the open doors, visitors were invited to walk around the Parfum Mobile, to discover different fragrant notes – composed hearts or natural ingredients – during their walk and also to perceive, by taking a few steps away, the perfume in its entirety.
The “Parfum Mobile #1, #2, #3” were three large mobile ephemeral sculptures that each offered a singular and poetic experience: the illusion of walking in a suspended garden.
A COMPLETELY NEW PERCEPTION OF THE MOBILE IN SPACE
From the point of view of Christel Sadde, creator of the mobile :
- Because of its XXL dimension and suspended at eye level, the mobile is no longer a kinetic sculpture that forces contemplation. It becomes an immersive and ephemeral installation.
- The spectator becomes an actor, he is a stakeholder in this installation that offers him the pleasure of walking and moving through the work.
- The structure of the mobile, light and airy, made up of shapes and lines assembled in a game of balance, is no longer just a vector of poetic emotion. It becomes a support of fragrances, offering a material utility to the diffusion of the perfume in the space.
A COMPLETELY NEW PERCEPTION OF THE MOBILE IN SPACE
From the perspective of Pamela Roberts, Olfactory Artistic Director of Mobile Fragrance:
- The perfume decomposes and recomposes continuously in the air, following the movements of the mobile, following the steps of the walker. The different notes of the perfume sprayed separately, simply because they are in movement in space, do not behave in the same way. They live their lives, evaporating each one at its own pace.
- Parfum Mobile offers a new way of composing and perceiving perfume in space. Like a cubist perfume.
- Mobile Fragrance can offer the freedom to play with color by spraying natural ingredients with sumptuous but unused colors, carefully avoided in perfumes. Color awakens curiosity and is an invitation to move through space.
THEY TALK ABOUT IT WITH EMOTION AND ENTHUSIASM
She composed the Perfume
“The Perfume Mobile offered me a unique and very surprising opportunity to experiment with a different way of creating. I loved the exercise.
I rediscovered the ingredients: simply by being in motion in space, they do not behave in the same way. They live their lives, evaporate – each at their own pace – and I let them live. I liked to imagine the overall scent of the mobile, to imagine its facets dancing in the air, and to be surprised by its permanent recomposition. For me, this is truly a new way of composing and feeling perfume, the beginning of a new adventure that inspires me and that I want to pursue.”
Anne Flipo
Master Perfumer at IFF, which she joined in 2004. She composes for the major brands of selective perfumery (Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne or Lancôme…) while creating for more confidential brands, such as l’Artisan Parfumeur or Jo Malone. She loves to be drawn into artistic perfumed adventures.
“I had a unique and poetic sensory experience. Christel Sadde’s mobile installation impresses by its imposing dimensions as much as by its delicacy, inviting to contemplation and evasion. The pleasure of walking and moving through the work, of breathing and discovering, as the air flows, the notes of perfume, sometimes green and bucolic, fresh and ozonic or woody. With each step, the senses are captivated, heckled and caressed. The fragrance never ceases to decompose and recompose under our nose. An enchanting and timeless moment.”
Yohan Cervi
Creative director of the independent perfume laboratory Maëlstrom. Expert in the history of perfume, co-author of the book Les 111 parfums qu’il faut avoir sentis avant de mourir (The 111 perfumes you must smell before you die), he is a contributor to the online magazine Au Parfum and to the magazine Nez.
“As always when dealing with places where there are odorous sources, the first encounter with Parfum Volabile#1 takes place upon entering the exhibition space thus odorized. A few steps further on, however, we find ourselves in a new fragrance, then in its nuance. The overall composition – the one we perceive upon entering – declines its facets. The odorous subsets come to life according to the movements of the mobile and our own displacements. It is in this double mobility that the originality of this work is played out: that of the odorous areas and that of the visitors, fascinated by the play of the light on the “odor-bearers” which slide in the air and by that of the olfactory labilities.”
Suzel Balez
Lecturer at ENSAPLV – École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette -, researcher at the Laboratoire AAU – Ambiances Architectures Urbanités – (UMR CNRS 1563), she is the author of a fascinating doctoral thesis on Olfactory Ambiences in built space.
